Example research essay topic: Growing Problem Of Street Gangs In Canada - 1,288 words

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It is a scenario of nightmarish quality. An unsuspecting innocent individual has taken a short cut to get home late at night and is confronted by a group of individuals on a back street. However, this is no ordinary group of young men and women. This group is what is commonly called a street gang. Usually associated with poorer urban areas of the United States, street gangs have made a huge impact in Canadian Cities. Known for criminal acts such as robbery, assault and even murder, street gangs in Canadian cities have become phenomenon with many varied definitions and potential causes.

In the pages to follow many theories for the presence Canadian street gangs will be discussed, and many systems and organizations that are trying to solve this growing problem will be looked at. Street gangs are a problem that have infiltrated the streets of Canadian cities and are wreaking havoc on our nation. Through the help and cooperation of the government, and citizen and interest groups, this problem can perhaps one day be driven from our streets. On October 24 th 2000, a news article headline read, Gang wars Leave 6 Dead.

However, this was not a U. S. newspaper, and these crimes did not occur south of the border. The article was in the Toronto Star and the crimes in question had taken place in North Etobicoke. The article contains sentences like Six victims in Six months and calculated executions.

It also contains terms like Bloods and Crips. These terms and sentences have officially crossed the border and have become all too familiar in major Canadian urban centers. In Metropolitan Toronto there are over 30 documented street gang organizations including gangs like The L. A. Boys, The Latin Locos, and the Parkside Crips. However, street gang presence is not only found in a city as large as Toronto.

In smaller areas like Brampton, Ontario, there are over 5 documented organizations, like the No Loves, The Crips, and the Punjabi Mafia. There are many theories as to why gangs begin and how they have flourished in Canadian cities. The most reasonable of the theories is that gangs stem from greater socio-economic factors present in many Canadian cities. Youths join gangs for reasons of security and belonging.

Many gang members come from families where these characteristics are not present, and so the youths must go outside their immediate family to find them. Furthermore, the glamorization of gangs portrayed by different sectors of the media, particularly the movie and music industry, give youths a false image of this life. In his essay Common characteristics of Gangs, Greg Etter Sr. labels gangs as New Urban Tribes that claim land, have their own internal organizations, make their own rules, conduct rites of passage, operate in the common interest, & identify themselves as a people separate from the rest of society. The characteristics and roots of the modern street gang mirror those of its predecessors. The same socio-economic factors that are the bedrock for modern gangs are the same reasons that the Italian mob began in the U.

S. and the predominant number of gangs in economically sub-standard areas of Los Angeles, like housing projects. In Toronto, observers have seen a rapid growth of gang activity in poorer areas of the city, such as the Regent park housing project and the Parkdale Housing project, both of which have been compared to the gang warfare-torn streets of Compton, California. Many theorists believe that the availability of dangerous weapons, namely firearms, are a critical reason for the emergence of street gangs and gang related violence in Canadian cities: While youth violence has always been a critical part of delinquency, the modern epidemic is marked by high rates of gun violence.

Urban adolescents possess & carry guns on a large scale; guns are often at the scene of youth violence & are often used. They play a central role in initiating, sustaining, & elevating the epidemic of youth violence. The demand for guns among youth was fueled by an "ecology of danger, " comprising street gangs, expanding drug markets with high intrinsic levels of violence, high rates of adult violence & fatalities, & cultural styles of gun possession & carrying. Guns became symbols of respect, power, identity, & manhood to a generation of youth, in addition to having strategic value for survival.

The relationship between guns & youth violence is complex. The effects of guns are mediated by structural factors that increase the youth demand for guns, the available supply, & culture & scripts that teach kids lethal ways to use guns. Of course, however, firearms play more of a role south of the border on account of the more relaxed gun control laws. Though, by observing the gang related violence in a city like Toronto, it is obvious that firearms are becoming more present on Canadian soil. One aspect of street gangs in Canadian cities, especially Montreal and Toronto, is the international implications of street gangs that have become ever more present in the past few years.

Specifically, recent studies have found that many ethnically Tamil street gangs have been funding the LTTE in Sri Lanka, which is in turn responsible for a great deal of large scale terrorism in that country. One of the most important implications of these findings is that street gangs are greatly underestimated in areas of organization. In a paper by Sudhir Alladi Ventakesh, the author outlines some points about the organization of street gangs and how they eventually move into more organized criminal activities: The process by which a street gang turned toward systematic involvement in drug economies is discussed as one of corporati zation, in which entrepreneurial gangs begin to differentiate themselves from those more interested in defending turf. However, it is argued that the particular process of gang corporati zation in this community cannot be reduced to its economic dimensions. Rather, the establishment of relations with tenant leaders, building empathy from residents, & participating in non delinquent social activities were instrumental in allowing a gang to maintain its economic superiority & control over drug distribution in the community. Thus, noneconomic motivations mix with economic ones in the push toward corporati zation.

These Tamil street gangs show that Canadian street gangs are not simply oriented around small-scale violence and protection, and that the agendas of these groups not only deal with domestic problems such as drugs and inner city violence, but international problems such as terrorism and ethnic conflict. In one Toronto Star interview with Rob Levine, a former Law professor who currently heads a youth center in Los Angeles, states that proper action now will prevent a large scale dilemma later on. He goes on to state that Toronto is a ripe market for gang activity and that it will continue to grow unless proper action is taken. In a recent Globe and Mail article, the columnist outlines a proposed legislation for tougher gang laws. The proposed bill states that leaders of gangs can face life sentences, the number of people needed to constitute a gang would drop from five to three, and that undercover police officers would have new rights that would allow them to break the law in order to further their investigations.

Although this legislation is geared more to stopping the rapid and dangerous growth of biker gangs, especially in Montreal, it can also be applied to street level gangs. A section of the bill that outlines this fact is the amendment to the current description of a gang being five or more people. There are many theories on the topic of stopping gang violence. Tougher youth offender laws would certainly deter street level violence.

Also, as Rob Levine states in the Toronto...

Research essay sample on Growing Problem Of Street Gangs In Canada