Gang Culture Research Paper

Joshua Shipman

Gang Culture Continues To Grow

The article I chose to read was titled “The Gang Culture Continues to Grow”. This article explained aspects of the gang culture in America, and how it has grown over the years to be bigger and more violent then ever. Gangs have been around for centuries. The earliest recording of a gang was a gang named rebellious children, which was mentioned in 2 Kings 2:23-25 of the Bible. Gangs have continued to grow over the years, and now are present in almost every bigger sized city in America, and around the world. In the 1980’s, gangs were usually found only on the east and west coasts of America. Now, they are spreading in land to more rural areas to set up shop. This means more violence, more criminal activity, and more problems for the police and the surrounding communities with its law biting citizens. Very rarely will anything good come from gangs, so controlling them and prosecuting its members for crimes committed is a very important aspect of police forces of bigger cities.
Gangs not only exist in cities, but also in our prisons.
Gang members from within prison walls can still very easily get messages to its members on the street. These messages can include hits on rival gang members, robberies that need to take place to finance the gang, initiations for up and coming gang members, etc. Also, gangs within prisons cause much havoc for prison personnel and prisoners that are not affiliated with a specific gang. More importantly, rival gangs can cause riots and create blood shed between one another within the prison walls. Gangs continue to grow out of out control on the streets and in the prisons, and need to be regulated by the proper authorities, usually the police or correctional officers/personnel. For example, in 2002 the National Major Gang Task Force conducted a survey of prisons and possible gang activity, and came to the conclusion that there are approximately 1,625 gangs in American
prisons. I found this article to be very interesting, and a quite disturbing. The simple fact that is already obvious to most people is gangs are not good in any shape, form, or fashion. Gangs commit serious crimes in most cases. These crimes include murder, rape, armed robbery, assault, aggravated battery, and many others. Our streets and prisons today will never be able to operate safely as long as gangs and its members are around. The simple fact that there are more then likely 1,625 gangs or more just in our prisons today is a startling statistic. It would be very hard break up that number of gangs and have them never operate fully again. However, policing them more and bringing harder punishments for its members may deter future crimes and future boys/men from joining the gang. I picked this article mostly because I would like to be on a gang task force of some sort either in a prison or on the streets. I believe gangs are an enormous part of criminal activity today in prisons and on the streets. Since gang activity will probably never be able to be stopped completely, it at least needs to be managed properly and violent activity kept to minimum.