The Role Of Gang Violence In Memphis

Memphis is known on a global scale for being the home of Elvis Presley and the blues you can hear played in clubs along Beale Street. However, Memphis also has one of the highest poverty rates in the country, with 29.8 percent of the city’s population living in poverty (Charlier, 2015). Memphis based gangs such as Young Mob and Kingsgate Mob along with nationally known gangs like Crips, Bloods, and Latin Kings are just a sampling of the gangs you can find within the city (Goggans, 2014). The majority of gang related activity happens within the city limits in predominately black and poor communities, but you can see the gang presence in any area of the city (Googans, 2014). Families living in poverty sometimes are single parent homes, with one parent working more than one job just to put food on the …show more content…
When juveniles are seeking a sense of belonging and family that they might not have in their homes they sometimes reach out to gangs to feel like they are a part of a family (The, 1991). Gang activity almost always leads to crime. Crime in Memphis has seen a decline overall since 2006, however of those committing crimes in 2009, 54 percent of the offenders were juveniles with the majoring having connection to gang activity (Other youth topics, n.d.). In 2011, there were 147 murders in Memphis (“Memphis police explain increase in murder rate,” 2012). Of those, the suspect in 48 percent of those murders was under the age of 25, while 25 percent of the victims were also under the