Thank you for your comment on my post. It's a pleasure to share some points in common. I would agree, that the characteristics are unlimited to subdivide each gang upon it's own description. They are viriable upon the situation, location, social environement and even genetics in some cases. However, there are a possibility to trace gang's activities and to split it in sub- categories. Nonetheless, those sub-categories content is based on illicit activities, and as I said in my post, Omaha police Dept. Declared, that 'not all gang are bad', but if their activities are good, than it won't be a gung but something else. Like for example, it can be named an organization insted of gang, with the primary propose of their activity/ies based on their common …show more content…
I like and do agree, with Ball and Curry(1995), while they quote Miller's teleological hypothesis (1959) defining the gang as “ a stable and solitary primary group preparing the young male for an adult role in lower- classe
. In the text book on page 172, ‘Islands In the Street: Urban Gangs in the United States” , it says that the functions that gangs fulfill or motives for joining gangs is to possible to escape to broken home, but as you know the individuals that join these gangs still keep in touch with their families. 1. Functionalism:
The Blood gang seems to be dominate in in the United States. Bloods where red as their primary identifying color. The Bloods established themselves in Los Angeles, California around the West Piru Street area in the Compton section of Los Angeles. Sylvester Scott and Vincent Owens were the founders of the Bloods, and this certain gang actually started out as the "Compton Pirus." The rapid growth of the Bloods was abetted by a severe conflict between the "Compton Crips" and the "Compton Pirus," in which the Pirus were greatly outnumbered and brutally crushed. This fighting brought several sets of the Pirus together, and the Pirus subsequently joined forces with the "Laurdes Park Hustlers" and the "LA Brims." In fact, the Brims were quite eager unite forces against the Crips, who had recently murdered one of their gang members. Various other gangs around the area who had been attacked or threatened in the past by the Crips were also eager to unite the forces against them, and these gangs were united under the Blood name. "Red" gangs in the Compton refer to themselves as "Pirus,” and several other "red" gangs in the area such as the "Brims," "Bounty Hunters," "Swans," and the "Family" are known as the "Bloods." Those associated with the Bloods are fairly well recognized
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 offer a hierarchy of leadership and a path to gain approval and achieve success,” Samenow states in the article “ The Myth of the Street Gang as a ‘Family Substitute’”. As stated, He believes that gang members come from broken families, searching for support, sustenance, acceptance, and a structure that the average family provides. He states that most gang members come from “criminogenic”
Gangs are often associated with violence, however, how gang members are themselves victims of larger, violent circumstances is rarely thought of. Although it is undeniable that gangs commit acts of violence, the path that led them to a life of crime, is one filled with victimhood. Inner-city communities are affected by the violence continuum, committed against them by individuals who profit from their subjugation, and are often guilty of misrecognizing the root cause of their domination and perpetuating their own oppression.
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.
Gang crime is one of the most intriguing social phenomena’s across the world, as defining the deviancy has been difficult due to a broad range of definitions (Wood & Alleyne, 2010, pg. 101). One definition is given by David Curry and
In the early twentieth century, the term “gang” was associated with groups in socially disorganized and deteriorated inner-city neighborhoods: It was applied to juveniles who engaged in a variety of delinquencies, ranging from truancy, street brawls, and beer running to race riots, robberies, and other serious crimes (Regoli, Hewitt, DeLisi, 2011). There were several gangs within the United States, which included street gangs, prison gangs, motorcycle gangs, and organized crime gangs that still exist today. The word “gang” is derived from the word “gonge,” which is a term that means a journey. Frederic Thrasher who was called the “Father of Gang Research”, who defined the word gang as kids in the streets back in the 1920s.
Though gangs are different from each other all over the world, they all operate under the same premise. Territory, money, drugs, power and respect are almost always the foundation of any criminal organization (LINK 7); the same principles as mafias or mobs, just more savage and less organized about their actions.
Drug routes are associated and may have originated with U.S. gangs in an effort for drug cartels to amp up and focus on their production, leaving the logistics to the gangs. The drug cartels have chosen to align with U.S. gangs based on similar philosophies of honor, allegiance, and loyalty combined with similar business practices and levels of hierarchy. The largest U.S. gangs are structured similarly to giant corporations that succeed with levels of management teams with the ultimate goal of profit, U.S. gangs are no different as they often legitimize themselves as profitable business. Asian gangs are common in California and on the east coast but locating scholarly articles about their operations is a daunting task that required a personal interview with a former gang member.
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.
This definition provides a theoretical base for gangs but still leaves questions unanswered. Prior to this more theoretical definition, Miller (1974) offered a clear, arguably measurable checklist of sorts for the continued study of gangs. Specifically, gangs will have structured organization, identifiable leadership, territorial identification, continuous association, specific purpose, and illegal behavior. Though based in Russia, Salagaev, Shashkin, Sherbakova and Touriyanskiy (2005), offer an extension of this definition by adding that in a “delinquent” youth gang the members will be between the late adolescent ages of thirteen and twenty, will be able to withstand its identifying features even if there are changes in membership and composition. Salagaev et al. (2005) also direct attention to the fact that the members of a youth gang will spend a great deal of their time outside of structured, productive environments such as school, work and or home and will engage in illegal activities.
In my oppinion, and this opinion is actualy structured after the reading in deep of several acticles of this week 's reading for this class, there is no unique and valid definition of the “gang”. QUOT here
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.
Hence, according to differential opportunity theory, if one is to create gang subcultures of criminal, conflict, and retreatist; then there must be opportunity, or lack thereof to for one to participate in the illegitimate structure, which would require the pre-existence of gangs (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960 in Williams & McShane, 2014, pg. 99-100). It should be noted that Curry and Spergel (1992) found that “the [prior] presence of gang members –both males and females-are also significant estimators” for one to become involved in a gang (pg. 284). Furthermore, the two strongest factors for individuals to become involved in gangs was if a family member was already involved in a gang, or being near drug distributors (Curry & Spergel, 1992, pg. 284). Thus, if an individual were to join a gang it is probable that there: is a prior presence of gangs in their neighbourhood, they have a family member that is in gang, or the individual is near drug distributors, all of whom who would likely mentor the individual (Curry & Spergel, 1992, pg. 284). While this explains criminal gangs, it does not state if retreatist or conflict gangs exist. Nevertheless, according to Klien and Maxson (2006), one consequence of gang participation is drug abuse (retreatist) (as cited in Pitts, 2008, pg. 27). In terms of conflict gangs, Yablonsky (1962) asserts that gang members are “sociopaths, bent upon violence” (as cited in Pitts, 2008, pg. 26); however, Christopher Schreck, Jean McGloin, and David Kirk (2009) indicate otherwise, as they state that conflict subcultures are not solely defined by violence (pg. 789).