As the sun begins to set on my hometown of Oakland, the many men wearing baggy pants that are cuffed inside at the bottom or dragging on the ground and white oversized T-shirts creased in the middle come out and walk the corners of 50th Avenue and International Boulevard. According to Inside Prison, Oakland has an overall crime rate of 9,634 per 100,000 residents. This is one of the most dangerous regions in the United States. This means that your chances of becoming a victim of any type of crime in Oakland is 1 in 10 if you reside there for a year. Street gangs are posted on street corners while others hang by the bus stop or in their “owned” area. Growing up, I have witnessed many incidents in which my home was shot up or experienced losing a family member or friend due to gang violence. Society knows that gangs exist, but few try to understand or question how they came into existence. …show more content…
It was difficult during those times because my dad and his siblings were not able to speak proper English and didn’t look like the other kids. Many kids would bully them and since they didn’t know anyone in their neighborhood, they were not be able to leave their home or walk around the neighborhood without being jumped or confronted by thugs. Things were falling apart and my uncle was showed death in his face multiple times when a man pulled a gun on him. It was too much for my uncle to handle and he had to find a way to stand up for himself. He decided to join the Crips as a way to gain protection and
In todays United States we have a huge problem affecting society, gangs and the violence that follows them wherever they go. These days’ gangs aren’t just compiled of grown adults, they often lure in young teens to do dirty work and to add numbers to their turf. Despite laws aimed straight at these gangs they still defy the law and wreak havoc upon the territory that they claim. The members in the gang have a gang first mentality and will do everything possible to provide for and protect their fellow members. They will very rarely snitch on their own to help put a stop to some of the meaningless crimes committed by these savages.
Chapter Four is entitled, “[The] Scope and Nature of the Current Gang Problem.” It focuses on recent trends in number of gangs, gang members and gang-related crimes in each city. In Inglewood, almost all the neighborhoods were claimed by at least one gang, with gang-unit officers agreeing that the city was facing a major gang problem. In Albuquerque, gangs were involved in drug trafficking and property offenses, with 7 out of 8 gang-unit officers believing the city had a major gang problem. In Las Vegas, migration from other cities was thought to be the primary cause of an increase in gang members. 50% of crime in Las Vegas is attributed to gangs, with most officers believing they had a moderate to major gang problem. In Phoenix, the gang problem is described as wave-like, with 70% of gang-unit officers thinking the city had a major gang problem. These statistics were backed up through interviews with officers and city records.
The documentary Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2008) focuses on conditions and causes of gang violence in Los Angeles, California, as well as the history and background of the main gangs that reside there. The information in the film is compiled from interviews of past and present members of the Crips and Bloods, which are the two main gangs that contribute to the violence in the area. The interviewees explain how the gangs work and the conditions under which these people live daily. There can be parallels drawn from the film to Elijah Anderson’s article titled “The Code of the Streets”, published in 1994, that discusses violence in terms of gang and criminal activity.
With the leading number of gangs in the country, Los Angeles is thought of as the gang capital of the world. Employing gang suppression strategies that take distinct forms, from anti-gang injunctions to high rate of incarcerations, the City of Angels has failed to live up to its angelic name. Known instead for its demonic gang activity and police suppression efforts, Los Angeles has taken over media headlines as one of the most dangerous places to subsist. Representing a worrisome issue for residents, visitors, city government officials, as well as urban planners, gang violence has rapidly become a threat to public safety. Although current-day gang culture has eased off on the violence, it continues to be one of the greatest planning challenges
For the children of the projects, the pressure to join a gang never waivers. Quick cash and protection are hard forces to resist in a world of poverty and violence. However, the children's role in these gangs is inferior to
. The shutting down of factories in South Central Los Angeles contributed to a number of gangs forming. Many African Americans moved to that particular part of the city because of how well the factories. The city also grew in population because of all the jobs that were available. When the jobs were gone and the factories shut down and move to other states the youth were left without role models. A fifteen year old boy named Raymond Washington started the gang which eventually became known as the Crips. Furthermore, with all of the other young people without jobs and role models they pulled together and started another gang of people that were not a part of the Crips. This gang will also change names a couple of times and become the Bloods.
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.
August 2015, 907 murders, and average of 25 murders per day committed by 13-15 year old gang members. (Transnational Gangs Part 1;Understanding the Threat, 2016) El Salvador is the epicenter of gang activity in Central America and the largest influence on gang activity in the US. Showing no respect for law enforcement, borders, and little for human life gang violence is a requirement for young teens to become members of the La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, and the 18th Street gangs. Two years of initiation culminating in at least one murder are required to obtain membership in these gangs.
The fact that prison gangs are not visible to the public makes them seem unknown to the public eye, however the pose the same threats to the United States as all other gangs. Prison gangs are also often written off and forgotten about by authorities due to fact that they are incarcerated. “Due to their seclusion from the public and their minimal visibility, prison gangs are difficult to target and are thus frequently overlooked as threat actors, which enables them to commit various crimes without detection while covertly impacting every level of law enforcement” (FBI 2013 National Gang Report). This oversight allows prison gangs to conduct even more criminal activity. Some of the most well-known prison gangs are the Aryan Brotherhood, Mexican Mafia and the Prison Brotherhood of Bikers (FBI 2013 National Gang Report). One of the most powerful and prevalent prison gangs is the Mexican Mafia due to their influence on local street gangs by taxing all their illegal sales and ordering Surenos type gangs to help accelerate their cause by collecting gang ordered taxes, assaults, and murders (FBI 2013 National Gang Report). Many members of the Sureno gang could be controlled by comparatively few Mexican Mafia members. In exchange for working as the Mexican Mafia’s foot soldiers, they received protection should they ever become incarcerated.
I argue that the police ultimately led Rodriguez and many others to join a gang. The racism faced by Mexicans from the police drove people to be involved in gangs and promoted the idea that racism towards Mexicans was acceptable. I also argue that education provided Rodriguez with a path to a new life away from gangs. I argue the prospect of power and protection made gangs appealing to those feeling like they had no other way to survive the barrios and gang activity that surrounded them.
Gangs have been a part of American culture in the United States since the early 19th century when immigrant youth organized themselves into street gangs as a means of urban and economic survival. Today, gang violence has reached an almost catastrophic level in the United States. Criminal street gangs have become one of the most serious crime problems in California. Gang violence accounts for one of the largest personal threats to public safety for nearly all the cities in this state. Salinas, California is a relatively small Central Coast agricultural town with a population of just over 150,000. The City of Salinas has been dealing with gang and youth violence for over 50 years. Salinas ' gang homicide victims are among the youngest in the state. Over the past few years, youth gang involvement in Salinas has reached a critical level and gang-related homicides are at an all-time high. Youth gang violence is a social problem that not only affects the individual, but the community as a whole.
First, people are leaving because of bad living conditions. Gang violence is one of the many reasons why children are leaving. In the blue article, paragraph 3 quoting from the article, “we hid in destroyed buildings.” Gang violence must be so bad that people have to leave their homes to get away from gangs. They could also be leaving their countries because of other people could be trying to hurt them of their families. In the red article, paragraph 7 people are having to find a way to protect their family by leaving their house. The living conditions are also bad because they are not getting a good education. In the pink article paragraph 23 ‘I only completed second grade, it makes
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.
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.
Imagine if there were no more gangs roaming the streets. There would be less violence and less reasons for mothers to be worried. This may sound impossible, but this can be reality if we take the proper steps in fixing the problem. We have to focus on the starting point of gangs, we have to find out why people join gangs in the first place. We need to focus on the young people and providing them more opportunities to better themselves instead of lowering themselves. If we pay attention to the youth, that will bring us one big step closer to our goal of ending all gangs, but it's not that easy.