Youth Gangs Research Paper

The are about 2.3 million prisons in the united states (Prison Policy) and all of them have the same issues. There are 2,220,300 adults in the state and federal level of prisons( Bureau of Statistics).One of the major conflicts that prisons have aside from the rapes, diseases and drugs are gangs. The number one things that all 2.3 million prisons in the united states all have in common is gangs no matter what states you go to gangs are always a part of the community. Factors like drugs and rape can be monitored to make sure that these things don't happen.

Samantha Wallace English101 Will Gangs Ever End Throughout the world, dangerous street gangs have emerged as a major threat to community safety and now represent one of the most challenging criminal justice issues we face today. The United States government is much to blame for the popularity and escalating numbers of gangs in the United States. Gangs influence youth negatively and lead them into lives of crime. The government helps people in many situations but why not people who are associated with gangs in our neighborhood? If the government would help young youth with not affiliating with gang memberships crime and death rates would decrees tremendously in neighborhoods where people are forced to live with fear every time they walk outside their doors

The United States criminal justice system has many flaws. Some can be fixed, but others have left officials of the criminal justice system dumbfounded and searching for answers. Prison gangs seem to be one of the latter. While prison gangs were first recorded in the 1950’s, they did not become a massive problem until the 1970’s (Davis). Prison gangs have contributed to violence throughout nearly every prison in the country.

The following paper will discuss prison gangs. From early prison gangs and their effects on the community to present gangs and their effects on the community. It will discuss the types of crimes that are committed by these gangs. The ability for these gangs to reach out to their counterparts on the outside of prison walls is tremendous. These gangs in our prison system can still cause chaos in our communities and influence our youth population.

Abstract: This review studies in depth research done on street gangs. Social issues have social scientists turning away from including this in their research around this time. Sociological views have been changed dramatically in the past 40 years due to gender and racial studies. Also, women have started to join gangs since America has been changed with woman equality laws passing.

Many of the existing prison gangs began as street gangs that formed in the community,

The issue of gangs in the United States is one of massive proportions. According to the FBI's website, as of 2010 there are 33,000 violent street, motorcycle, and prison gangs in the U.S. with approximately 1.4 million total active members (Pastor). These gangs derive most of their revenue from the smuggling and distribution of illicit substances and weapons. Many of the gangs in the U.S. recruit members as young as 11 years old, such as the well known 18th Street Gang from L.A. ("18th Street Gang"). The fact that these gangs prey on inner-city youth who have nowhere else to turn is why they remain so powerful, seeing that for every gang member incarcerated the gangs can simply recruit another member. Due to these reasons I believe that gang activity is one of the largest social issues we face in the United States today.

Street gangs in this country can probably be traced back to the first wave of Europeans who migrated to the colonies for a better life for themselves and their families. Many of the first gangs were formed as a means of self protection, with the thinking that there is simply strength in numbers. The missions of gangs in today’s society have grown and emerged to include many violent criminal avenues, including drug trafficking, prostitution, money laundering, and extortion but the original thinking that there is strength in numbers remains true. Criminology experts believe that the number of teens involved in gangs or gang activity may be as high as 1 in every 5 people in most urban areas. Those number jump to 1 in every 3 people in

Youth gangs in North American society are nothing new. When we turn on the news we often hear stories of misguided youth contributing to yet another gang related crime. Even though it is known that youth crimes are overrepresented in the media today, the subject of youth gang activity is quite a predicament to our society. Over the last few years, there has been a moral panic created by constant exposure to the media which portrays a great amount of youth crimes and violence. In Canada there are large urban cities with high proportions of young people, many of which live in poverty, that now have the issue of dealing with youth gangs and youth crimes. Toronto, British Columbia, and Ottawa are examples of Canadian cities that have

Every city has its problems but for the majority of cities one of their problems is gangs. Everyone has a different stereotype of what they consider to be a gang which makes it difficult to have one set definition of what a gang is. One definition is “young people who spend time in groups of three or more, spend a lot of time in public places, existed for three months or more, engage in delinquent or criminal behavior together in the last 12 months, and has at least one structural feature such as a name or a leader” (Young, Fitzgibbon, and Silverstone, no date). There have been multiple theories that have supported and opposed these arguments on why people join gangs and the risk factors. People join gangs for all sorts of reasons such as a sense of belonging, traditions, coping, money, and protection.

States in 2004” this just supports the statement that it is a huge problem in the United States (Cooper, 2009, p. 1). Unfortunately, the Youth of America and these other countries have been a large demographic of these gangs for many years due to many contributing factors. One criminal factor that initiates gang violence are the overwhelming presence of adolescents and young adults involved with gangs, Celinda Franco states that not only youth participants but whole “youth gangs” have been on the radar for policy makers since the early 1900’s (Cooper, 2009, p. 2). Another factor is the nature of the remorseless and often violent nature of these gang related offenses many gang members act as if they have no conscience and no values, and the fact that a large percentage are “easy to influence” youth doesn’t help the case that most commit gang crimes on a whim. Finally, the fact that most of these gang related offenses that the youth carries out are in poverty stricken neighborhoods that have very poor socioeconomic status, this it is a bad situation that is difficult to escape from because young adults and adolescents do not have the means to move outside this zone and may never attain this goal (Cooper, 2009, p. 3).

Gangs are very dangerous to everyone in society. “Gangs are groups of people (mostly young males) who band together for protection and a sense of belonging. The U.S. Department of Justice officially defines a youth gang as a group of young people involved in criminal activity” (Gangs 1). There are about one million gang members in more than 20,00 criminally active gangs in the United States. Also, that group of about one million people, are accountable for up to eighty percent of our nation’s crimes. Since 2005, gangs have nationally added about 200,000 members (Targeting Gangs 1). This is why more action from the community needs to be taken to help with the growing gang-related crimes here in America.

The term gang can be associated with a number of different things but, for this paper, the term gangs will be in reference to youth gangs; “youth gangs are considered to consist of adolescents and young adults from the ages of 12 to 24” (Decker and Howell, 1999, p.1). Gangs have been a “normal” part of United States culture for centuries now, a sad but also, very true statement. What started out as a group of friends wearing their favorite color and protecting their neighborhood from crime has turned into a problem of epic proportion across the United States of America. In earlier years gangs were only a problem for poor communities within the big cities. But during this day and age,

Gangs are becoming prevalent in today’s society and within our schools. More and more young people are turning to gangs in an attempt to escape their everyday lives and the future, which they perceive as dismal and bleak. They are initially attracted to the prestige and cash flow, which is glamorized by the street gang. Many gangs are actively involved in criminal misconduct, such as drug and gun trafficking, burglaries and homicides. However, street gangs are not just a criminal justice issue, but a social problem, which is triggered by poverty, peer pressure, boredom, despair and lacking a sense of belonging.

Gang and youth violence has become a seemingly unfixable issue in countries around the globe. Zooming in on America, the U.S government has made efforts to keep gang violence under control through the try and failed method of mass imprisonment and also placing more policemen in affected neighborhoods to patrol the streets. Not only did the government help expand gang networks in prisons by using these tactics, but these “solutions” also made the youth living in harsh circumstances, such as poverty, feel the need to create a resistance identity to fight back against criminalization. Little did officers and police officials know that they were actually contributing to the institutionalization of gangs and making the violence worse. In essence, through years of attempts of trying to at least keep the situation under control, it has gotten worse. Now that it has become apparent that gang violence is not getting better, three authors have taken initiative to propose possible solutions. Is there even an effective solution to the youth and gang violence?