Correlation Between Gang And Gang Delinquency

Initially gang activity could only be found in large metropolitan cities, but now gangs have invaded neighborhoods of all sizes across the country. Gangs introduce violence and fear to the communities they occupy, raise the level of drug activities, and destroy businesses and property which brings down the overall value of the whole area. Instead of going to school, many young people find themselves drawn in to the gang life which in most cases either leads to being locked up or death. There are various reasons why people would want to join a gang, but no matter what that reason might be one can only expect a life of violence and troubles.

In the years prior to the creation for the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program, America’s inner cities was experiencing a substantial increase of gang membership along the youth living in impoverished communities. During the early 1990s, many viewed gang activity as a particular community’s problem, but as youth and gang violence was increasing drastically across the United States’ inner cities, the public’s perception about this social issue changed. Due to the rapid rise of gang violence and youth membership, delinquent behavior by youths began to receive a substantial amount of academic and media attention.

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.

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.

Alleyne, Emma & Wood, Jane L., (2011). Gang Involvement: Social and Environment Factors. Crime and Delinquency 60 (4) 547-568.

There are an abundance of reasons why some youth may choose to join a gang. The lacking of sense of guidance positively and

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.

The American headlines of any large city will site killings on street corners, robberies, assaults, intimidation, and drug interaction. While not all-criminal activity is associated with gangs, the 780,000 strong members do account for a large majority of the problems that are plaguing America. There is no one-way to stop gang activity in one single swipe, but through a combination of cooperation, education, and training techniques law enforcement can minimize the gang’s movements and even stop a crime before it is committed.

Gang activity and gang violence have been a major issue in the urban community for over half a century, dominated by mostly minority youth. This essay will review the question: Does growing up as a minority with a dysfunctional family setting aide or contribute to joining a gang, therefore continuing the cycle of gang violence and activity? In order to dive deeper into this subject, several references from the internet and Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez will be stated and discussed. After the discussion of the web articles and passages from the book a solution will be suggested to help the misguided youth of America to make better life decisions than just throwing their lives away as expendable tools of urban guerilla warfare.

The purpose of this paper is to understand, acknowledge and challenge communities to recognize gang behavior and gang affiliation. This paper will also describe the culture and what it means to be in a gang; key findings of the research; recommendations the community can employ to remedy the need; and discussions and implications for further study.

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 overall theme of the study depicts overall “mechanisms and processes that result in the spread and escalation of gang violence” (Pope, Lovell & Brandl, 2001, p. 160). This was achieved by the author by directing his studies on ‘contagion as an aspect of collective behavior that produces expressive gang violence” researchers of this study did this by focusing on “contagion as an aspect of collective behavior that produces expressive gang violence (Pope, Lovell & Brandl, 2001, p. 161). ‘Contagion’ is defined as ‘subsequent acts of violence caused by an initial act; such acts typically take the form of retaliation” (Pope, Lovell & Brandl, 2001, p. 163). These gang related acts can take the form of games, fights, meeting and sometimes homicide. It can also be said that all gang behavior is committed as a group. It then follows that this behavior can safely be categorized as ‘collective’ or grouped behavior. Often times a designated

Gang and gang violence has always been an ongoing problem within the country. Street gangs have evolved into some of the most notorious group associated with murders and killings that law enforcement agencies have encountered. Gang violence has become one of the most serious crime problem happening in the country that involves physical assaults, drive-by shootings, homicides, robberies, prostitutions, and home-invasion along with a long list of criminal activities. It had occurred and multiplied so fast in which it reach an all-time high epidemic of young gang people killed on the streets or entering into the juvenile and prison system throughout the country. Such death occurs on a daily basis especially in the inner cities that are

Criminal gangs are there to rule, they have been there in every community for a long time. Gang's intentions are to commit crimes. Gang leaders oversee extortion, order killings or smuggle drugs. This paper studies gang formation, why individuals join gangs and the negative influence gangs have to the society and the economy. The study focuses on some of the prominent gangs in the world today; it explains the activities of the Russian mafia and other gangs. This paper explains power struggles within gangs and gives out recommendations to solve problems associated with gang operations. This paper puts into perspective a study on factors influencing gang membership; the study employs personal interviews as a method, causal research design and ordinal scale of measurement. Prisoners in California state prison are the sample population. Structured proxy question are used, and observation to study an individual's race. The study focuses male prison gang members. Findings from the study indicate that the less educated an individual is the likely for one join a gang, from the study it is evident that gang members feel disregarded when formulating policies, it is clear that race is not a factor to gang membership and that most of the gang members come from dysfunctional families.

The term youth gangs refers to a group of three or more members, who are between the age of 12 and 24; they share an identity through the use of names or symbols; they see themselves as gang and are recognized by others as a gang; there is some amount of permanence and degree of organization; and the group is involved in an elevated amount of criminal activity (National Gang Center Staff, n.d.). Risk factors for gang involvement are based on factors such as individual, family, school, community. School risk factors include poor school performance, poor connectedness to schools, low degree of commitment to and involvement in school, and weak attachment to teachers (Howell, 2010). Community risk factors includes such things as greater level of criminal activity, neighborhood youth are involved in illegal behaviors, widespread access to and the use of firearms and drugs, and low level of neighborhood attachment (Howell, 2010). Additional factors that lead to gang involvement include learning disabilities and emotional disorders, school failure and truancy, no positive involvement outside of school, friends and peers are delinquent, low income, and early involvement in petty crimes and behavioral disorders in grade school (Hernandez, 2015). Reasons given for joining a gang as reported by youths includes for protection, for fun, for respect, for money, family members are part of the gang (and because a friend was in the gang (Howell, 2010).