Essay On Why Teenagers Join Gangs

Peer pressure plays a particularly large role in everyone’s lives. The Encyclopedia illustrates a gang as “being an organized group of criminals or a group of children or youth from the same neighborhood, who gather together and who may or may not participate in criminal activities.” Gangs have existed since the seventeenth century, and to this day gang participation is on the rise. It is one of the nation 's fastest growing problems within recent history. Many people assume that the reason why minors join gangs is because they don’t have a family encouraging them to succeed. However, there are several factors as to why youngsters are joining gangs. For instance, many of them either wish for a family, join since it is a family tradition, intend to appear cool, or want easy money through violent means. Despite the fact that many teenagers fall into the peer pressure of joining a gang, there are other teenagers that decide not to.

Many times, adolescents feel like as if they have no choice; they see affiliating in a gang as a solution to all their problems. Teenagers seek becoming part of a family or look …show more content…
A crucial aspect is social class; many teenagers want to get out of their lower class. Where economic development is lacking, youngsters seek alternatives that will help them succeed economically. Minors desperately long to escape of poverty and they consider that the best way to do so is by selling drugs because they want fast ,easy money. Regardless of how much money selling drugs can bring to the table gang ,members come together to support each other as they struggle to deal with poverty and despair. Being identified as part of the lower class gives adolescents a sense of hopelessness. The idea of not being able to achieve their goals gets them frustrated ,so many of them tend to conform to the gang lifestyle. A gang is able to fill these voids and meet the needs that the parents do not or