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GANGS Gangs are a violent reality that people have to deal within todays cities. What has made these groups come about? Why do kids feel that being in 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 the short termite answers are much easier to find. On the surface, gangs are a direct result of human beings personal wants and peer pressure. To determine how to effectively end gang violence we must find the way that these morals are given to the individual.
Unfortunately, these can only be hypothesized. However, booking at the way humans are influenced in society, I believe there is good evidence to point the blame at several institutions. These include the forces of the media, the government, theatre, drugs and our economic system. On the surface, gangs are caused by peer pressure agreed. Many teens in gangs will pressure peers into becoming part of a gang by making it all sound glamorous. Money is also crucial factor.
A kid (a 6 - 10 year old, who is not yet amber) is shown that s / he could make $ 200 to $ 400 for small part time gang jobs. Although these are important factors there not strong enough to make kids do things that are strongly against their morals. One of the ways that kids morals are bent so that gang violence becomes more acceptable is the influence of television and movies. The average child spends more time at a TV thanh / he spends in a classroom. Since nobody can completely turnoff their minds, kids must be learning something while watching the TV. Very few hours of television watched by children are educational, so other ideas are being absorbed during this period time.
Many shows on television today are extremely violent and are often shown this from a gangs perspective. A normal adult can see that this is showing how foully that gangs a reliving. However, to a child this portrays a violent gang existance as acceptable. The Ends Justifies the Means mentality is also taught through many shows where the goody guy captures the bad guy through violence and is then being commended.
A young child sees this a perfectly acceptable because he knows that the bad guy was wrong but has no ideas what acceptable apprehension techniques are. Gore in television also takes a big part in influencing young minds. Children see gory scenes and are fascinated bytes things that they have not seen before. Older viewers seeger and are not concerned with the blood but rather with therein the victim must feel. A younger mind doesnt make this connection. Thus a gore fascination is formed, and has been seen in several of my peers.
Unfortunately kids raised with this sort of television end up growing up with a stronger propensity to becoming a violent gang member or violent-acceptant person. Gangs bring the delinquent norms of society into intimate contact with the individual. 1, (Marshall B Clinard, 1963). So, as you can see if TV leads a child to believe that violence is the norm this will manifest itself in the actions ofthe child quite, often in a gang situation. This is especially these when parents dont spend a lot of time with their kids atthe TV explaining what is right and what is wrong. Quite often newer books and some types of music will enforce this type of thought and ideas. Once this mentality is installed in youngsters they become increasingly prone to being easily pushed into a gang situation baby problem at home or elsewhere.
For instance, in poor families with many children or upper-middle class families where parents are always working, the children will often feel deprived of love. Parents can often feel that putting food on the table enough love. Children of these families may often go to thebans 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 their and the gang is completed because the gang has effectively taken the place of the family. The new anti social structure of cities also effects these in which a boy / girl can join a gang.
The formation organs in cities, and most recently in suburbs, is facilitated be same lack of community among parents. The parents do not know what their children are doing for two reasons: First, much the parents lives is outside the local community, while the childrens lives are lived almost totally within it. Second, in awfully developed community, the network of relations gives every parent, in a sense, a community of sentries who can keep him informed of his childs activities. In modern living-places (city suburban), where such a network is attenuated, he no longer has such sentries. 2, (Merton Nisbet, 1971). In male gangs problems occur as each is the members tries be the most manly. This often leads to all members participating in one-up-mashup.
Quite often this will then lead to each member trying to commit a bigger and more violent crime or simply more crimes than the others. With all members participating in this sort of activity it makes for a neverending unorganized violence spree (A sort of Clockwork Orange mentality). In gangs with more intelligent members these feelings end up making each member want to be the star whether groups commit a crime. This makes the gang much more organized and improves the morale of members which in turn makes them more dangerous and very hard for the police to deal with and catch (There is nothing harder to find and deal wightman organized teens that are dedicated to the group). This sort of gang is usually common of middle or upper class people although it can happen in gangs in the projects and other lowest districts too. This one-up-mashup is often the reason between rival gangs fighting.
All gangs feel powerful and they want to beheaded. To do this they try to establish themselves as theory gang in a certain neighborhood. After a few gang fights hatred forms and gang murders and drive-bys begin to take place. When two gangs are at war it makes life very dangerous for citizens in the area.
Less that 40 % of drive-bys kill their intended victim yet over 60 % do kill someone. This gang application is one of the many reasons that sexual sterotypesand 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 case joining a gang brings more danger than it saves you from, this is not always the way it is seen by kids. In slums such aside 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 need to feed their families. Thereason kids think that the gang will keep them safe is from propoganda from the gangs. Gang members will say that no oneill get hurt and make a public show of revenge if a member is hurt or killed. People in low rent areas are most often being repressed due to poverty and most importantly, race. This often results an attitude that motivates the person to base his / her life doing what the system that oppresses them doesnt want. Although this accomplishes little it is a big factor in gang enrollment.
So, as you have seen gangs are a product of the environment we have created for ourselves. Some of these factors include: oppression, the media, greed, violence another gangs. There seems to be no way to end the problem organs without totally restructuring the modern economy and value system. Since the chance of this happening is minimal, we must learn to cope with gangs and try to keep their following to a minimum. Unfortunately there is no real organized force help fight gangs. Of course the police are supposed to dots but this situation quite often deals with racial issues also and the police forces regularly display their increasing inability to deal fairly with these issues.
What we need are more people form organizations like the Guardian Angels a gang-like group that makes life very tough for street gangs that are breaking laws. Bibliography Margot Webb, Coping with Street Gangs. Rosen Publishing Group, New York, 1990. William Foote Whyte, Street Corner Society.
University of Chicago, Chicago, 1955. Peter Carroll, South-Central. Home and Williams, L. A. , 1987. 1 Marshall B.
Clinard, Sociology of Deviant Behavior. University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, 1963, Page 179. 2 Merton Nisbet, Contemporary Social Problems. Harcourt, Brace &# 038; World, New York, 1971, Page 588.
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Research essay sample on Marshall B Clinard One Up Mashup
