Juvenile Gangs

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.

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

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

In 2015, Nashville, Tennessee experienced the highest rate of juvenile violence then compared to the last ten years (Bennett, 2016). In fact, Nashville far exceeded other large cities such as Oakland, California and Louisville, Kentucky (Bennett, 2016). Nashville juveniles were responsible for 75 homicides, which is twice as many as Oakland, California (Bennett, 2016). Nashville juveniles committed 215 violent crimes, with 159 of them included the use of a firearm (Bennett, 2016). These statistics are alarming and show that juvenile gang activity in Nashville is of great concern (Bennett, 2016). Nashville’s Metro Police have concluded that youths today are using guns as way to resolve disagreements, rather than what has typically been accomplished, in the past, through fist fights (Bennett, 2016).

Statistics Canada has done research on identifying the facts that are contributed to the definition of a youth gang member. Partnered with the Montreal Police Service, Statistics Canada was able to generate the definition of a gang member: "An organized group of adolescents and/or young adults who rely on group intimidation and violence, and commit criminal acts in order to gain power and recognition and/or control certain areas of unlawful activity [2] (Statistics Canada, 2008).

In James Howell’s “Gangs in America’s Communities” book he mentions that a gang should be looked at more of as a social network rather than an “organization” (Howell, 2012, p.60). This can be especially true for the youth who get involved in gangs. For the youth it is normal for them to want to belong somewhere so their peers have major influences in what they do and even how they think. The emergence or involvement of a gang among youth is identifying with each other and eventually giving themselves a name. Howell then describes the next step as grasping the gang culture by wearing distinctive clothing, colors, having rituals, gatherings, and the exclusion of other youth. Most youth join gangs between the ages of 11 and 15, the peak of gang involvement usually occurs between the age of 14 to 16. Some of the risk factors that get them involved in a

In order to define the nature and scope of juvenile antisocial behavior we must determine that “gangs are variable, diverse and difficult to define in precise terms” (White, 2007) and that “adolescent antisocial behavior is an issue of major concern to parents, teachers, police and governments and is a significant cost to the

Criminological and Gang MembershipApril SmolkowiczGeorgia Gwinnett CollegeCriminological and Gang MembershipSocial scientists have researched and documented empirical findings of the many one-of-a-kind influential factors of formative years gang and non-gang involvement across the United States. While it is now not feasible to predict whether or not a younger man or woman will be a section of a gang, possession of certain danger elements can extend the probability.Social Leaning Theory Article One The motive of this paper is to analyze adolescence gang and non-gang attitudes and behaviors with the social learning idea factors and its possibility of predicting youths self-reporting of gang membership, explicitly with the ethnicity of “Hispanics’ and Anglos, of eight-grade college students in two southwestern cities”. The lookup article is empirical that meets the requirements of the capstone mission with the gaining of understanding on the difficulty of adolescence gang and non-gang membership attitudes and behaviors. The hypothetical context is primarily based absolutely on comparing key variables of the social learning theory, advantageous reinforcers, terrible punishers, and indications of differential definitions.The lookup method of cross-sectional quantitative records is used, that is then recoded systematically and equipped to be entered into a pc database. This evaluation will serve as an additional evaluation with the previous longitudinal information that is used

“Violent crimes committed by juveniles are not diminishing, as other crimes, as reported by the Justice Department statistics, are (Siegel and Welsh, 2011).” We see that juveniles have more access, and more use of the weapons of violence, including gang affiliation. So why do young people join gangs? First of all, the gang

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.

Street gangs in this country can probably be traced back to the first wave of Europeans who migrated to the colonies for a better life for themselves and their families. Many of the first gangs were formed as a means of self protection, with the thinking that there is simply strength in numbers. The missions of gangs in today’s society have grown and emerged to include many violent criminal avenues, including drug trafficking, prostitution, money laundering, and extortion but the original thinking that there is strength in numbers remains true. Criminology experts believe that the number of teens involved in gangs or gang activity may be as high as 1 in every 5 people in most urban areas. Those number jump to 1 in every 3 people in

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.

    Gang violence is a huge problem in America today. More and more children are joining gangs every day. It has become evident that these gangs made up of young people are causing numerous problems. Gang violence and gang activities impact all of those around the gang members. The kids in these gangs are hurting themselves, each other, their families, and the communities around them. Those who are associated with the gangs through family ties or just those who are associated with the gangs through geographical location. Before we can understand how gangs effect the people and communities around them we must first understand what gangs actually are. We must try and understand how the gang members think,

According to (Wikipedia) a prison gang is a term used to identify any type of gang activity in prisons and correctional facilities. The difference between prison gangs and street gangs has become unclear because gang members are in and out of the prison system according to the (Street Gangs and Interventions: Innovative Problem Solving with Network Analysis, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2005). Prison gangs offer more than just simple protection for the members in prison; many prison gangs are responsible for drug, tobacco and other contraband handling. Prison gangs often seek to intimidate other inmates and bribe or intimidate prison staff. Prison gangs are a large influence of organized