The Influence of Youth Gangs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Influence of Youth Gangs - Essay ExampleOften, the blame is move on social and economic disadvantages, lack of parental involvement, or a failure of institutionalized sustainment such as the foster care system. Intervening in a childs pre-teen years could help compound the childs first inappropriate steps down the road to becoming a gang member. Yet, m whatsoever of the childs decisions to apply in extreme anti-social behavior have their foundation outside the childs upbringing, socio-economic status, or physical purlieu. The social environment of todays youth has left them vulnerable to the influence of gangs, and has helped shaped a class of youth incapable of find out right or wrong and incompetent to realistically weigh the outcome of their actions.Finding markers that could help sociologists, family courts, schools, and practice of law enforcement predict a childs propensity to engage in gang activity could help shoot to ahead of time intervention or create effectiv e anti-gang programs. To begin a discussion on gangs and gang social status it is helpful to clear up few of the more common misconceptions and myths that surround gangs. While gangs are ofttimes perceived as a modern problem brought on by the stress of growing up in todays world, they have been around since the beginning of mankind. The origin of gangs in America began as the new immigrants, approach with a harsh life in a new country, would die or abandon their children. The eighteenth century orphanages, predecessor to the foster care system, were set up to care for the expanding population of homeless children (Lewis). However, the children short discovered that they could look after one another as a means of existence. According to Lewis, Gangs were more often than not comprised of members of the same race and ethnic background, who banded together for protection, recreation and financial gain. This would inevitably lead to problems of delinquency and theft as the gangs be came more organized and cohesive. In essence, youth gangs in America were ab initio formed for the purpose of survival. Modern gangs can today be found in almost any medium sized American city, and have focused their criminal activity on the drug make out and violence. Gang membership has exploded in recent decades and Savelli reports that national membership topped one billion youths in 2001. In addition, gangs are spanning the country to cities such as Minneapolis where members are as young as 13 years old (Chanen and Collins A1). Their escalating numbers have also been accompanied by an escalation in the types and severity of their crimes. Firearms have become much more commonplace within the youth gang picture and a study by Ruddell and Decker revealed the following Regardless of the location of these respective studies, juvenile respondents generally told the researchers that they had some experience with firearms and that they were relatively easy to obtain. In addition, w hen juveniles were asked about their firearm of choice, they typically indicated a semiautomatic pistol of some description (50).This has led to more sophisticated organizations as rival gangs fight for drug soil and use violence as a means to settle their disputes. As an example, the US Department of rightness states that, The Black Gangster Disciples Nation (BGDN) exemplifies such an evolution from a relatively disorganized criminal road gang to a formal criminal organization