Gangs And Crime

Martha Alvarado
Soc 368
Prof: Aguilera

The two article chosen for this assignment were Gangs and Social Change by Martin Sanchez-Jankowski and The Economic of Crime by Gary S. Becker. Furthermore, after reading the article by Jankowski I learned that many researchers had trouble defining or being able to distinguish gang related associations to groups or individuals that were not in a “gang.” Many individuals have the belief that a a gang is having two or more individuals in a group. If the group exceeds to two or more people, than supposedly that would be considered a gang. Now, the reason as to why researchers had a tough time distinguishing gang activities were because in the 18th century many gangs were associated with the lower class.
I was in the “money-producing” stage like the text mentions. I did not care on how I was making money at the time, all I cared about was making money; legally or illegally. In a way, I was part of “defiant individualism” as well. According to Jankowski “Defiant individualism leads people to become involved with money-producing economic activities whether legal or not”. (135) In addition, the author was able to conclude that certain individuals in gangs or groups are not automatically seen as “bad”, they are rather seen as an organization composed by people who share the same values and beliefs; negative or positive. My group of friends shared the same values or beliefs of selling drugs; making money to support our individual needs. Also, the article was beneficial to the study of criminology because the author was able give a clear understanding as to why gangs participate in legal or illegal
Becker, he basically states that crime has it’s cost in the end and monetary benefits as well as non-monetary benefits. For example, the author mentioned “There are psychic, even, sick, thrills that criminals might get from assault and rape and other violent acts for which there are no monetary benefits.” (98). A personal example of this can be the previous example of my drug selling in high school. Although, the reason behind the selling of drugs started due to the fact that I needed money, at the end it resulted to making easy money fast. The selling of the drugs can actually be an example of both monetary and non-monetary because I started to sell drugs in order to make money and help my parents. Unfortunately, I lost my ways and forgot that the only reason why I selling drugs was to benefit my economic status. I got “caught up” in the moment once I realized that I making more money in one day, rather than two weeks. I was making more money than my friends who were on minimum wage. Since I realized that selling drugs was easy money and fast, all I was thinking about was the rush and excitement of almost getting caught. Towards the end, I did not care about the money, all I cared about was the