Legal Theory and Application: Making Drugs for Gangs

For example, Lorraine's mother always tells her “you’re not a pretty girl Lorraine.”, she also always calls Lorraine fat and ugly. Lorraine’s mother does not set a good example for Lorraine because she bullies her. Another example is John’s father likes to lie which rubbed off on John, one time John’s father went around bragging how he phonied up a car insurance claim to get a hundred dollars to replace a piece of aluminum on their new car, which he had really replaced himself. John’s father taught John that lying was not bad without even knowing. John’s family also had other issues because John’s father was an alcoholic and did not care if John drank beer. John was not old enough to drink beer but his father did not care because he was an alcoholic. Both families show that they have bad family values because they are mean and

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 Policing Gangs in America, Charles Katz and Vincent Webb describes every issue in American Gangs today. The ultimate goal of this book is how the gang officers work and the different kind of atmosphere they work in. Their job isn’t like other law enforcement jobs. It’s one of the more dangerous occupation in the Criminal Justice system. These gang officers focus on how they react to public gang issues.

Family fighting, drug use, poor parental guidance ultimately led to a life of anger and violence. As a child, his mother would often leave Ronnie and his brother Kenny alone while she went out to use drugs. On occasion, his aunt would look after the two boys while their mother was away. Not only did their aunt physically abuse them, but later on their mother’s boyfriend introduced them to using and selling drugs, stealing, and guns. Re-living these memories was as agonizing and traumatic as one could imagine but it was paramount in learning how and why he became the person he did. Many boys at Giddings were convinced that no one loved them, and Ronnie was no exception. Giddings therapists used these sessions to break through the wall he put up thinking that no one loved them or cared what happened to them. More often than not, they were successful reaching students this way.

The War on Drugs was the United Sates government’s attempt to stop the sale and use of illegal drug use. It consisted of anti-drug legislation all with the plan to end drug abuse in America. President Nixon declared and coined the phrase “War on drugs” and increased drug control agencies and pushed for harder sentencing for drug offenses. The war on drugs is an issue that we are still fighting and many of the policies put in place did more harm than good. The drug war affected all people, but it had unequal outcomes for different racial groups and many of the historical pieces of legislation put in place impacted these outcomes and are still affecting many people of color today.

The correlation between gangs and drugs has always been an issue for the United States government. Major cities often overlooked the problem of youth gang violence, thinking it was only a 1960’s trend. Sixty years later, gangs and drugs continue to be a problem, but in an increasing number within urban, suburban and rural areas in the United States. People may characterize this problem with words such as violence, increase drug activity, and delinquencies, but not many seem to see the bigger picture. Lack of interaction, collaboration, and strategies from law enforcement, youth centers, businesses, churches, and political icons are increasing gang violence and drug related offenses in major cities. In such cities as Chicago, minority groups are the most vulnerable to joining a gang, which then leads to an involvement with drugs; they are faced with barriers – lack of family support, poverty, segregation, unemployment, etc. An incident that happened in Chicago history is the closing of the Cabrini-Green Project, where people involved with gangs had to find a new home, scattering gang-members throughout the city, and eventually leading to their spread and growth.

In his article “Legal Drugs Unlikely to Foster Nation of Zombies,” Stephan Chapman presents a hypothetical situation where the use of illicit drugs is legalized by the government. This improbable situation of having a legalized system of distributing prohibited drugs would cause much chaos in the society, however, would it make clean living citizens go into a store and pick up some of these drugs? Not likely. The data from a survey by the Drug Policy Foundation reflects that only a few individuals agree that they would go for the drugs like marijuana and cocaine if they were legalized and able to have them openly. There are forms like statistical and convergent arguments that the author presents in this article to prove his point of a probable situation.

Since the Rockefeller Drug Laws were passed in 1973 under Governor Nelson Rockefeller, New York State has had the harshest sentencing for low-level, non-violent drug offenders of any other state in the nation. Under these laws, those convicted of drug offenses face the same penalties as those convicted of murder, and harsher penalties that those convicted of rape. (Sullum, 1) Though the laws were first enacted to curb the late-1960s-early-1970s psychedelic drug epidemic, New York's drug problem in fact worsened in the 1980s with the use of stimulants, and thus the laws were reformed to be less lenient. These unforgiving laws, which place enormous minimum sentences for drug-sale convictions, prove to be ineffective and expensive and have

Hey Megan, you are right about Adderall. Legal drug pushers (doctors) overprescribed it at a young age all the time. My niece, who was nine-years-old at the time was prescribed Adderall, because she had “too much energy” (I do not know how a doctor could have notice that in one visit, but okay). My sister gave my niece Adderall; it did work; now she went from this active young girl, to a mindless zombie, who gained weight little. All she did was sit there, spaced out for like two months. So my sister took her off it, and let her do cheerleading, and guess what, she is very active and uses that energy to cheer and dance, then she went home, did her homework, and sleep. Should we also say legal drug pushers, are also gateways to drugs and

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.

The issue of the legality and the war on drugs has been a hot topic for decades now. Whether or not the government should have a say in the use of drugs seems like an endless, looping debate. The increase in drug usage in the United States is undeniable, and many are beginning to question whether the burden of the “war on drugs” such as a huge budget and overpopulated prisons is worth it. William Bennett, the author of “Drug Policy and the Intellectuals” is part of the opposition and says that indeed it is worth it. In his text, he argues that Americas “intellectuals” think that “the drug problem in America is absurdly simple and easily solved” and “that the drug problem in America is a lost cause”. He suggests that the war on drugs is essential and they aren’t taking it seriously. He seems very passionate on the topic and brings up a lot of valid points which also covers many common rebuttals. On the other hand, although having good intentions on the matter, there are many fallacies that are obvious and he tends to use worst-case scenarios as a kind of norm. Overall I would rate the essay a 8/10 and say that it is definitely Toulmin-style.

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.

When I first had any thoughts about the war on drugs I believed that this issue had nearly been completely eradicated due to the tireless efforts of law enforcement. One of my preconceived ideas was that the individuals involved in this trade lacked any autonomy of what they were doing to their societies. But one thing that I never doubted was that those in charge of these drug-dealings were cunning and calculated people. Through applying various sociological concepts such as; the influence of race, ethnicity, bureaucracies, among other sociological ideas one can see that there is more to the war on drugs than people selling narcotics and people buying narcotics. An important sociological term to familiarize oneself with to understand this

There has always been a close association between drugs and crime. Drugs have been seen as a way out of suffering in one’s life and so as long as there is suffering there will always be a market for drugs. The struggle to keep one’s self sane when away from a substance they need can cause them to do crazy and even violent things to others. Things like murdering someone because they did not have proper control of themselves is not something unheard of by any means. These people can been seen as both victims and criminals, as they were not in a sound state of mind when doing these actions, however them doing the actions does not mean they should get off scot-free. The users are only one side of the coin, the other is the drug dealers. The dealers do not have to be selling purely illegal drugs, they may be selling prescription drugs too, but in the pursuit of their own survival in a struggling life, they turn to selling substances to others. By doing so they can even amass a fortune, but this is still a crime, and what people will do to try to get all this potential money can span from robbing to murder. The articles I read from different media support the fact there is indeed a tie with crime and drugs, being that an increase of drugs on the street leads to more crime.

Is a Permissive Legal System Better than a Restrictive One in the Case of Drugs?