Youth Gangs And Chicago, Illinois

In time, violent crimes were slowly being decreased in the United States, but it seems to be making some sort of a comeback when it comes to youth violence and violence affiliated with gangs. This topic has appeared to be a dominant target for educators,

In society today, there is a major problem We live in a society where gangs are taking over our neighborhoods in numbers. It is the responsibility of the individuals to part take in getting their neighborhoods back under control. Gangs are becoming a growing problem in American society. More young people are turning to gangs to solve problems in their lives or for acceptance. When youths join gangs, they drop all their social activities with school, family, and friends. However, individuals ruin their lives, and the chances of them having a decent education, and a successful life by getting involved in gang activity.

Gangs originated naturally during the adolescent years of a child. They started from small play groups that eventually found themselves in conflict with other small groups of youth. Due to the conflict between the two small groups of youth it became a part of a child’s mind set to come together as a gang and protect their rights and satisfy the needs that their environment and families couldn’t provide. There are about 24,500 gangs in the U.S and out of those gangs 40% of them are juveniles (Hess, Orthmann, Wright, 2013). There are numerous reason why a child would join a gang, and the

The correlation between gangs and drugs has always been an issue for the United States government. Major cities often overlooked the problem of youth gang violence, thinking it was only a 1960’s trend. Sixty years later, gangs and drugs continue to be a problem, but in an increasing number within urban, suburban and rural areas in the United States. People may characterize this problem with words such as violence, increase drug activity, and delinquencies, but not many seem to see the bigger picture. Lack of interaction, collaboration, and strategies from law enforcement, youth centers, businesses, churches, and political icons are increasing gang violence and drug related offenses in major cities. In such cities as Chicago, minority groups are the most vulnerable to joining a gang, which then leads to an involvement with drugs; they are faced with barriers – lack of family support, poverty, segregation, unemployment, etc. An incident that happened in Chicago history is the closing of the Cabrini-Green Project, where people involved with gangs had to find a new home, scattering gang-members throughout the city, and eventually leading to their spread and growth.

There is no definite term for the word “gang”. State and other local government organizations tend to create their own definition. The depiction of “street gang” is consistently intertwined with “youth gang”. However, the term “street gang” can mean two particular meanings that raise it’s face value. 1st, it proposes a common quality of gangs: They usually contain a street presence. Street socialization is a huge attribute of young gangs. 2nd, this expression also refers to “street crimes,” that is, violent and grave crimes (e.g., assaults, drive-by shootings, robberies, homicides) that happen on the streets and that frequently cause concern to citizens and policymakers. “More than 1 million young people in the U.S. (about two percent of youth) belong to a gang”("Study Finds 1 Million Juvenile Gang Members in U.S."). The ongoing activities of these infractions cause distress among the inhabitants within the community. Recently teenagers have been getting more and more involved. Questioning the future of the country. The majority portion of high-schoolers who attach to a gang do so at a young age, usually consisting between 11 and 15 years old. Well knit families are a huge protective factor in helping kids resist the urge of joining gangs. Youth join gangs for a vast amount reasons, including money, feeling of support and belonging, peer status, grasp a sense of protection, or portray an outlaw

Chicago has the biggest gang problem in the country (Thomas & Bass, 2009). “There are more gang members per citizen in Chicago than anywhere else in the country” (Thomas, 2009, para 4). The average Chicago gang leader is 43, convicted of murder and lives in the suburbs. That leader on many occasions directs his gang from jail (Main, 2006) and 95 percent of inmates in the Cook County Jail are gang members (Thomas, 2009). Gangs are everywhere today just like they use to be. The high number of gangs causes violence and deaths to rise in Chicago.

‘’Teen shot dead in gang wars’’, ‘’ two bystanders killed in gang shootout ‘’, these are familiar headlines at the front page of the local newspapers, aren’t they? Every day thousands of people are affected by gangs across the world. Women are left widowed, children are orphaned and parents are left childless. Let me put what most people are thinking ‘’ gangs are a threat to all of us no matter what sex, age or background we are from. They ruin the safety of a society as a whole, is a never-ending cycle which needs to be stopped and finally being a gang member most probably wrecks an individual’s life.

Gangs continue to be an issue throughout the United States especially street gangs. These gangs are meticulous and organized on how they do things, but also how they target youth. There are many suggestions and studies that show the differences in youth who are involved in gangs versus those who are not. It is stated that youth who come from broken or dysfunctional families, youth tend to fall into gangs. In addition, some of the youth gang affiliated families are more likely to also engage in deviant behavior( Maxson, 1998). It is evident that it some youth stay in the cycle of deviant behavior because it is a learned behavior. Comparisons made between gang youth and non gang youth show that non gang youth have a strong support system and the usual nuclear family. In addition, they have people guiding them, whereas youth involved in gangs unfortunately are disciplined or guided through the criminal justice system(Maxson, 1998). These findings are interesting because it introduces readers on many of the reason youth fall into gangs.

The Life course of Youth Gang Members paper presented us with results of a study that observed the life histories of gang associated youth in the Ottawa area. The paper analyzes the institutional supports that gang-involved youth required as they grew up. Furthermore it contemplates what might have aided to keep them from becoming gang involved. The Life Course of Youth Gang Members presents three general types of organized groups; first one being “youth gangs”, then “street gangs” and “organized crime groups”. The two types of gangs are of interest: youth gangs and street gangs. Street gangs typically consist of young adults (18 – 30). Street gangs are predominantly systematized to engage in criminal activity. In distinction, youth gangs consist

and influenced many parts of the U.S. The youth, being its main targets, become influenced and

Juveniles involved in gang violence is not a current revelation, it has been an issue in the past as well. Since the 1950s through the 1980s gangs have been a part of the community and as the years pass they continually get more dangerous than what they were before (Miller, 1992). When this was going the media went ballistic on how gangs began to “flower in the 1950s, died in the 1960s, revival in early 1970s, and dormancy in later 1970s,” but later in a survey it was revealed

Many families are left devastated from losing their children to gang related killings. For example, Javon Reilly, a student who went to Van Horn High School was walking home and was shot. Tymon Reed and Javon had an issue because one of Javon’s friends stole some marijuana. When Javon was walking home Tymon happened to drive past him and pulled out a gun on him, Javon tried to wrestle the gun out of his hand and that’s when he was shot. After getting shot Javon attempted to limp away but Tymon shot him multiple times after that. When authorities arrived his friends were giving him CPR. He was rushed to the hospital and that’s where he died. Too many teenagers are involved with gang related or drug related stuff and sometimes it costs them their life.

Although I consider myself to be a knowledgeable parent I was unaware that youth gangs and gang activity are up by 36% in metropolitan areas.(Merrin, Hong, & Espelage, 2015). It scares me to think that young men and women with depression problems, traumatic stress, and anti-social behavior are all at risk for being involved in gang activities. Even young children that use marijuana are more likely to join gangs than those who do not use the illegal drug. Often times individuals who are from low-income neighborhoods and harsher crime areas are more susceptible to gang activity. (Merrin, Hong, & Espelage, 2015)The research methods used in this article are from middle and high school participants from Dayne County Wisconsin. The participants took

Gang violence is one of the most significant aspects of why the youth is so violent these days. Young adults look at gangs as a new addition to their broken family. They are loyal to their affiliates and will do anything possible to ensure that a name for themselves such as murdering, stealing and drug trafficking. So of the most dangerous and popular gangs in American youth culture are MS 13, Bloods and the Crips. These three gangs are associated with over 40 percent of the street violence in America alone. Many you adults resort to join gangs because these communities lack the resources to educate them and most of the times communities are lacking the opportunities these young kids deserve. The latest generation also looks at the older gang members as being cool or having so much money. This leads to many young adults to follow in their footsteps. In order to break the cycle less fortunate communities need to step up and have a positive role model in these young adult

An increasing crime statistic in the United States is a lot of violence by young gangs. In this case, young gangs tend to kill other young people in a large percentage of incidents these juvenile killers belong to young gangs. Young gangs band together for various reasons and get into trouble with the law are certainly not new in America. Young gangs have been around since the early 1800’s it was formed young kids of low-income immigrants who felt that society held no place for them . The earliest gangs, which flourished in new England, New York, and Philadelphia. Today’s youth gangs are composed by young Latinos of African Americans, but their problems are the same poorly educated, poorly trained without resources, they band together for