Gangs may be taking children off the street to save them from their home they want to leave behind, but they are a horrible influence for the young children to grow up around. The children are not in a safe environment for their own well being and the gangs will not help them be successful. Many people have different views on how they see gangs, with some being positive thoughts and some being negative. Either or, gangs are ruthless and not good to have around a society full of small children who only do what they are taught through the things they see around them. First off, many children who wind up in a gang are seeking for help out of the family they are coming from. Children growing up without their own family support would see the gang like their second family. Gangs notice this and this is a …show more content…
They take in the children and care for them while teaching them the influence of their future gang. The people in this gang treat the children with respect, so they will not want to go back to their families. Children feel like it is their last resort and have nowhere else to go and become hopeless then resulting in the gang as their so called family of trust. Knowing the con artist they are not just going to care for the children and get nothing in return. They are going to use the children they claim to help to do some of the little dirty work. It will start with selling a small amount of drugs to know they are trustworthy and won’t run home the first chance they are given. Then the small amount of drug selling will get them into trouble with the law and other gangs. The problem with other gangs is the fact they are not going to have a
Some people may not know that 75% percent of the children that join gangs, have been abused. This causes the child to think that they don’t have any love in the family and they feel like nobody cares about them. It is sad because if adults make the choice to have kids then they should respect them and treat them kindly, lovingly, and definitely not abuse them! Kids and babies sometimes get beat to death and don’t have time to escape. Gangs are family to some people and those kids join gangs because they want love and deserve love.
In the videos that we watched in class, the former gang members would talk about how they never had their father in their lives while growing up and that it was difficult to understand what was right from wrong. They would also talk about how they became involved in gangs because the gang members would provide the love that they did not receive from their family. As emphasized by Elijah, parent involvement in a kid’s life can help shift the role they take in the future and can make a positive impact in their lives. Important points that were made in the novel are similar to why individuals involve themselves in
In gangs, there are many jobs that must be done. The jobs in the gang can be done by any ages, such as adolescents, young adults, or even children. The children that work in gangs can be so young that they are still in elementary school (AACAP). The kids do easy and dangerous jobs that would not bring any attention to them. For instance, being a lookout for cops on the corner would most likely be a job a child does. These jobs put them in harm's way. They could be arrested, or they could be killed by another member of rival gangs. children are small in size and do not look threatening, which in turn keeps them out of the police sites. This also makes them a good asset on a team since they can get away with more than an adult can. Having children in gangs is a big issue, even today and the book The Other Wes Moore shows an insight of how children in gangs work and how they act to each other.
For the children of the projects, the pressure to join a gang never waivers. Quick cash and protection are hard forces to resist in a world of poverty and violence. However, the children's role in these gangs is inferior to
Gangs come into existence and flourish because the needs of the young people in a neighborhood or culture or family are not being met. The gang, in essence, fills the void, there are several gangs in the south, west and east sides of Chicago, with gang wars over territories that become disastrous. The gangs known in Chicago are the Latin Kings, Maniac Latin Disciples, King Cobras, Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords, Black Disciples, but there are up to hundred or more street/folk gangs in the different neighborhoods of the sides of Chicago. Many consist of young children that may have dropped out of school or have family members affiliated with gangs, they are easier to persuade and control, they are more likely to search for somewhere where they could feel needed or apart of something, and that’s how gangs grow and recruit new
People seem to struggle to understand the concept of gangs. There are a lot of strange factors that go into the makeup of gangs. Yes, there are no positive aspects of gangs, but those negative aspects have reasons as to why they are so negative. It is the people who join, that make gangs so threatening. Men and women who join are trying to get away or rebel from someone or something. They may feel that joining a gang will give them the security of a “family”. Those who join are so broken that they try to put the pieces together when joining a gang. This has been the case throughout U.S.
The last argument that relates to gang involvement is poverty. Poverty is an important factor to child rearing methods. Poverty in absolute terms of low income describes a range of key human attributes associated with poverty. This includes poor general health due to exposure to greater personal and environmental health risk. Poverty can also relate to education since they have no access to education and are often illiterate due to that. Youth in poverty must devote all of their resources to meeting basic needs for survival. For this fact, living in poverty compromises one’s ability to a decent life and any hopes of reaching self-actualization. To illustrate, youth who are raised in poverty would see others who are the same age with materialistic
Their sense of right and wrong goes against what society believes is right and wrong, this is what strengthens the gang members to seek refuge within that gang society.
Gangs have direct effects on a society, such as increased levels of crime, violence and murder. Gangs also have long-term or late suggestions in that gang members are more likely to drop out of high school, struggle with unemployment, abuse drugs and alcohol or in end up in jail. These factors not only contribute to the gang members, but they also force taxpayers to pay for welfare and community-assistance programs. Common reasons for the younger generation to join gangs, include trying to find a place where they belong and sharing in mutual desires for safety from family problems or life challenges. Together, the feelings and attitudes among gang members haze them to act violently, often self-contradictory with rival gangs. This violence leads to injury and death of not only members but also of bystanders in the community. High gang activity also causes fear among community members, discourages business activity and obstructs home-value appreciation. Communities, also must pay for higher levels of law enforcement when gangs are prominent.
Imagine if there were no more gangs roaming the streets. There would be less violence and less reasons for mothers to be worried. This may sound impossible, but this can be reality if we take the proper steps in fixing the problem. We have to focus on the starting point of gangs, we have to find out why people join gangs in the first place. We need to focus on the young people and providing them more opportunities to better themselves instead of lowering themselves. If we pay attention to the youth, that will bring us one big step closer to our goal of ending all gangs, but it's not that easy.
Initially gang activity could only be found in large metropolitan cities, but now gangs have invaded neighborhoods of all sizes across the country. Gangs introduce violence and fear to the communities they occupy, raise the level of drug activities, and destroy businesses and property which brings down the overall value of the whole area. Instead of going to school, many young people find themselves drawn in to the gang life which in most cases either leads to being locked up or death. There are various reasons why people would want to join a gang, but no matter what that reason might be one can only expect a life of violence and troubles.
Power seekers are also drawn to gang life, which tend to commit crimes that victimize others. One ex-gang member, Lupita explains that she “liked belonging to a gang because people recognized her power and they respected her” (Bazan, Harris, and Lorentzen 380). Gang members use deceptive tactics to prey on the youth by promising protection, acceptance, power, and material wealth. Joining a gang seems to be the best option for disadvantaged youth because it gives them what they are longing for. However, this comes at a price.
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
Many times individuals turn to a gang to escape a life of poverty or financial uncertainty. A sense of hopelessness and desperation can result from being unable to provide the basic necessities. “Young people living in poverty may find it difficult to meet basic physical and psychological needs, which can lead to a lack of self-worth and pride” (Lee, Dean, and Parker 1). Individuals who are faced with a lack of money many times turn to crime if they cannot earn enough at a legitimate job to support themselves or their families. “This partly explains why gangs exist in poor, rundown areas of cities” (Grabianowski 1).
If the family associates love and respect for each other and themselves and engages in such act then it may deter them from trying to find it elsewhere. Juveniles engages in gang related activities because they lack the love and respect or living in abusive homes in which leads to troubled childhood delinquency. It encourages them to engage in gang to fulfill their emotional needs while at the same time vulnerable to the temptation of making money, the freedom and respect that comes with it.