More handpicked essays just for you.
Why young people join gangs
Sociological phenomological of gangs in america
Factors that influence gang membership
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
For many youths, gang life is all they know. Many gang members have other family members who are involved in gangs already. In Lauger’s (2012) ethnography of the DFW boyz, he found
A. Parents socialize their children knowingly, sometimes unknowingly through their negligence into the gang. B. The schools serve as a recruiting ground for the gang C. Through peer to peer interactions or bullying. The gang recruits new members through peers. D. The adults in the neighborhood educate the children about the gang E.
Utilizing research findings and realistic experiences, Shakur, Howell, and Griffiths disprove myths about gangs, justify the reasons for young people being recruited because of their desire to be understood by others similar to them, and girls integrating themselves into the groups from their relationships with members. Howell and Griffiths managed to explain the principles behind gangs and their members' lifestyles, while Shakur provided real gangster experiences as supporting evidence for the research findings. Theories to gangs may be existent, but without proper research leading to the findings, or experiences from subjects who lived the lifestyle, beliefs about the organizations merely become empty
Young people give various reasons for joining gangs. Among the most common reasons are: to belong to a group, protection, earn money, excitement, to be with friends, and it's even a family tradition"(Escondido Police Department). Amongst the various reasons that lead youth
The journal article speaks on history of being a gang member and what the families are like and how things go for them, just a lifestyle of a gang member. The
It is very rare for someone who had taken a firsthand experience in gang life to come up in the open and narrate these experiences to the public as well as the dangers which they go through. This is irrespective of the fact that the realism of gang life can be seen in news, movies or in the actual streets, reading about it and visualizing the scenes in one’s mind is like taking a firsthand experience in these
This study is the primary purpose of the book, and it consist of what towns were deliberated, how the gang unit controlled their gangs in each of their cities, and how this material was brought to their attention. This certain data was collected through field examination, conversations with members, and reading through documents. Chapter three goes on to talk about the “Historical Analysis of Gangs and Gang Control.” This part is essential to understanding each town’s past gang complications and how the police force responded to them around 1960 to 2000. The chapter is put into different subdivisions by city.
The first chapter of Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader For a Day gives a small glimpse of the everyday lives of African American street gang members. He describes in detail of their deplorable living conditions, as well as their immediate distrust of him. In some ways, his descriptions positively reinforce the conventional beliefs of gangs. Most people connotate gangs with crime - particularly "senseless" violence, drug dealing, and robbery. A lot of people are quick to judge, and rarely ask questions as to why gangs are so willing to participate in illegal, and often inhumane activities.
In the United States, every year there are around 2,000 gang-related homicides and in the realistic fiction novel, The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton, it explores the issues of gang violence, and teenagers in gangs. Around 40% of all members in gangs are teenagers, who are getting involved in some dangerous things very early in life. In the novel The Outsiders, the “Greasers” which is a gang of all teenagers, fight other gangs and commit serious crimes such as murder. We as a society need to pinpoint why teenagers join gangs and stop them beforehand. We also need to help people get out of gangs if they are already in one.
Finally, the underclass theory by Jeffrey Fagan and others has been widely used to explain the origins of gangs. In the urban area filled with poverty and deprivation, it is argued that gangs are a normal response to an abnormal setting such as exclusions from the labor markets (Bartollas & Miller,
Gang Violence Gang violence can be seen in a variety of settings with extreme violence typically as a rite of passage into a gang or retaliation (James & Gilliland, 2017). For example, in order for a potential gang member to enter a gang, they may have to partake in an initiation ceremony where they murder an individual. The effects of gang violence include community disorganization, homicide, and drug use. Gangs are typically formed in areas with weak social institutes and mechanisms for social control (Papachristos & Kirk, 2006).
In the 1990s, gang violence was on the rise, where it was dominantly founded in youths. Anderson, Dyson, and Lee (1996) argued that when a group of African American youths join together and commits delinquent acts and crime, they already categorized as gangs to the American public. This affect and many other affects is what creates an increase in gang violence. Those other factors are socioeconomic status, history, race, gendered, and geographic background. They play a huge role on the creation and formation of gangs.
This paper draws on existing sociological research in identifying a number of theories used in explaining the formation of gangs. The theories discussed are social structure theories, social conflict theory, and social process theories all of which highlight elements of strain in different forms as they relates to gang formation. According to Merton, (as cited in Schneider & Tilly, 2004) structural theories significantly emphasize the role of social and economic structures as the causes of delinquent behavior and tend to treat criminal behavior as the result of the undesirable and dysfunctional structures (P. 3.).
Gangs are believed to be a type of human conflict in sociology. Some believe that gangs are a problem because they have been around within society and therefore it is assumed to be a problem. However some think that it is manufactured paranoia that is created by people who want to assert fear and panic to profit from such as to agencies and special groups. Knowing that Gangs inflict problems in society makes society believe that gangs are the roots of all problem, therefore it is a social problem, however this is argued to be contradictory as people themselves can create the problem by pinning it on what society has already agreed to be unacceptable.
Most gangs are made up of young males that are of a similar background and have a desire of acquiring
