Gangs
GangsGangs
Abi Jordan
Being that the closest that I have ever come to gangs or gangs violence is in television of movies, this topic intrigued me. What makes a person want to become part of something that is so violent and dangerous? Why would someone risk everything to put their lives on the line for people that are not even their blood relatives? As I read the material that I found in the library about gangs, I found out a lot about how this children's' though process works. They believe that the gang members are their family; to them it is not seen as the sinister organization of careless violence as it is to us "normal" Americans. To them the gang is their family.
Children are joining gangs at younger ages; our current juvenile justice system is no longer adequate for today's hardened young gang members. According to recent studies in demographics the problem is not going away. This problem if ignored is going to lead to the decay of our society.
In many of the articles that I read about gang violence they warned of the impending youth crime crisis. Youth violent crime has been rising dramatically for more than a decade. An upward surge in youthful perpetrators of violence is complemented by an unprecedented growth in youth living with little or no adult supervision. For decades mostly adults drove violent crime, with kids involved mostly in property crime. What has been changing is that juveniles are becoming much more involved in violent offenses, with the use of weapons.
Authorities describe the youth gang as a "violent and insidious new form of organized crime", heavily armed with sophisticated weapons, gangs are involved in drug trafficking, witness intimidation, extortion, and bloody territorial wars. In some cases they are traveling out of state to spread their violence and crime.
Gang members' range in age from 8 to 22 years old, but there are exceptions. Some gangs have members as old as 40. Trying to explain why children become part of a gang is something that has been a question for sometime....
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