Street Crime And Violence In The United States

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.

Teenage murders may be unprecedented, but violence is not. The past has followed us right up to today. Several national magazines recently ran alarming stories about the epidemic of criminal and group violence. Rolling Stone in "A Pistol-Whipped Nation" and both Time and Newsweek ran alarming cover stories about the "virtual epidemic of youth violence." Newsweek's "Teen Violence: Wild in the Streets," decried the number of young people carrying guns, using them, being shot, and being killed. Accompanying all this was a casual if not blase attitude indicating that, as one expert quoted in Time put it, "Violence is hip right now."

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

     Ever since the terrible tragedy at Columbine High School, there has been a numerous list of recent school shootings in America. Youth violence is a major issue in today’s society. Many people dread what causes adolescents to be so violent, committing horrible crimes.     

Gang violence has been around for a long time all the way back to the 1800 and have greatly increased all around the globe ever since. Gangs are a group of people that fight and kill other gangs over turf,money,pride, and drugs. People usually join gangs from around the age of 8 to the age 20. Most gang members join because they have been abused by their parents or because they don 't have a family. Gangs treat each other like a family, that is the most common reason why people join, they want to be accepted, they want to feel like if they belong something.

Is youth violence a problem in the U.S.? Most people don’t pay attention to youth violence rates, but when a surveillance camera in Seattle records a teen girl aggressively kicking another girl in the head on a subway platform while security is sitting nearby doing nothing, while being broadcasted to the internet; people may start paying attention to this issue. This problem has been around for years, but more recently, Obama has been addressing this issue. He has most recently put $24 million in budget for community based crime prevention programs. Another part of this problem is the harsh sentences that these juveniles are given.

“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

Many individuals become what they are because of the people around them and the people who influence them with violence and gangs. “They join because in the gang they find a group of teenagers that they feel something in common with.” Many kids want to fit in with society. They see that a lot of their friends involved with gangs so they choose also to do it. They might have been raised differently to grow up, but reality morphed for these individuals and became apart of gang violence to suit their group of

Crime and violence has been a apart of America since the birthing of our nation. Hate crime specifically is a prejudice-motivated crime, when someone targets a victim because of their belonging to a social class. The various groups that receive the most attacks are women, the disabled, religious groups more specifically Jewish people, the LGBTQI community and racial minority groups more specifically African-Americans. For many this oppression and attacks have gone on for more than 100 years, but through it all they have had support from activist groups who stand up and believe in their fair and equal treatment. One can only hope that rate for hate crimes will go down in America one day, but with that it will take tolerance and belief that we

When was the last time you were able to turn on the news and not hear about some sort of violent act? Crime is a growing concern amongst most cities, and street gangs are behind a lot of the trouble. Street gangs have plagued the streets for centuries and there is no stopping the urge to commit such hideous crimes. Gangs grow from recruiting young kids but what makes a kid decide to join a crime filled lifestyle.

| | |Violent Crime in America | |Street Violence and Boston’s Dorchester Youth: | |A Program Review | | |

The evolution of humanity has been marred with much violence and turmoil. In America, the roots of the country were established in a very bloody manner and seemingly resonates in today's world as violence permeates the national landscape. The purpose of this essay is to investigate the causes of violence in America and look specifically at the youth of this country and the effects that are produced because of their behavior. Essentially, this essay will try to communicate how the proliferation of violence committed by American youth demonstrates tight connections among culture, media, and capitalism creating unique circumstances that result in excessive violence and rage relative to other youth around the world.

For measuring the amount of youth violence, per capita rates were selected from government website that include reported young criminals who were reported by victims, and culprits of homicides as reported by policemen in the ages between 12 to 17 years old (Ferguson,” Predict Societal Violence” p. E11) . The type of crimes that these juveniles were known to commit included homicides, rape, aggravated assault, and

When comes America, it is easy to see how crimes and violence how increased over the years due to crippling of the economy. It is with the income inequality that crime has a strong connection. An American economist named Gary Becker, “pronounces that an increase in income inequality can have a huge and robust effect of increasing crime rates”. A study of a 2002 world bank showed the United States, was ranked 3rd among the most income-unequal nations in the world with the worst in income growth. It is with the slow increase of America’s income inequality so has the crime rate (Patterson,

"There is no doubt that violence, especially among youth, is a problem in the U.S. today. Since 1993, the U.S. has had the highest rate of childhood homicide, suicide, and firearms related deaths of any of the world's 26 wealthiest nations (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1993)," stated the authors of the article. Due to results as stated above by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the questions "what factors cause violent fighting as well as weapon carrying" and "what are assets that may help prevent such violence" come into mind. The article, Adolescent Violence: The Protective Effects of Youth Assets, shows a study that examined the relationships between nine youth assets and six demographic