Gang Violence: A Case Study

Improved Essays
Today gangs are not a rare thing to spot, the colors they are wearing, the tattoos they may have and the community they reside in allow gang members to be easily recognizable. Even though gang activity has been decreasing compared to the 1990s American crack epidemic when there was an influx of crack cocaine use in major cities across America, which resulted in an increase in crime, violence and a backlash on tough on crime policies. Violence is still prevalent among inner city neighborhoods due to street gangs fighting for control of the territory. This has become a violent turf war between not only rival gangs but also community members caught in the cross fire of that mayhem. This rivalry is not only affecting the members in those gangs …show more content…
At an early age children are more vulnerable to being guided towards a deviant behavior if the influences around are unfavorable to society. This is a long-term solution, which in return will not only save the United States billions of dollars, but it will also reduce the number of violent crime victims. In a 2013 survey by the National Gang Intelligence center {NGIC 2005} it was estimated that ‘More than 51 percent of respondents reported high recidivism rates within their jurisdictions” (National Gang Intelligence Center2013, p.16). The high recidivism rate was due to the offenders having no other skills so upon their release. The offenders returned to their bad habits while being inclined to take leadership roles. The DOC does insist gang problems have slightly decreased since the early 2000’s but it is still a major problem in larger urban cities. Crime is now seen more prevalent among the minority communities that share common characteristic. Generally, individuals who live within these neighborhoods come from a low socioeconomic background with broken family ties and little education. A couple of examples from several studies would be “Chicago and Los Angeles, arguably the most gang-populated cities in the United States—over half of the combined nearly 1,000 homicides reported in 2004 were attributed to gangs” (NYGC1996; Howell, Egley and Major, 2003; Egley and Ritz, 2006). Gangs and crimes do not have a predetermined pattern or hours of operation. Gangs operate all day and night but are more active when it is dark. The typical implications of an offender in American society is being a young male of a minority class such as “African-American or Hispanic” (National Youth gang Survey 1999, para.4), with little to no prior education, and typically from a low-income family. The way gangs operate associate among

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Poor Parenting Leads Towards Children Joining Gangs While reading the novel, Always Running by Luis Rodriguez, I found a key reason why children are more prone to joining gangs than others. Luis Rodriguez writes how and why he joined at an early age and how that impacted who he became later on in life. In another article, Poor Parenting Causes Some Children to Join Gangs by Lewis Yablonsky, he states that children who were raised in dysfunctional homes, are more likely to participate in gang violence. From the moment we are placed into our mothers or fathers awaiting arms, we are influenced by everything and everyone around us. Even if we don’t recall the details as an infant, the actions and the feelings that surround us, form us into who…

    • 887 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    MS-13 Research Paper

    • 458 Words
    • 2 Pages

    According to Drugs, Society, and Criminal Justice, outlaw motorcycle gangs and street gangs have been credited as the two types of organized crime in America since the 1980's (Levinthal, 2012). However, both criminal organizations have various gangs that are identifiable by crimes they commit, how they are committed, and where they are committed, just as each gang has their friends and foes. " Gang members who sell drugs are significantly more violent than gang members who do not sell drugs and are more violent than drug sellers who do not belong to gangs", (Levinthal, 2012, p. 107).…

    • 458 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    School Gang Swot Analysis

    • 1644 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Strengths for Change Gang involvement is on the rise in most if not in every community, affecting socioeconomic status, ethnic composition, and population (GREAT). Despite a continuous increase with youth gang affiliations in underserved communities, there is still a scarcity of promising or effectual gang prevention and intervention programs offered by schools. One reason for the lack of programs has to do with the time and resource constraints that school administrators face. With limitations on resources school superintendents need to consider the “cost and benefits” of each possible intervention plan (GREAT). As a consequence to low intervention program, risk factors such as social disorganization, and poverty, low educational commitment…

    • 1644 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A serious problem that is going on in the United States is criminal street gangs. The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) defined gangs as “an association of three or more individuals, who members identify themselves by adopting a group identity with a purpose to engage in criminal activity by using force and/or intimidation and such crime are used to enhance or preserve the association’s power, reputation or economic resources” (National Gang Center, National Youth Gang Survey Analysis). The term “gang” is not a new concept as historians have traced this term back to the mid-1700s. However, gang violence has changed and evolved since the first recorded gang activity. Gang…

    • 203 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gangs are a violent reality that people have to deal with in today’s cities. Definitely not a new phenomenon, but yet a huge problem that needs to be addressed. Gang violence in Los Banos continues to rapidly increase, especially among youth, influencing negatively and leading to lives of crime. In 2014 statistics show Los Banos having ten active adult gangs, two youth gangs with a total of about five hundred seventy-five active gang members with numbers rapidly increasing (Inside Prison). 40 percent of which are juveniles (under18) (Arturo Hernandez).…

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The author explains that state policies have been ineffective in solving gang violence and organized crime by neglecting focus on structural issues that lead to gang involvement (243). People have left their homes to protest gang power and find safety; however, US courts have refused to grant…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    It is not only social factors or political factors that lead gang violence. Personal factors play an important part in gangs choosing violence and it is the most frequent cause of violence by gang members. Especially when it comes to seek revenge for perceived slights or previous disputes gangs use their utmost power and resources (Buchanan, 2014). A member can be attacked for belonging to a rival gang, living in the same neighborhood of a different gang, or to settle an old score between gang members or their families. Sometimes revenge leads to a series of crimes.…

    • 385 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Violence In Brooklyn

    • 1743 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In an article review by Brien et al. states that, “Given the close association between gang participation and violence, there is significant overlap between risk factors and developmental trajectories for involvement in violent and gang delinquency”. They create fear and violence within neighborhoods, transport in drugs, destroy property, involve youth in criminal acts, and drive out businesses. Gangs can attract teens away from school and home into a life of violence. One of the dangerous aspects of gang violence is its often unselective and…

    • 1743 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Several months had gone by, and we began to notice that individuals were belonging to different gangs who are now associating with each other. From the research that we had conducted, along with interviews of hundreds of gang members belong…

    • 756 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chicago Gang Rape

    • 1719 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Colin Holy 2/8/16 Mr. Hadden Freshman English A Dave Reichert stated in a speech to the U.S. Congress, “These groups are a funnel to criminal activities, allowing a central point to encourage violence and a family that preaches drug trafficking, murder, prostitution and rape. In fact, street gangs are the primary distributor of illegal drugs in the United States”. According to an FBI finding, gangs are responsible for 48% of violent crimes and up to 90% of all crimes. If gangs were taken off the street violent crimes would be lowered by half. Out of the 486 murders in Chicago there would be 243 more people alive.…

    • 1719 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gang Allowances

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In every state and city there is always those type of neighborhoods that we consider or label as bad and dangerous. But what makes these cities so dangerous? Is it the people that settle in the neighborhood that makes them dangerous or the way media portrays them with the violence and segregations of organizations such as gangs and the crime rates? We see this occurring all around the world marking gangs as the number one problem to the situation. As a result we see many laws emerging across the country that focus on the gang “social problem”.…

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Are civil gang injunctions an effective deterrent? Gangs have been in existence as long as Law has been, dating as far back as the 1500’s, when Shakespeare wrote about "gangs" of sailors. Then in the 1600 's- 1900 's with the Chinese triads, the Italian mafia, and the KKK. . (Gangs before thrasher) the glorification of Jesse James, and Capone kind of set the stage for the gangs of today. Poverty, lack of parental involvement, and the "need" to feel important, combined with the promises of money and popularity it’s easy to see how these young kids choose the gang route, and at an increasingly frightening rate.…

    • 901 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gang Recidivism

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The shift to a criminal justice system based on partnerships between law enforcement and the community from the previous idea of strict punishment and a lock-them-up attitude has only occurred in recent years. This means there has been ample time for few programs to be implemented to prevent gang member offending and to rehabilitate gang members. Due to the small number of programs that have been implemented in recent years, only a small amount of research has been done to see if these programs are effective. Furthermore, only a portion of this research conducted has been conclusive. One reason for the largely inconclusive research is the programs themselves are not uniform.…

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Gangs in the United States started to pop up in vast numbers during the civil rights movement in the 50’s and 60’s. In those days’ gangs were meant as more of a support system for the African American community than the disturbing drug dealing violence evoking entities that they are now. The question now becomes what led to such a change in philosophy in the African American gang community, the answer is simple it is institutional racism. Take Chicago, for example ever since the civil rights act of 1965 homicides are up to an all time high, this is caused by the high concentration of African Americans in what people call the ghetto’s and section eight housing developments, in those environments options for good clean work are slim due to the low amount of funding for schools and the according to the novelist Hakeem Muhammad “Chicago is divided between affluent whites on the north-side and impoverished blacks on the South-side “. This shows us that there is still segregation in the United States, although it is not blatant like during the Jim Crow era, this segregation has led to greater poverty and thus causing youth to run to gangs in order to make money, gain respect and stop the cycle of poverty.…

    • 1930 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    2015; Reiboldt 200; Young, Fitzgibbon, and Silvestone 2014). In fact, Reiboldt (2001) demonstrates that most findings concerning youth gang involvement establish more gang presence within poor urban communities. As well, research done by Young et al. (2014) demonstrates that one out of every ten youths who lives in poverty will join a gang, supporting that youth gang involvement is more common among youth living in poor neighbourhoods. Social disorganization theory explains that this occurs due to the disorganization and disadvantage within the transitional zone (Lilly et al. 2015).…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays