Introduction
The topic of this report is gangs, why people join them and the impacts. A gang can be described as an organized group of criminals, social scientists use the terminology most often when describing a group of juveniles. People who have previously been involved in criminal acts, and youth looking for protection or a sense of belonging are highly attracted to the idea of gangs. The reason for joining a gang varies depending on the person and where they live but all have common themes such as acceptance, new experiences and protection. After joining a gang the participates become involved in a great deal of criminal acts. Gangs are more likely to be formed in places with poor social conditions, people join gangs for psychological,
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Many things may result from joining a gang such as trouble with the law, physical and mental injury, drug and/or alcohol addiction and the fight of getting out. One of the biggest and most popular results of joining a gang is the amount of criminal activities a person becomes involved in. For some gang members it is not a drastic change in the amount of criminal activity they are involved in but for others they may commit their first crime when joining a gang. Gang members commit more criminal acts than the general population but, many gang members report considerable involvement in crime before joining gangs. That's where it becomes hard to tell if its an impact or just the way that the people with tendencies to join gangs act, are there higher rates of offending because of the gang or because people who join gangs are predisposed to crime? 18.7% of boys ages 14-17 in Montreal, and 15.1% in Toronto admitted to bringing a gun to school (Papadakis, 2017), weather they are in gangs or not is unknown, it could be the nurture of gangs or the nature of the person. The top crimes committed by gang members are aggravated assault, drug sales, robbery, theft, burglary and auto theft. Therefore joining a gang brings a whole lot of crimes and violence as well as life changing