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Back to Subjects - Social Issues

gangs

gangs Gangs in Today's Cities Gangs are a violent reality that people have to deal with in today'scities. What has made these groups come about? Why do kids feel that beingin a gang is both an acceptable and prestigious way to live? The long range answer to these questions can only be speculated upon, but in theshort term the answers are much easier to find. On the surface, gangs area direct result of human beings' personal wants and peer pressure. Todetermine how to effectively end gang violence we must find the way thatthese morals are given to the individual. Unfortunately, these can only behypothesized. However, by looking at the way humans are influenced insociety, I believe there is good evidence to point the blame at severalinstitutions. These include the forces of the media, the government,theatre, drugs and our economic system. On the surface, gangs are caused by peer pressure and greed. Manyteens in gangs will pressure peers into becoming part of a gang by makingit all sound glamorous. Money is also an crucial factor. A kid (a 6-10year old, who is not yet a member) is shown that s/he could make $200 to$400 for small part time gang jobs. Although these are important factorsthey are not strong enough to make kids do things that are strongly againsttheir morals. One of the ways that kids morals are bent so that gang violence becomesmore acceptable is the influence of television and movies. The averagechild spends more time at a TV than she/he spends in a classroom. Sincenobody can completely turn off their minds, kids must be learning somethingwhile watching the TV. Very few hours of television watched by childrenare educational, so other ideas are being absorbed during this period oftime. Many shows on television today are extremely violent and are oftenshown this from a gang's perspective. A normal adult can see that this isshowing how foully that gangs are living. However, to a child thisportrays a violent gang existance as acceptable. 'The Ends Justifies theMeans' mentality is also taught through many shows where the "goody guy"captures the "bad guy" through violence and is then being commended. Ayoung child sees this a perfectly acceptable because he knows that the "badguy" was wrong but has no idea of what acceptable apprehension techniquesare. Gore in television also takes a big part in influencing young minds.Children see gory scenes and are fascinated by these things that they havenot seen before. Older viewers see gore and are not concerned with theblood but rather with the pain the victim must feel. A younger minddoesn't make this connection. Thus a gore fascination is formed, and hasbeen seen in several of my peers. Unfortunately kids raised with this sortof television end up growing up with a stronger propensity to becoming aviolent gang member or 'violent- acceptant' person. "Gangs bring the delinquent norms of society into intimate contactwith the individual."1, (Marshall B Clinard, 1963). So, as you can see ifTV leads a child to believe that violence is the norm this will manifest itself in the actions of the child quite, often in a gang situation. Thisis especially the case when parents don't spend a lot of time with theirkids at the TV explaining what is right and what is wrong. Quite oftennewer books and some types of music will enforce this type of thought andideas. Once this mentality is installed in youngsters they become increasinglyprone to being easily pushed into a gang situation by any problem at homeor elsewhere. For instance, in poor families with many children orupper-middle class families where parents are always working, the childrenwill often feel deprived of love. Parents can often feel that putting foodon the table is enough love. Children of these families may often go tothe 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 becausethe gang has effectively taken the place of the family. The new anti social structure of cities also effects the ease in whicha boy/girl can join a gang. " The formation of gangs in cities, and mostrecently in suburbs, is facilitated by the same lack of community amongparents. The parents do not know what their children are doing for tworeasons: First, much of the parents' lives is outside the local community,while the children's lives are lived almost totally within it. Second, ina fully developed community, the network of relations gives every parent,in a sense, a community of sentries who can keep him informed of hischild's activities. In modern living-places (city or suburban), where sucha network is attenuated, he no longer has such sentries."2, (Merton Nisbet,1971). In male gangs problems occur as each is the members tries to be themost manly. This often leads to all members participating in"one-up-manship". Quite often this will then lead to each member trying tocommit a bigger and more violent crime or simply more crimes than theothers. With all members participating in this sort of activity it makesfor a never ending unorganized violence spree (A sort of Clockwork Orangementality). In gangs with more intellegent members these feelings end up making each member want to be the star when the groups commit a crime.This makes the gang much more organized and improves the morale of memberswhich in turn makes them more dangerous and very hard for the police todeal with and catch (There is nothing harder to find and deal with thanorganized teens that are dedicated to the group). This sort of gang isusually common of middle or upper class people although it can happen ingangs in the projects and other low rent districts too. This "one-up-manship" is often the reason between rival gangs fighting.All gangs feel powerful and they want to be feared. To do this they try toestablish themselves as the only gang in a certain neighborhood. After afew gang fights hatred forms and gang murders and drive-by's begin to takeplace. When two gangs are at war it makes life very dangerous for citizens in the area. Less that 40% of drive-by's kill their intended victim yetover 60% do kill someone. This gang application is one of the many reasonsthat sexual sterotypes and pressure to conform to the same must be stopped. Lastly one of the great factors in joining a gang is for protection.Although from an objective point of view, we can see joining a gang bringsmore danger than it saves you from, this is not always the way it is seenby kids. In slums such as the Bronx or the very worst case, Compton,children will no doubt be beaten and robbed if they do not join a gang. Ofcourse they can probably get the same treatment from rivals when in a gang.The gang also provides some money for these children who quite often needto feed their families. The reason kids think that the gang will keep themsafe is from propoganda from the gangs. Gang members will say that no onewill get hurt and make a public show of revenge if a member is hurt orkilled. People in low rent areas are most often being repressed due to povertyand most importantly, race. This often results in an attitude that motivates the person to base his/her life on doing what the system thatoppresses them doesn't want. Although this accomplishes little it is a bigfactor in gang enrollment. So, as you have seen gangs are a product of the environment we havecreated for ourselves. Some of these factors include: oppression, the media, greed, violence and other gangs. There seems to be no way to endthe problem of gangs without totally restructuring the modern economy andvalue system. Since the chance of this happening is minimal, we must learnto cope with gangs and try to keep their following to a minimum.Unfortunately there is no real organized force to help fight gangs. Ofcourse the police are supposed to do this but this situation quite oftendeals with racial issues also and the police forces regularly display theirincreasing inability to deal fairly with these issues. What we need aremore people to form organizations like the "Guardian Angels" a gang-likegroup that makes life very tough for street gangs that are breaking laws.BibliographyMargot Webb, Coping with Street Gangs. Rosen Publishing Group,New York, 1990.William Foote Whyte, Street Corner Society. University ofChicago, Chicago, 1955.Peter Carroll, South-Central. Hoyte and Williams, L. A., 1987.1 Marshall B. Clinard, Sociology of Deviant Behavior. Universityof Wisconsin, Wisconsin, 1963, Page 179.2 Merton Nisbet, Contempory Social Problems. Harcourt, Brace &World, New York, 1971, Page 588._ Bibliography:

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