Movie Response : The Interrupters

Prior to being assigned the reading of the memoir “Always Running”, by Luis Rodriguez, I had never given much thought on juveniles involved in gang life. Rodriguez achieved success as an award-winning poet; sure the streets would no longer haunt him - until his own son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in the vivid memoir, “Always Running.” “Always Running” is the compilation of events Luis experienced during his youth in San Gabriel. The theme of the book is to always strive for the best things in life and to always take a stand for what you believe. Lured by the seemingly invincible gang culture of East L.A., he witnessed countless shootings and beatings, as well as senseless acts of street crime against his friends and family members. As a Latino in a poor neighborhood, Luis struggled through criticism, stereotypes, and mistreatment. With the help of his mentor, Chente, Luis saw a way out through education and the power of word to successfully break free from years of violence and desperation.

There are some people part of a gang in the neighborhood like southside or O block. Who didn’t choose what they are right now. They wanted to be successful in their lives and they also wanted to achieve their goals but the atmosphere in those neighborhood wouldn’t allow them to be successful. In this article “Addicted to guns”, Chicago reader reporter Mick Dumke tells the story of Tony Wade.“Wade's grandfather did what he could to keep his grandson out of trouble—he sent Wade to Catholic schools, pushed him to excel in his studies, required him to attend church on Sundays, and taught him to work in his carpet business. Wade became a

In his novel Tattoos on the Heart, author Father Gregory Boyle S.J. shares his experiences as a pastor in the gang capital of the United States, Los Angeles, in an attempt to persuade his readers to look at gang members with a more humane perspective. To help his readers relate to the gang members, Fr. Boyle recounts personal anecdotes about the many gang members he works with and their journeys towards changing their lives. Through his use of colloquial language and informal diction and his narration of personal stories, Fr. Boyle creates an intimate tone accomplishes his purpose of discrediting the stereotypes associated with gangs and depicting a human face worthy of respect and sympathy. Though Boyle published this novel in 2010, his insight and wisdom on the state of gang violence still hold true today, and he continues to inspire his readers to recognize the tragedies many gang members face in their everyday lives.

In the article Bored, Broke and Armed: clues to chicago’s Gang Violence by John Elgion who is , discusses the how the lack of education can turn children into gang violence.  He observes, Conditions were ripped for

Geoffrey Canada pens a book that is part biography, part social view, a very thoughtful look into inner-city violence and the rules surrounding it. The book describes how his personal history with violence influenced his work with youth and the programs that he has started to support them. Geoffrey Canada describes the progression of violence that had happened in his lifetime. He also points out that there is a disturbing difference between what the streets were like in the 1960s compared to those of today.

The Frontline documentary, “The Interrupters”, captures the heroic services that one organization, Ceasefire, provides in assisting individuals involved in inner city violence. Through mentorship and modeling, experienced “violence interrupters” are able to mediate and prevent violence from occurring within at risk communities. The documentary demonstrated the problems orbiting around inner city violence, prominently homicide. Furthermore, the film portrayed an effective solution to curbing the violence by implementing programs such as Ceasefire. The Interrupters encapsulated many essential ideas around inner city violence, such as its importance to social work, its application to theoretical perspectives, and solutions to resolving violence around the world.

An effort to understand and explain violence and related problems in the inner city are demonstrated within Elijah Anderson’s Code of the Street. Elijah exhibits the different lifestyles of the citizens in Germantown, Philadelphia by thoroughly explaining the code through different themes that make up the inner city lifestyle such as, family, violence, drugs, relationships or poverty through his point of view and people within the city as well.

Throughout the article “The Code of the Streets,” Elijah Anderson explains the differences between “decent” and “street” people that can be applied to the approaches of social control, labeling, and social conflict theories when talking about the violence among inner cities due to cultural adaptations.

There are more than 450 active gangs in the city of Los Angeles, California. These gangs in Los Angeles, California all combined have over 45,000 members. From 2015-2017, there was over 16,398 gang crimes in Los Angeles. The book Always Running is by Luis Rodriguez and he summarises his rough life that he has been through in L.A, and the significance of this essay to inform the readers about how gang life is. Despite the school board’s recent sentiments regarding the lack of value that fiction provides, fiction should remain in the school’s curriculum because there is no purpose in gang affiliation, gangs are everywhere throughout America, and gangs serve no purpose, and only cause trouble. The message in Always Running is gang affiliation

This film can be viewed from the perspective of the Chicago School. This teaches that location is critical in the development of crime, and Chambliss & Hass (2012) explain that the Chicago School is used to, “...explain why crime was concentrated in certain part of inner-city zones where the structure is weak and disorganized due to high rates of poverty and unemployment, rapid social change, competition for limited resources, and conflict between different cultural values.” (p. 179). The documentary follows a man named Steven, who is a veteran rider with the 12 O’Clock Boys. He discussed his experience riding in his youth and provided the following explanation for the local deviance. “This is what the ghetto produces -- hostile environments, anger, stress, depression. You know, dealin’ with all

During the end of the 3rd Century, the Playwright Plautus wrote many of the first Roman comedies. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical comedy film adaptation of Plautus's comedies.Set in ancient Rome, many aspects of Roman theatre, including stock characters, were included in the film’s production. While the film is based off of multiple comedies, Plautus's Pseudolus character Calidorus is nearly identical to the film’s Hero. During the time Pseudolus was written, the Crisis of the Third Century led to up to 25% of Roman population being comprised of slaves(Southern). Of the many stock characters Platus included in his comedies, Calidorus/Hero, the son of Pseudolus’s owner and the stock character adulescens, best

The short story “Flood” by Daniel Alarcon, focuses on a town that is “flooded” with gang conflicts and the gangs are the ones who run the townspeople fate, despite what they do to escape the conflicts. In the short story a child is the narrator and although, children are portrayed as innocent; throughout “Flood” the children represent the contrary of that idea and the reader is able to recognize the “young gangster” in them. The setting of the story is significant because it is how the characters identify themselves and who they are as individuals. Whether the characters recognize themselves as gang members or innocent civilians, part of their everyday lives if overruled by the gangs, due to their ongoing conflict and disagreements over

Patch Adams is a movie that is based on a true story. It is about a man who has experienced many things in his lifetime, from being institutionalized in a psychiatric ward of a hospital to being a well-respected doctor that heals and calms many people with humor. This movie portrays many aspects of health communication that we have discussed in this class, and it also accurately represents one of the debates currently taking place in the health communication field. In this paper I will review past terms and models such as: physician-centered communication, collaborative communication, and the biopsychosocial model. These terms will be used to help demonstrate that the

Often children, because they integrate into a more popular language. They do this for an economic advantage.

In the documentary, The Interrupters, every person in the movie had parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters who were all gang members or some way apart of a gang affiliation. If an entire family tree is full of various gang affiliated persons, can society and their environment be blamed? Or is there a specific trait which they have inherited, whether it be from their parents, grandparents, or even relatives who were alive hundreds of years before them? A neuroscientist named Jim Fallon started a study in October of 2005, looking at the brains of serial killers compared to that of his own brain. He