Absolutely, Jessie, you are correct, gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha and the 18th Street Gang have developed into multifaceted and transnational problems. Furthermore, these gangs are highly dangerous to our society, both which originated in Los Angeles. It appears that they both are growing exponentially, with no appearance of slowing down. Moreover, the violence these gangs commit is horrendous. Both of these groups are associated with homicide, extortion, drug smuggling, robbery, auto theft, and human trafficking. While these are just two examples of terrible gangs in our society, so many more commit the same kinds of crimes all over America every day. It is sad; the world we live in is full of violence and criminality.…
The development of gangs over the many years of their existence has caused the growth of different gangs and gang members to all parts of the world. These developing gangs have created major attention and awareness to this culture of life that is becoming so common amongst our communities. There have been said to be around 30,000 or more gangs with at least 800,000 gang members in the United States, whom were fully active in 2007. In 2009, the statics showed 147,000 in the United States prison and detention (jail) facilities and 900,000 living within our communities around the United States. Gangs in America and around the world often bring our young kids into this violent life of guns, drugs, murder, burglary, and many more criminal activities and heinous crimes.…
There are three distinct types of gangs that might form in neighborhoods: criminal gangs, conflict gangs, and retreatist gangs. Criminal gangs exist in organized communities in which younger offenders can gain the necessary knowledge and skills to be successful criminals from older offenders. These gangs are likely to commit crimes such as drug dealing, commercial theft burglary, and other crimes with an economic motive. Conflict gangs don’t have the access to these illegitimate opportunity structures to obtain their goals. These gangs are highly disorganized; there are no adult criminal role models to tutor these youths. Most of the crime these gangs do is individualistic and unorganized. These people may do crazy acts of violence out of anger and frustration. Retreatist gangs may exist in neighborhoods that either do or do not have illegitimate opportunity structures, or they may not have access to those structures. These gangs sell small amounts of drugs. Criminal and Retreatist gangs sell drugs. Conflict and Retreatist gangs do poorly…
Into days gangs many gang members have renegade and follow no law or structure of the code that was laid down. gangs in the early 1970's we more goal and family orientated and protecting one another trying to limit the violence and were more about the almighty dollar before anything. The gangs that did not join People or Folks in the late 70s basically went through hell on the streets; they were surrounded on all sides by gangs that would team up to destroy them. Since Folk and People nation gangs consisted of mostly the biggest gangs in the city, gangs that were not Folk or People were being crushed by both sides in certain neighborhoods. starting early gang violence has been calming the lives of innocent people in cross fire and territory wars. it's sad to say that this is the way of life that the city of Chicago has learned to adapted to and live the life of barbarian human beings claiming the lives of hundreds of innocent people every year.…
Gangs have produced a culture of their own; surprisingly similar to many other groups in mainstream society. Religious, political, and special interest groups can all be compared to gangs and their ideology. Typically, groups are born through a shared idea or goal by similar individuals. Many ideas may be radical or may not follow the “norms” set by mainstream society. Conflicts between groups are neither rare nor uncommon because of the simple fact that not all ideas will be shared by everyone in society. In history, the basis of many wars has been mainly caused by religious differences. A similar comparison can be made between gangs and the other members of society. Different groups in society have different ways of achieving a variety of set goals such as money or status. Gangs do not have the same means of achieving wealth, happiness, respect or social status as mainstream society does. These ideas of innovation are a result of gang members rejecting socially accepted means but accepting the ends or set goals. Deviant behavior has developed in gangs because of their way of obtaining money and status. Mainstream society has set the example that a “successful” individual in life will conform to the idea that many years of education will lead to a career which will essentially provide a steady income. In theory, gangs resort to violence and criminal activity because of their rejection to socially accepted, mainstream goals. For example, as the unemployment rate increases, research has found that property crime increases as well. Gang members, as mentioned by Bobrowski’s studies, contribute mostly to Part II offenses such as property crime. In addition, Reiner mention’s that one of the three realities of life that drive gang crime is unemployment. With this evidence we can conclude that there is a positive correlation between gang crime and mainstream…
Gang-related crimes are one of the most discussed issues in criminal justice system. The root of gang violence could to be traced to as early as the 1900s. In the film, Crips and Bloods: Made in America, African Americans were being oppressed under the Jim Crow Law, which allowed for the legal segregation of Blacks and Whites. By forcing Blacks into their neighborhoods, the LAPD’s actions resulted in segregation, alienation and development of self-hatred (Peralta, 2008). At first, many activist groups were formed such as the Black Panther, though they never considered themselves as a gang but as a club (Peralta, 2008). Eventually, the groups were terminated and then African Americans found themselves helpless which lead to the formation of street gangs. Crips and Bloods are the biggest well-known gangs: it was formed due to racism (Peralta, 2008). “The Punitive propensity in the U.S. gang policies all too often ignores the context of offending and…
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.…
After investigating adolescents’ gang involvement, I come to recognize that adolescents’ gang involvement has become a major societal concern. Adolescent affiliation with gangs and delinquent behavior numbers has soared as of recently and may continue to due to numerous societal issues. In the article “The Origins of Black Crime,” author, William Cross, agrees when he states, “black delinquency rate steadily increased between 1920 till 1940, with greater crime involvement in the more run-down sections of the black community, where broken black families resided” (Cross, 2003, pg 7). Societal issues that range from poverty, lack of proper education and poor schools, unbalanced family structures, abuse, neglect,…
When a gang becomes a genuine gang it is at this time when they become a great concern as a threat to society. The formation, expansion and the consequent actions of gangs greatly affect society. It has been consistently found that gangs are normally linked to serious crimes and violence (Decker, Melde & Pyrooz, 2013). As these gangs become constant and stable fixtures in their community they become a permanent option for marginalized…
These crimes often lead to prison time. For the outsider, the high likelihood of being incarcerated seems like enough of a negative element of gang life to deter people from joining, but the reality is contrary to that assumption. A possible explanation is that crime and incarceration may be seen as a normal part of life. Just as a child who's farther goes to work every day would see going to work as being normal, so too would a child see crime and prison as normal whom grew up in a society where people went to prison everyday. Society outside of gang life may be perceived as predatory by gang members and the gang itself might be perceived as having the moral high ground. Incarceration doesn't appear to be a strong deterrent in the decision to join a gang. The perception of some must be that with or without gangs, incarceration is an inevitable possibility, and may even be seen as a badge of honor. Under this logic, gangs could provide a conduit for social justice from the perspective of the disadvantaged. Through organized crime efforts, the individual gang member gets to lash out at what they may believe to be an inequitable society — giving them a powerful platform as to inflict more damage…
Juvenile delinquency is no different from adult delinquency. It is a blatant and often persistent disregard for law and order, for moral and ethical standards and for the rights of others. Gang membership among juveniles is on the rise. And even these juveniles are dangerous. Gangs, according to police experts are much like the better known crime families, usually the leaders do not participate in criminal…
Crime is a word that most of the people can relate to, according to Collins dictionary it means; violation of the law. (Collins 2005) Deviance is a more difficult word to identify , Collins dictionary definition is; people who have diverged from usual or accepted standards of society, especially in social or sexual behaviour. Su Epstein (2005) who has a PhD , describes deviance in cultural societies as; there are no laws about norms, no norm police, but there is social expectation that we'll follow norms and if we do not we are deemed deviant, a rule breaker or a norm violator.(Epstein 2005) Sociologists have many theories on crime and deviance, the two theories that I will be evaluating are Functionalism and Labelling Theory, I shall be looking at how the theories relate to today's society compared with their origination in the mid 20th Century.…
In this journal entry, I will talk about a music video that has displayed exploitative treatment of women, glorification of juvenile violence, and glamorization of delinquent acts. As each decade passes, music videos have been subject to more violence, drug-related scenes, and exploitation of women. The video, Tip Drill, by Nelly displays money being thrown at women, bottles of liquor being poured on women, and women with barely anything on shaking their bodies and rubbing themselves against other women. The musicians are seen smoking and displaying gang signs. Also, the most disturbing scene was a scene where the rapper Nelly takes a credit card and swipes the rear end of a woman that is half naked. There are many more videos that display this type of deviance throughout the world.…
in gangs will pressure peers into becoming part of a gang by making it all sound…
Crime could be reduced if people’s behaviour was controlled but this would stop society’s positive deviants (go against norms and values) moving society forward.…