Gang Saving Society's Youth (Grassy) Program

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.

In today society many of our youth are joining and becoming gang members. The criteria that is very often classify groups as gangs is the group usually have three or more members that ranges from 12-24. Among these members they share an identity typically linked to a name, and often other symbols. Members tend to view themselves as a gang, and they are recognized by others as gangs. The group is involved in a superior of criminal activities.

“Forbes collected their information from the FBI Crime Statistics Database. Since 1985, the total violent crimes in the city have totaled above 8,000 each year” (Jennes). Some Memphians believe that the violence increase among the city because of the gang culture that spread across the whole city. Based on the police data, more than 12,800 documented gang members have been recognized in Memphis city. Almost 2,750 people have become a part of this culture in the past three years, which mean two to three people join every day. Additionally, many gangs that have originated in major states such as California and Chicago have been moved to Memphis, which make most of the committed crimes primarily relate to the gang culture which increased the violent crime rate by 6% last year as Jeremiah Graham and Dominique Jennes mentioned in their article about the Gang activity on the rise among Memphis youth. Most of those who joined and involved in the gang activities are youth because of the carelessness of the family. To give an illustration of what I mean let’s look at the case of the parent’s indifference, when the parental control of the child is not existing, this will lead him to the wrong way with the wrong people. “A child’s home and family are the center of development. One of the most important functions of this matrix is to provide structure and guidance in an effort to encourage and aid children in their socialization and identity development” (Stern et. al.,

A two-pronged prevention approach has proven effective, with primary prevention strategies aimed at the community 's general population and secondary prevention strategies targeting youth between the ages of 7 and 14 who are at high risk of joining gangs. Prevention efforts undertaken by law enforcement departments around the country include: “Participating in community awareness campaigns (e.g. developing public service announcements and poster campaigns). Contacting the parents of peripheral gang members (through the mail or during personal visits) to alert them that their children are involved with a gang. Sponsoring gang hotlines to gather information and facilitate a quick response to gang-related issues. Organizing athletic events with teams of law enforcement officers and gang members. Establishing working relationships with local social service agencies. Making presentations about gangs to schools and community groups as a combined effort at prevention and information gathering. Sponsoring school-based gang and drug prevention programs (e.g. DARE and GREAT)” (Hess, 2013 p.230).

Juvenile gang members continue to be a severe problem in Nashville, especially in the low-income areas (Bennett, 2016). Gangs seek out youths at schools for membership with great success. This is because many kids are naive or have already committed crimes (Bennett, 2016). Reasons a youth would join a gang also includes the following:

There were seven hundred recorded gang-related expulsions from educational institutions in Memphis in 2010 (Operation: Safe Community, 2011). The most current data I was able to locate suggests a steady incline in youth identified as gang members in Memphis, increasing from six hundred sixty in 2007 to eight hundred sixteen in 2009. There are nine thousand one hundred documented gang members and one hundred and seventy gangs in Memphis (Goggans, 2014). These numbers only reflect the known

I have almost 18 of working with at-risk youth to provide intervention, diversion or employment services and program referrals starting in 1998 with the Mayor’s Gang Intervention Project Pride Program as a Youth Outreach Worker I. My population target was at risk a high-risk, gang-impacted 12 to 18 year old participants at the Gardner Community Center located in a highly gang-impacted neighborhood where there is a multi-generational Norteno gang influence from one of the oldest gangs in the city of San Jose, Varrio Horse Shoe. I was in charged of implementing pro-social activities like educational and recreational field trips, which included college campus visits and teamwork oriented recreational activities like white water rafting and camping

According to the Chicago Police Report’s CompStat within the year of 2014, there were 407 murders citywide. Chicago, Illinois is one of the United States biggest cities, with one of the highest crime rates. Chicago is also known for their large amount of gangs including, youth gangs within the city. According to the Chicago Police Department, they defined by their department, a gang is, “An organized group with a recognized leader whose activities are either criminal or, at the very least, threatening to the community” (Chicago Police Department, 2014, para.1). Chicago has one of the highest population of gang’s members in the city with about 150,000 gang members. If a city has an extreme number of gangs, then youth members just come with its nature. According to the National Forum of Youth Violence there were 1,109 young kids that had been being shot. Out of the 1,109 kids, 216 of them resulted in losing a life (Emanuel, 2010 p. 10). If we were to have more recognition towards this issue, then we would see a major decrease in youth gangs along with the violence that comes with the gang lifestyle.

The mission of the SDWCC Task Force, in partnership with key stakeholders, is to eradicate crime and violence caused by the West Coast Crips gang by creating a renewed community confidence and enhanced quality of life through a three pronged prevention, intervention, and suppression strategy. We will educate community members on the negative impacts of gang participation and attractive alternatives for families, and in particular the youth, in a robust prevention effort. We will utilize law enforcement and other emerging resources, to engineer intervention solutions for those at risk of gang membership and those already in gangs who are in need of, and desire legitimate lifestyle alternatives. The suppression element will attack illicit gang businesses creating disruption in their money making ventures and will aggressively target those most violent gang members to remove them from the neighborhoods and remove their influence.

This article describes a project in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood that is designed to reduce gang problems, including violence and illegal drug activity. The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project was a comprehensive, community wide program designed to reduce serious violence in Chicago’s gang-ridden Little Village neighborhood. The main goal of this project was to reduce the extremely high level of serious gang violence, first at the individual youth gang member level, and then at both the gang and community level. The project appeared to reduce arrests for violent crimes, serious violent crimes, and drug crimes, but did not have an effect on arrests for property crimes or total arrests.

The Ending Gang and Youth Violence policy initiative is aimed at analysing problems with gangs and find intervention to tackle crime connected to young people. It is focuses on preventing gang violence, finding pathways out, punishing offenders, working as partners with different forces and providing support to individuals who got in to gangs.

communities. Each juvenile will be assigned a Big and they will serve as a mentor, as someone the juvenile can turn to when they feel they have no one else. Both the juvenile and big will have a chance to create a bond with one another and provide support for one another.

Juvenile gangs have become a serious and growing problem in many areas throughout the U.S. It is unlikely that gang control strategies can be successful as long as legitimate economic alternatives are lacking. I will be exploring the possible proactive solutions to this social problem.

“According to statistics from the National Youth Gang Center, more than 24,500 gangs, consisting of more than 770,000 members, exist in about 3,300 cities in the U.S.” (Rank 1). Although it is not illegal to be a member of a gang, it should be noted many gangs participate in illegal activity for funding and will use the money as a way to entice new membership. The “money begins flowing, and with that comes all of the things associated with material wealth that is usually beyond the reach of these adolescents without the criminal activity of being involved in a gang” (Nawojczyk 3).

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).