Street Gangs And Crime

Street gangs are social and criminal problems that affect the society. Street gangs are majorly composed of juvenile delinquents and youths in the community. Gang violence is thus an economic and social issue that affects the general public and business community. Street gangs are violent and are majorly found in big cities. They involve themselves in criminal activities such as vandalism, binge drinking, looting, homicide, theft, drugs and alcoholism, weapon trafficking, and kidnapping. Thus, gangs are a representation of cultural, economic and moral frontier of conflict and competition for scarce resources (National Gang Centre, 2015). Street gangs and crime can be explained through the use of different theories, including Chicago School,

The social changes were linked to the rapid increase population and migration effects, urbanisation, and industrialisation in the City of Chicago. The massive social changes culminated into issues relating to; housing, strain on social amenities, and poverty. The rapid social changes compelled sociologists to understand how the city was going to stay stable in spite of the rapid changes. The dramatic social change and the location of the city within American social life were used to develop the Chicago School. Bulmer (1984) contended that “The Chicago School was characterised by a commitment to empirical research on the city of Chicago, focusing upon its ethnic and racial intermixture, its social problems, its urban form and its logical communities” (p.12). Thus, the theory is based social problems related to rapid urbanisation, economic growth, influx to meet labour demands, and migration

Cesare Lombroso is famous proponent of this theory. The biological positivism was influenced by the scientific findings based on research conducted in the 18th and 19th centuries. Biological positivists’ theorists sought to understand how human behaviour was related to crime and criminal activities. Thus, a biological or genetic defect can be applied to provide a distinction between law abiding citizens criminals. According to Bohman (1987), biological positivism is based on the supposition that criminal behaviour results from chemical imbalance in abnormalities and brain. The primary finding was that the social element accompanied by biology could result into criminal activities if the father uses alcohol (Bohman, 1987). Cesare Lombroso (1935-1909) conducted a study to measure the correlation between physical abnormalities of person and the tendency to commit crime (Siegel, 2015). Lombroso pointed out that physical abnormality, including skull and jaw dimensions, and face and body asymmetries could be used to identify