Ms-13 Gang Analysis

During the film, we got to review the lifestyle of an MS-13 gang members. This is a highly organized street gang that works throughout the United States and central America, and noted more recently throughout the entire world. Many of the activities that these gang members participate in on a daily basis is considered to be deviant behavior. Some of these activities include drug dealing, drug smuggling, extortion, robbery, assault, bribery, rape, and murder just to name a few. All of these actions are to be considered deviant by the general public because they are violating the norms of our society. Some may ask, why is this group of people so deviant? The answer that I can come up with is that these are all part of their daily life. These …show more content…
The activities that the gang participates in are certainly different than the activities that population I share relationships with partake in. As stated before, the gang is involved in a lot of violence, drug dealing, drug smuggling, and other illegal activities. This lifestyle the gang has chosen to live defies many norms and laws of our society. These actions begin to help people formulate opinions about the gang and the life they live. In return, a stereotype is generally formulated to classify the gang, maybe even all gangs. Another thing that alters the view of gangs is that because of these stereotypes and assumptions, the gang begins to develop a stigma around their gang and what they do. This stigma alters our perception of a person, or a gang, before we actually know their full story. For example, people may hear of what this gang does and begins to solely blame it 's members for the life they lead. They may thing that it is all their choice whether to stay in the gang or not, when in reality you are killed if you leave. They may also think that every male in the gang is a rapist, just because they heard that is what they do. So once a stigma is around a group of people it is really hard to change simple minded people of these opinion, that in which they pass off as facts. Many of these gang members probably want no more than to feed themselves and their families, just like we do. The only difference is that we go about it the legal way, and …show more content…
Within the culture of MS-13 they hold similar cultural goals, but the institutionalized means are very different. The goals once again would be to gain wealth and establish some type of success. Now the means that the gang considers acceptable to achieve these goals are to rob, extort money, sell drugs, and murder for wealth. These are some completely different institutionalized means of gaining these goals. We as law abiding citizens take safe and well respected ways of obtaining our goals. In comparison, MS-13 commits crimes and does almost whatever it takes to achieve their goals. Although, these acts are considered deviant and criminal, the institutionalized means within this culture is to participate in these activities. So we may think that our culture is very different from the culture of MS-13, when in reality we share the same goals. The only difference is the ways in which we go about achieving these goals. If gang members are recruited at a very young age and they do not know any better, growing up in this culture is the norm for them. They may be young and vulnerable at such a young age and when someone promises them wealth and success, the goals everyone in society seems to want, the children jump at these opportunities. By the time they realize that this is not the life they want to live they have no choice, if the want to leave they will be murdered for leaving the gang. 331