Gangs Case Study

After many mixtapes and nearing the edge of household name status, Maryland rapper Logic drops his first album. In this album is a song titled Gang Related. This song tells the story of what environment and household he grew up in. His brother is in a gang and sells cocaine to his father in front of him. Logic's mother is in an out of mental institutions, all the while logic is growing up and trying not to get shot when he walks outside. With drugs and gangs all around him, it is quite amazing that he got out and become a famous rapper. Gang Related also has a core message of stopping the violence, which leads to a question, is this song about his story or a message about ending the violence?

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

What first comes to mind when you think of gangs? Most people picture groups of dangerous individuals causing violence and gang wars, as portrayed in the media. John Hagedorn in his novel: A World Of Gangs provides the reader with a deeper understanding of how “gangs” operate, and that trying to stop gangs abruptly through police force is more of a problem than a solution. Hagedorn begins by describing what gangs really are and what causes them. He notes that the urbanization going on throughout the world leads to poorer neighborhoods or slums and is leading to higher gang rates. Claiming that by the year 2020 half of the urban population will be living in poverty he shows that this can cause social disorganization and mixing that with discrimination is not a good combination that will lead to the formation of gangs. Being that the novel is non-fiction Hagedorn provides many different expert opinions to further his research and beliefs. He also uses quotes from those who are/were in some sort of relation to gang life which is a great way fully understand how they operate rather than only looking from the outside in. Beyond understanding why they form, Hagedorn looks into what keeps them around as well as many other related topics, but also into the problems of defining gangs as well as the world of hip-hop music and its influence on gang life.

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

“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

J.T operates exactly like a franchise. J.T must pay a 20 percent due towards the board of directors of the gang. The boards of directors are essentially the big bosses of the gang. Anything left over is a profit for J.T, but he must handle the expense that the gang has. These costs can be separated as fixed and variable cost. The fixed costs are the dues and the Extortionary taxes and the variable costs are weapons or mercenary fighter. Any earning made after these cost go towards J.T pocket, which are tax free. The similarity between a corporation and a gang is astonishing. An example of this is the similarities that drug dealer and a newly hired corporate worker face. A drug dealer must face the same initial obstacles that your everyday worker goes through. The drug dealers must start out at the bottom as a “foot solider”, which is the case for a regular worker. An example of this is when an aspiring accountant starts out as an intern of their future employment. The end goal for both of these careers is to get to

Anyone who lives in a community with children and/or educational institution should be concerned with the uprising gang violence. We all should be concerned about the well-being of our future leaders. As more and more people move to the city of Houston, the amount of gang-related killings have increased especially among the youth. The most recent combat for gang violence was put into effect October 2010. StopHoustonGangs.org is a website set up by the MAGTF. It gives information on who and where infamous gangs, leader, and fugitives reside. Additionally, there is in-sight on how to help and who to call if you have helpful tips. This ignored topic will soon because more prevalent if it is not confined at the root. We should work towards teens

A crew of four 15 year old neighborhood friends felt it was time to start their own gang. The now rundown city of Clarksville needed another gang like they needed another pot hole in the street. Luckily, these boys idea of being a gang did not include using violence and crime as part of their membership or so they thought. Their main goal for uniting as one was simple, do whatever they could do to come up with $1200 a piece to buy brand new four wheelers. They would often gather at their headquarters, Tim's front yard and talk for hours about the day they when they would be able to ride around town, practicing stunts in the back of Clark's supermarket. Clark's supermarket was the ideal place as there was tons of man made dirt hills thanks

The perception that gang culture in relation to youth crime is growing in the UK is intensified by the media, it is very rare to read a daily paper these days without coming across some mention of gang related crime. In order to understand why some of the young people living in the global city join gangs it is important to have a clear definition of what a gang is and to also investigate the role of the media

Over the decade an emergence of the “youth gang culture” has seen its fair share of publicised scrutiny. With the increase in violent youth gangs becoming more of a reality the UK governments have had a distinctive and problematic issue with the youth of today’s society that choose to not confirm with the social norms. So what key factors attract people to this idea of being a Gang member?

The Social Work Dictionary defines a social problem as “a condition among people leading to behaviors that violate some people’s values and norms and cause emotional or economic suffering”. The above definition accurately describes the social problem that gangs are, and their impact on a community. People who live in gang infested neighborhoods live daily with fears of losing their lives and the lives of loved ones. That fear, along with the fear that their family members will join the gang, or that they will be physically harmed in some way by the gang. They may exhibit many emotional, psychological and physical problems that people who don’t live in gang infested neighborhoods do not. Since before the 1940’s law enforcement and others have attempted to put a stop to gangs. These solutions usually hampered gang activity but didn’t eradicate it. Gangs evolve their practices over time to adjust to law enforcement tactics. Today gangs are involved in sex trafficking rather than drug dealing. Sex trafficking is easier to hide, more profitable and has less legal ramifications.

Abstract: This review studies in depth research done on street gangs. Social issues have social scientists turning away from including this in their research around this time. Sociological views have been changed dramatically in the past 40 years due to gender and racial studies. Also, women have started to join gangs since America has been changed with woman equality laws passing.

Gangs have direct effects on a society, such as increased levels of crime, violence and murder. Gangs also have long-term or late suggestions in that gang members are more likely to drop out of high school, struggle with unemployment, abuse drugs and alcohol or in end up in jail. These factors not only contribute to the gang members, but they also force taxpayers to pay for welfare and community-assistance programs. Common reasons for the younger generation to join gangs, include trying to find a place where they belong and sharing in mutual desires for safety from family problems or life challenges. Together, the feelings and attitudes among gang members haze them to act violently, often self-contradictory with rival gangs. This violence leads to injury and death of not only members but also of bystanders in the community. High gang activity also causes fear among community members, discourages business activity and obstructs home-value appreciation. Communities, also must pay for higher levels of law enforcement when gangs are prominent.

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.