Gangs

Gangs are a violent reality that people have to deal with in today's cities and one I am quite happy I have no connection with. There is no specific formula used to calculate who or why people or children join gangs. Upon initial insight, gangs can be viewed as a direct result of an individuals personal wants and peer pressure. However, by looking at the way different individuals are influenced in society, there is evidence to support the cause of individuals joining gangs linked to several institutions. These include the forces of the media, the government, theatre, drugs and our economic system.

Gangs seem to be influenced mainly by peer pressure and greed. Many teens in gangs

will pressure peers into becoming part of a gang by only demonstrating positive points, not the negative. Money is also a crucial factor. A child can be shown at an early age that he/she could make $200 to $400 for small part time gang jobs. Although these are important factors they are not strong enough to turn most children against their morals.

One of the ways that kids morals are bent so that gang violence becomes more

acceptable is the influence of television and movies. The average child spends more time viewing television than receiving education. Very few hours of television watched by children are educational, so other ideas are being absorbed during this period of time. Many shows on television today are extremely violent and are often shown this from a gang's perspective. A normal adult can see that this is showing how foully that gangs are living. While much attention has been given to the association of street gangs with drugs, there has been little public discussion of the economics of this association. In the past, those street gangs that depended upon crime as a source of income were limited to the traditional methods of extortion, robbery and burglary as a means of providing that income. (1)

Once this mentality is installed in youngsters they become increasingly prone to

being easily pushed into a gang situation by any problem at home or elsewhere. For instance, in poor families with many children or upper-middle class families where parents are always working, the children will often feel deprived of love. Parents can often feel that putting food on the table is enough love. Children of these families may often go to the gang firstly out of boredom and to belong somewhere. As time goes on, a form of love or kinship develops between the gang members and the child. It is then that the bond between the kid and the gang is completed because the gang has effectively taken the place of the family.

The new anti-social structure of cities also effects the ease in which an individual can

join a gang. The formation of gangs in cities, and most recently in suburbs, is facilitated

by the same lack of community among parents. The parents do not know what their

children are doing for two reasons: First, much of the parents' lives is outside the local

community, while the children's lives are lived almost totally within it. Second, in a fully

developed community, the network of relations gives every parent, in a sense, a community of sentries who can keep him informed of his child's activities. In modern living-places (city or suburban), where such a network is attenuated, he no longer has such sentries.

In male gangs problems occur as each is the members tries to be the most manly.

This often leads to all members participating in "one-up-man ship". Quite often this will

then lead to each member trying to commit a bigger and more violent crime or simply more crimes than the others. With all members participating in this sort of activity it makes for a never ending unorganized violence spree. In gangs with more intelligent members these feelings end up making each member want to be the star when the groups commit a crime. (1&2)

This leads to gang organization being improved and improves the morale of members which in turn creates a hostile and hard to control environment for the police. All gangs have a feeling of power and strive to be feared. To do this they try to establish themselves as the only gang in a certain neighborhood. After a few gang fights, hatred forms and gang murders and drive-by's begin to take place. When two gangs are at war, this creates a very dangerous community for citizens in the area. Less than 40% of drive-by's kill their intended victim while 60% still lead to death.

People in low rent areas are most often being repressed due to poverty and most

importantly, race. This often results in an attitude that motivates the person to base

his/her life on doing what the system that oppresses them doesn't want, as an act of rebellion. Although this has little effect on the system, it is a big factor in gang enrollment.

Gangs are a product of factors lying within the environment. Some of these factors include: oppression, the media, greed, violence and other gangs. There seems to be no way to end the problem of gangs without totally restructuring the modern economy and value system. Since the chance of this happening is minimal, we must learn to cope with gangs and try to keep their following to a minimum. The following is a direct extraction from a website that I found very educational and helpful in my research(3)

The research presented on gang territories for the four different years shows a growing trend in both the number of gang territories and the spatial extent of these territories. Not only did gang territories expand from the original regions of Los Angeles and Compton, but territories were being formed in several communities outside this area in the periphery of the county. Black gangs developed first in the central area of Los Angeles during the early 1970s, then spread to the adjacent suburban areas by the late 1970s and early 1980s.

During the 1980s, black gangs appeared in peripheral suburban areas of the county. The increases in black gang territories from Los Angeles to suburban areas of Los Angeles County coincided with the out migration of blacks from Los Angeles County that increased in the late 1970s (Johnson and Roseman 1990:209). Migration patterns within Los Angeles County have, to some degree, influenced the spatial distribution and growth of gang territories within Los Angeles County. In nearly thirty years, gang territories spread