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Keeping Our Teenagers off the Streets In Leesville, LA, many parents and governmental agencies are concerned with the question of how to keep teenagers of the streets, just like in many other small communities in LA. The thing is, in LA the presence of youth gangs is one of the most heated social problems. To keep teenagers off the streets actually means to keep teenagers out of the youth gangs. (Harmon 73) Within the scope of this research, we will first provide background information on gangs in LA, as well as gang structure and why teenagers join the gangs (after all, it is the primary reason to keep them off the streets). A couple of solutions will be proposed as for how to keep our youth off the streets, and the best solution will be identified. Literature and firsthand interviews with Los Angeles residents seem to point to three significant periods relevant to the development of the contemporary gangs that deteriorate life of our teenagers. The first period, which followed WWII and significant black migrations from the South, is when the first major black clubs formed.
After the Watts rebellion of 1965, the second period gave way to the civil rights period of Los Angeles where blacks, including those who where former club members who became politically active for the remainder of the 1960 s. (Byrne 96) By the early 1970 s street gangs began to reemerge. By 1972, the Crips were firmly established and the Bloods were beginning to organize. This period saw the rise of LAs newest gangs, which continued to grow during the 1970 s, and later formed in several other cities throughout the United States by the 1990 s. While gangs do not make up the largest or most active gang population in Los Angeles today, their influence on street gang culture nationally has been profound. The first major period of gangs in Los Angeles began in the late 1940 s and ended in 1965. There were gangs in Los Angeles prior to this period, but they were small in numbers; little is known about the activity of these groups.
Some of the groups that existed in Los Angeles in the late 1920 s and 1930 s were the Bodies, Good lows, Blogettes, Kelley's, and the Driver Brothers. Most of these groups were family oriented, and they referred to themselves as clubs. It was not until the late 1940 s that the first major clubs surfaced on the East side of Los Angeles near Jefferson High School in the Central Avenue area. Areas outside of the original black settlement of Los Angeles were neighborhoods covered by legally enforced, racially restrictive covenants or deed restrictions. This practice, adapted by white homeowners, was established in 1922 and was designed to maintain social and racial homogeneity of neighborhoods by denying non-whites access to property ownership. (Eagles 114) By the 1940 s, such exclusionary practices made much of Los Angeles off-limits to most minorities. This process contributed to increasing homogeneity of communities in Los Angeles, further exacerbating racial conflict between whites and blacks, as the latter existed in mostly segregated communities.
From 1940 to 1944, there was over a 100 percent increase in the black population of Los Angeles, and ethnic and racial paranoia began to develop among white residents. During the 1960 s, conflicts among the various gangs were growing and, as more white residents continued to move and the white clubs began to fade, the black clubs moved from interracial violence to interracial violence. The Gladiators, based at 54 th Street and Vermont Avenue, were the largest black club on the West side, and clashes between other black gangs were increasing as intra-racial violence between black club members was on the rise. By 1960 several clubs emerged on the West side and rivalry between East side and West side clubs developed, along with infighting among clubs organized on the same side of town. (Harmon 112) Even though more than 50 percent of the gangs active in Los Angeles were Hispanic, black gangs represented a significant proportion of gang incidents that were rapidly increasing in numbers. During this time, disputes among these were handled by hand-to-hand combat and by the use of weapons, such as tire irons and knives, but murders were rare. In 1960, the six gang-related murders that occurred in Los Angeles were considered an extremely high number.
At that point, black-on-black violence between the clubs was becoming a serious concern in Los Angeles. On the surface, the rivalry between East side and West side clubs was associated with altercations on the football field, disputes over girlfriends, and disagreements at parties, but most of their clashes were rooted in socioeconomic differences between the two. East side youths resented the upwardly mobile West side youths, because East side residents were viewed as economically inferior to those residents who lived on the West side. On the other hand, West side youths were considered less intimidating and lacking the skills to be street savvy and tough. In an effort to prove themselves equally tough, West side youths engaged in several confrontations with East side youths during the early 1960 s. According to Sergeant Warren Johnson, during the mid and late 1960 s, juvenile gang activity in black neighborhoods was scarcely visible to the public at large and of minimal concern to south-central residents (Eagles, p. 96).
It was the formation of these new movements that offered black youths a vehicle of positive identification and self-affirmation that occupied the time and energies that might have been spent in gang activity. A sense of cohesiveness began to form, along with self-worth and positive identification, as pride pervaded the black community. After the Rebellion in 1965, club members began to organize neighborhood political groups to monitor the LAPD and to document their treatment towards blacks. After the formation of several progressive groups in Los Angeles, local and federal law enforcement agencies began to target those groups that they viewed as a threat to society and the nation as a whole. The emerging black consciousness of the 1960 s, that fueled the political movement, was viewed as hostile.
The efforts of these political and militant groups to organize young blacks against police brutality were repressed by the FBI, because they specifically viewed the actions of the Panthers and other groups as subversive and a threat to the security of the nation. By 1967, the Panthers were one of the strongest black political groups in the nation, and by November 1968, J. Edgar Hoover dispatched a memorandum calling his field agents to exploit all avenues of creating... dissension within the ranks of the BPP (Harmon 172).
The attack on black political leadership in Los Angeles, and the power vacuum that remained, created a large void for young black youths in the late 1960 s that coincided with the resurgence of black gangs. A generation of black teens in Los Angeles saw their role models and leadership decimated in the late 1960 s. Raymond Washington, a 15 -year-old student at Fremont High School, started the first new street gang in 1969, shortly after much of the Panther power base was eliminated and as other social and political groups became ineffective in Los Angeles. Washington, who was too young to participate in the Panther movement during the 1960 s, absorbed much of the Panther rhetoric of community control of neighborhoods and fashioned his quasi-political organization after the Panthers militant style, sporting the popular black leather jackets of the time.
In addition to emulating the Panther appearance, Washington also admired an older gang that remained active throughout the 1960 s called the Avenues. He decided to name his new quasi-political organization the Baby Avenues, to represent a new generation of black youths. They were also known as the Avenue Cribs, and after a short time they were referred to as the Cribs, which was a comment on their youthfulness. Their initial intent was to continue the revolutionary ideology of the 1960 s and to act as community leaders and protectors of their local neighborhoods, but the revolutionary rhetoric did not endure. Because of immaturity and a lack of political leadership, Raymond Washington and his group were never able to develop an efficient political agenda for social change within the community. Gangs vary tremendously in numbers and in age range.
Relatively few young people join gangs, despite their high profile in the media. Even in highly impacted areas, the degree of participation rarely exceeds 10 percent. In addition, it has been reported that less than 2 percent of all juvenile crime is gang related (Snyder 89). Low statistics like the above, may camouflage the impact that the presence of gangs has on a school.
Gangs play a significant role in the widespread increase of violence in schools throughout North America. School violence has steadily increased since a 1978 National Institute of Education study, found that school-aged children were at a higher risk of suffering from violence in school than anywhere else (Baccaglini 48). Since gangs are organized groups, and are often actively involved in drug and weapons trafficking, their mere presence in school can increase tensions there. With the level of violence increasing in todays schools, both gang members and non-gang members are arming themselves with increased frequency. Students in school with a gang presence are twice as likely to report that they fear becoming victims of violence as their peers at schools without gangs. A 1992 report, stated, that schools with gangs are significantly more likely to have drugs available on campus than those without gangs (Baccaglini 80).
Nowadays, schools not only suffer from gang related violence coming in from the street, but are themselves rapidly becoming centers of gang activities, functioning particularly as sites for recruitment and socializing. Although many gang members acknowledge the importance of the educational objectives of school, it is much more important to them as a place of gathering with fellow gang members for socializing and other more violent activities. Even those gang members who had been suspended or had dropped out of school could be found on campus with their associates, effectively using school as a gang hangout rather than as an educational institute. Gangs can also spread unexpectedly from school to school as students transfer from gang-impacted schools to gang free schools, causing an unintentional spillover of gang activity in the new school (Rodriguez 94). Gangs are formed in school atmospheres for many key reasons. Their primary reason is that they often provide students with a sense of family and acceptance otherwise lacking in their lives.
The second primary reason is among groups of recent immigrants as a way of maintaining a strong ethnic identity. Understanding how gangs meet these students needs prepares schools to better respond to them. Four factors are primary in the formation of gangs: First, youth experience a sense of alienation and powerlessness because of a lack of traditional support structures, such as family and school. This can lead to feelings of frustration and anger, and a desire to obtain support outside of traditional institutions.
Second, gang membership gives youth a sense of belonging and becomes a major source of identity for its members. In turn, gang membership affords youth a sense of power and control, and gang activities become an outlet for their anger. Third, the control of turf is essential to the well being of the gang, which often will use force to control both its territory and members. Finally, recruitment of new members and expansion of territory are essential if a gang is to remain strong and powerful. Both willing and unwilling members are drawn into gangs to feed the need for more resources and gang members. (Curry 122) These four factors interact to produce gangs that become more powerful and ruthless as they work to maintain and expand their territory and membership. Despite the significant influence that gangs have upon violence and crime in schools, it is still considered a fallacy to state that schools are powerless to respond.
The reputations of gangs can sometimes force schools to react harshly with restrictive actions or to be so intimidated that they refrain from taking any action at all. What is needed is a strategy that mobilizes schools and communities to offer alternatives to gang membership. The schools strategy must be built upon the four factors of formation in gangs and find ways to address students feelings of powerlessness and low self-esteem. A strategy that understands these principles increases the probability that gangs will be less able to attract new members and retain old members (Goldstein 114). To better assess the strategies of community policing available to fight gangs spread, it would be helpful to get more knowledge on the nature of those gangs. The theory is that youth gangs first emerged following the Mexican migration into the American southwest following the Mexican Revolution in 1813.
Mexican youth encountered difficult social and cultural adjustment in America coupled with extremely poor living condition in the southwest. Their organization of gangs and the criminal activity that followed stemmed from a need for survival and support. Schools were few and inadequate and menial jobs as we know them today were non-existent (Goldstein 117). By the early to mid 1800 's gangs started to spread to the industrialized Northeast region of the United States. Gangs flourished in large urban cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia and particularly Chicago. Migration and population shifts within the United States reached peak levels during this time and the major cities were magnets for rural and immigrant families seeking employment opportunities.
Gang activity, level of violence and proliferation seem to be directly related to population shifts within American society. Cultural, societal and economic changes in the United States influence gang activity. In the United States, gang growth and it's highest activity has happened during four distinct periods in history: the late 1800 's, the 1920 's, the 1960 's and the 1990 's (). In the past youth gangs were largely influenced by the availability of exploitable sources of money. In the modern era youth gangs have been greatly affected by increased mobility, the use of deadlier weapons and the emergence of the drug culture.
Confrontations between rival gangs once involved fistfights together with the use of crude weapons such as chains, ...
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