Birdsong Gang Analysis

The sad reality is that society does not take a minute to step out of their shoes and try to understand why someone becomes a gang member. Throughout Barking to the Choir, two common themes that arise is the lack of love, and growing up with a rough childhood. For many, survival becomes the priority, especially if they have siblings to look out for. Thus, gang life is not an ideal choice but rather a lucrative option. Through Rational Choice Theory, it is easy to place blame on the gang member, but the reality is that for a plethora of gang members there was no other

Gangs have been a growing issue across the United States for many decades now. Youth gang violence may have started around the ‘50s, but did not become a serious issue until the ‘80s and from there went through a downward spiral in some cities like downtown Los Angeles, which was where the notorious Bloods and Crips gangs both started. First, let’s simply define a gang as a group of people, mostly men ranging for ages 14-30, who claim territory and use it to make money for themselves and their neighborhood through illegal activities such as trafficking drugs and weapons. There are many reasons and components that are factored in when conducting research to hypothesize “why do people join gangs?” That is why it is necessary to compare and contrast all the social, biological, psychological, developmental, and substance abuse aspects and relate it to joining a gang. It is also important to touch base on the differences between males and females that join gangs, such as power differentials, social learning differences and social stratification differences.

It is true that been in a gang gives a sense of family and belonging. However even though you belong to a group you might feel isolated in some way’s.

Gang involvement and its associated violent crime have become a rapidly growing problem for the United States. Generally, gangs consist of young people of the same ethnic, racial, and economic background. Usually of a low socio-economic status, these gangs engage in illegal money making activities and intimidate their neighborhoods and rival gangs with violent crimes and victimization. Gang members exemplify a high value for group loyalty and sacrifice.

Gangs originated naturally during the adolescent years of a child. They started from small play groups that eventually found themselves in conflict with other small groups of youth. Due to the conflict between the two small groups of youth it became a part of a child’s mind set to come together as a gang and protect their rights and satisfy the needs that their environment and families couldn’t provide. There are about 24,500 gangs in the U.S and out of those gangs 40% of them are juveniles (Hess, Orthmann, Wright, 2013). There are numerous reason why a child would join a gang, and the

Qualitative descriptions suggest that, for many, gang membership represents 104 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / May 2005an opportunity to enhance social capital as a means to cope with a multitude of problems. Although on balance gang life appears to be neither very rewarding nor satisfying (Hagedorn, 1988), identification with the gang is solidified in response to conflict—often with other gangs—as members pursue their individual and collective interests.

Tiny Compton, in response, made a large mistake by raising their property and school taxes and they did a fantastic job at this and exceeded almost all other L.A towns during the time. Yikes. Fortunately, this did not stop people from relocating there during World War II. Schools became so crowded, understaffed and obtained an inadequate amount of resources making it evident that the system was failing. When the schools funding became nearly forty percent from local tax payer’s dollars in the mid-sixties and early seventies, many fled the scene and moved to an area with lower taxes, but the blacks remained. At this point, Compton was termed as the “Black Beverly Hills”, but this all began to go downhill after the riots in 1965. Drug and juvenile arrests reached an all-time high during the 1960’s and in 1969, the city had the highest crime rate in the state of California. In “Taking Compton National”, written by Ryan Reft, he states, “Shootings occurred at Compton and Dominguez High Schools in 1972, the same year the suburb ranked second in reported homicides in Los Angeles County beating out Long Beach, a city five times the size of Compton” (Reft). Furthermore, a battle between the district administrators and teachers over low pay, school violence and lack of resources

“With no police force in California’s cities, criminals from all over flocked to San Francisco.” (Saffer,1) This meant that the criminals could commit their crimes with little fear of punishment. The criminals felt as if they could steal someone’s belongings, and not get caught then they would be fine. So, that’s why many people went over there. The San Francisco Gang was a group from New York. They always took gold, money, food, etc. But, after awhile another group of people from San Francisco put them on trial, they were then put in prison for 10 years. However, there wasn’t any prisons they could stay in so, they just frightened the gang and they never committed a crime from then on. Along with the San Francisco Gang, another gang came and started causing more trouble again. That gang repeatedly stole from stores, and homes taking everything they could. Until a group of 180 men called “Committee of Violence” they captured and hung some of the members of the gang, and threatened all the others. It must have been horrible without safety from criminals but as more cities grew, more prisons were

Defining gangs have been compared to packs, teams, and groups. Participants of gangs do not necessarily commit violent acts or commence in illegal matters. The National Gang Center has come to a consensus on defining gangs with the commonalities of three or more members between the ages of 12 through 24, shared identity, recognized by others as a gang or crew, has levels of organization, and usually involved in criminal activities (Shelden, Tracy, Brown, 2013). Some gangs are excluded from this definition due to not proportionate with their usual activities. Overall, we can consider gangs to be founded when members share similar characteristics and establish a symbol to represent their livelihood.

People seem to struggle to understand the concept of gangs. There are a lot of strange factors that go into the makeup of gangs. Yes, there are no positive aspects of gangs, but those negative aspects have reasons as to why they are so negative. It is the people who join, that make gangs so threatening. Men and women who join are trying to get away or rebel from someone or something. They may feel that joining a gang will give them the security of a “family”. Those who join are so broken that they try to put the pieces together when joining a gang. This has been the case throughout U.S.

Within ‘Birdsong’ Faulks uses the character of Stephen as his voice, through which he propounds his horror and perplexity at what is unfolding during the War. Faulks also introduces the idea of a new reality which is experienced by the men in the trenches.

“Gangs have morphed from social organizations into full-fledged criminal enterprises” (Thomas, 2009, para 5). Gangs are highly sophisticated and more dangerous then ever. The number one reason to join a gang is money; and 95 percent of gangs profit comes from drug dealing

Inside of the California streets lies an “underworld.” This underworld contains gangs that are affiliated with robberies, deaths, auto-theft, and many more crimes. Being the second largest Asian gang and the twelfth largest gang in America, the Asian Boyz gang was established in the by a man named Marvin Mercado, nicknamed “shy boy.” The gang is mostly made up of Cambodians and Vietnamese men; whose main mission is to protect their own people from being attacked by Mexican gang members. The members who actively wear their navy blue gang colors on the west coast are widely known in different parts of California but most notably in Los Angeles, California. However, there are additional chapters along the East Coast who shamelessly wear forest

Gangs are becoming prevalent in today’s society and within our schools. More and more young people are turning to gangs in an attempt to escape their everyday lives and the future, which they perceive as dismal and bleak. They are initially attracted to the prestige and cash flow, which is glamorized by the street gang. Many gangs are actively involved in criminal misconduct, such as drug and gun trafficking, burglaries and homicides. However, street gangs are not just a criminal justice issue, but a social problem, which is triggered by poverty, peer pressure, boredom, despair and lacking a sense of belonging.

The problem of classifying gangs has interested both sociologists and law enforcement. For the purpose of law enforcement, a gang is generally defined as an organized group among the members of which there is well-designed communication. This paper evaluates classification schemes from current research for gangs. The objective is to discover the issues and problems in creating classifications for gangs including a definition which delineates what constitutes a gang and differentiates it from other social and sports groups. The paper also compares approaches to classifications of gangs and evaluates how these classifications provide specific insights or information about gangs in a community.