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Three sociological theories relating to gangs
Essays On Youth Gangs
Three sociological theories relating to gangs
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The language is different, yet means the same thing. They have codes that they use with their hands. They stay loyal to the gang or they die, they take care of their own. Every member is well taken care of within the group which is the misconception for some who join. Be in a gang and become a part of a family, a brotherhood, make more money than they would with an average job; for most immigrants in California jobs would be becoming a gardener, moving furniture around, manual labor at factories, etc.
They would usually get into many fights with other gangs because they disliked the people from the other gangs. These gangs didn’t really do violent things when they were first formed, but as the years passed by violence started becoming more common. They started murdering people, and doing drive-by shootings in their own communities. The age for people to join the gangs soon changed. The age was now 12
How were juvenile gangs formed in the 1920s? In the 1920s, Frederick Thrasher studied over 1,300 youth groups in Chicago and discovered that social, economic, and ecological factors in cities generate breaches in the usual fabric of society, allowing gangs to form. These organizations establish initially to meet needs such as play, enjoyment, and adventure, but if a confrontation with adult authority persists, the groups solidify and their activities become primarily criminal, leading to the formation of gangs. In places of high poverty and confrontation with adult authority, these groups solidify and become gangs.
Did you know, gangs can be organized based on race, territory, or money making activities, which are mainly made up of member ages, 8-22 ? In the book The Outsiders, written by S.E Hinton, is about, a boy, named Ponyboy, who is a member of a gang, they’re known as the, “Greasers.” The “Greasers,” are reckless and have disciplinary problems. They are also, rivals, with the the “Socs.” The “Socs,” are a vicious group of rich kids, who beat up the “Greasers,” for fun.
The 1960s and the growth of population within urban inner-city neighborhoods introduced the gang culture to society, typically representing the African American and Latino people. Individuals from all walks of life did not understand the motives of these unorganized groups of people, nonetheless, the hip hop culture saw the prominent influence of gang life. These gangs created a foundation for this culture by focusing on three elements called the “Three R’s”: reputation, respect, and retaliation. The reputation aspect of gang culture was not only important to the gang as a whole, but also the individual gang member. In order to obtain and maintain a reputation, dominance and power need to be shown during an initiation process, as well as defending
Why do gangs like the greasers, Socs, playboy and Ventures fight with each other? Some kids join gangs for protection and family and sometimes just for a fight. In the article called “ Rest in peace Doc” it’s about a boy named Doc also known as Desi. This boy had lost his family in an accident and him and his brother have the gang as a second family because the real family had left.
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.
There is a number of reasons that range from simple to complex, on why teenagers join gangs, and we can help by finding solutions to their specific problem before they choose to join one. To help someone get out of a gang, we as a society need to show there’s more out there in the world that they could do that will make a positive impact. Teenagers have different reasons to join gangs depending on their life situation. Everyone in the “Greasers” in The Outsiders had different reasons to be part of the gang. “We were used to seeing Johnny banged up-
What is a gang? A gang is a group of family members or friends. Society marks all gangs as criminals or bad people but not all gangs are bad. Back in 1967 there were gangs and most gangs were either greasers or socs and both were really bad but one gang was worse than the other. The gang that was more of a disgrace and menace was the socs.
Lastly, attitudes play a big part in gang representation too. These attitudes are intimidation, violence, and putting up hand signs or
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.
Gang Definition and Classification Classifying gangs is no simple task and to begin you must thoroughly understand the definition and requirements of being classified as a such. There are multiple definitions of a gang, according to The Modern Gang Reader but the one I will focus on is “A street gang is any durable street-oriented youth group whose involvement in illegal activity is part of its group identity.” Now that the definition has been identified it needs to be broken down further to clearly differentiate why this definition is essential.
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.).
The differences between youth gangs’ back then and modern youth gangs seen now are the members are not only better armed but also noticeably more violent and cruel. Youth gangs are taking over the streets and leaving their mark on communities. Gang members have instilled fear in society causing many people to be afraid to fight back when being targeted by gangs because they feel that it would be more dangerous to “test” the members. They feel that the only opinion they have in surviving is allowing the gang members to do as they please.
Most gangs are made up of young males that are of a similar background and have a desire of acquiring
