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Sociology of street gangs
Factors that influence gang membership
Sociology of street gangs
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Most of the gang members come from a poor and unstable upbringing. Many of the youth who are a part of the Crips have dropped out of high school and are
I believe gangs are rising because people want to have protection while being in jail because they know that someone is watching their back, and if they don’t join a gang, their likelihood of being a victim is going to increase. It is also difficult to leave a gang after you join because it usually ends violently when you are trying to leave, even death can be an outcome of this. Even when you leave jail, you are still considered to be part of the gang and recruit more people on the outside to commit more crimes. This can include dealing drugs, all the way to assassinating someone. There are so many gangs out there, the worse the crime, the easier it is to join a gang.
In the article “Gang Membership and Drug Involvement“ by Beth Bjerregaard, when we hear about gangs we think of murders and drug dealers but are gangs involved in more stuff than we think. Gangs are more likely to sell drugs than non gang members. Gang relationships are very complicated and many members have violent behaviors . Gang memberships and their drug use. Many gangs sold drugs likes heroin, cocaine and marijuana.
Since the beginning of time there have always been clicks and groups that were made up of people who had the same goals in mind or same interests. However, nowadays gangs consist mostly of people who commit the same type of crimes together that involve drug charges or murders. Gangs noticeably started getting their “bad image” beginning with a man named Al Capone. The rebellion started with the prohibition era. Al Capone was the most powerful gangster in Chicago during this era.
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.
“Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean,” -Romeo & Juliet. We all know the classic story- fighting, love, death. But how does such an old story relate to our society today? In what ways? The first thing that stands out to audiences in Shakespeare's story is the immense fighting that takes place between the two families.
My research paper is about gangs all across America and why they were created. Were gangs created for protection or were they created to be threats to society? (Is this two questions?) When doing my research I found that the Crips were the first gang that was created in the 1970's for protection from other gangs, but others believe that they formed a political group in 1969 that turned into a street gang over time.
Have Gangs Changed for the Better or Worse Over the Past One Hundred Years? Chicago gangs in the 1920s were notorious for prostitution, committing robberies, drug usage, and for selling alcohol during prohibition. However, they never had as much violence as the gangs in Chicago now. Al Capone was the top crime lord of the 1920s; he was never convicted for any of the crimes he did, and ended up going to jail for tax fraud. Even though Capone and other gangs did still kill, it was only rival gang members and was not nearly as often.
Secondly, today’s society is full of gangs and some of the members are born into that life and do not know any better, similar to the main character in the outsiders. “One of the worst effects of gang membership is the exposure” (Gangs and Children). Most people are either born into the gang lifestyle or have joined because they have nowhere else to turn to. Being in a gang provides people with that sense of family and
Also ”gangs offer protection and governance in places where established institutions fail, and that it makes sense for prisoners to join them,” (Skarbek). This is the main reason people join gangs they are forced to in order to insure their safety. The reason the leaders of the gang allow people to join and keep the safe is explained here ”Gangs can trade far more effectively than lone inmates. Prisoners listen when they threaten violence; members can ease trade from the outside after their release. Consumers, in this case buyers of drugs, benefit too.
References Egley, A., & Howell, J. C. (2012). Highlights of the 2010 National Youth Gang Survey. Retrieved from: https://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/237542.pdf Sanders, R., & Moore, S. (n.d.). Mandatory Waiver for Juvenile Gang Members in Tennessee. Retrieved from: http://www.belmont.edu/burs/pdf/Social%20Work-%20Sanders%20and%20Moore.pdf Searles, K. (2017).
“The Gangs of Victorian London” How are the gangs of 19th century England similar to the gangs of today? Gangs during the 19th century were vicious and they did a whole lot of terrible things like murder and kidnapping and any other crime someone could think of. The gangs of Victorian England are very comparable to today’s gangs due to the crimes they commit and the hierarchy in the gangs, some gangs of England include the 40 Elephants, the Peaky Blinders, the High Rip gang and the Scuttlers. The Forty Elephants were different than other gangs and were great at making raid plans and had a queen who ultimately led to their demise.
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.
Weak family ties, single parent households, multiple transitions within a family, and poverty/financial stress are all potential influences for youths to join a gang (Howell & Egley, 2005). Family risk factors can also include parents refusing to give their children the proper education or lack of discipline at home (Howell & Egley, 2005). Family members that are in gangs can also influence their children to join a gang themselves (Herrenkohl et al. 2010; Lahey et al. 1999). Risk Factors Related to School. Thornberry et al.
Most gangs are made up of young males that are of a similar background and have a desire of acquiring