FREE ESSAY ON GANGS

GANGS

by Anh Phu psychology 202 Dr.Norwood 11:00-12:00 (MWF) Gangs are a violent reality that
people have to deal with in today's cities.What has made these groups come about? Why do
kids feel that being in a gang is both an acceptable andprestigious way to live? The long
range answer to these questions can only be speculated upon, but in the shortterm the
answers are much easier to find. On the surface, gangs are a direct result of human
beings' personal wants andpeer pressure. To determine how to effectively end gang
violence we must find the way that these morals aregiven to the individual.
Unfortunately, these can only be hypothesized. However, by looking at the way humans
areinfluenced in society, I believe there is good evidence to point the blame at several
institutions. These include theforces 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 making it all
soundglamorous. Money is also an crucial factor. A kid (a 6-10 year old, who is not yet a
member) is shown that s/he couldmake $200 to $400 for small part time gang jobs. Although
these are important factors they are not strong enough tomake kids do things that are
strongly against their morals. One of the ways that kids morals are bent so that gang
violence becomesmore acceptable is the influence of television and movies. The average
child spends more time at a TV thanshe/he spends in a classroom. Since nobody can
completely turn off their minds, kids must be learning something whilewatching the TV.
Very few hours of television watched by children are educational, so other ideas are
beingabsorbed during this period of time. Many shows on television today are extremely
violent and are often shown thisfrom a gang's perspective. A normal adult can see that
this is showing how foully that gangs are living. However, to achild this portrays a
violent gang existance as acceptable. 'The Ends Justifies the Means' mentality is
alsotaught through many shows where the goody guy captures the bad guy through violence
and is then beingcommended. A young child sees this a perfectly acceptable because he
knows that the bad guy was wrong but has noidea of what acceptable apprehension
techniques are. Gore in television also takes a big part in influencing young
minds.Children see gory scenes and are fascinated by these things that they have not seen
before. Older viewerssee gore and are not concerned with the blood but rather with the
pain the victim must feel. A younger minddoesn't 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 gangmember or 'violent- acceptant' person. Gangs bring the delinquent norms of
society into intimate contact with theindividual.1, (Marshall B Clinard, 1963). So, as
you can see if TV leads a child to believe thatviolence is the norm this will manifest
itself in the actions of the child quite, often in a gang situation. This is especially
thecase when parents don't spend a lot of time with their kids at the TV explaining what
is right and what is wrong. Quiteoften newer books and some types of music will enforce
this type of thought and ideas. Once this mentality is installed in youngsters they
become increasinglyprone to being easily pushed into a gang situation by any problem at
home or elsewhere.For instance, in poor families with many children or upper-middle class
families where parents are alwaysworking, the children will often feel deprived of love.
Parents can often feel that putting food on the table is enough love.Children of these
families may often go to the gang firstly out of boredom and to belong somewhere. As time
goeson, a form of love or kinship develops between the gang members and the child. It is
then that the bond betweenthe kid 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 the ease in which aboy/girl can join a gang.  The formation of gangs in cities,
and most recently in suburbs, is facilitated bythe same lack of community among parents.
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
almosttotally within it. Second, in a fully developed community, the network of relations
gives every parent, in a sense, acommunity of sentries who can keep him informed of his
child's activities. In modern living-places (city orsuburban), 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 to be the mostmanly. This often leads to all
members participating in one-up-manship. Quite often this will then leadto each member
trying to commit a bigger and more violent crime or simply more crimes than the others.
With allmembers participating in this sort of activity it makes for a never ending
unorganized violence spree (A sort ofClockwork Orange mentality). In gangs with more
intellegent members these feelings end up making each member want tobe the star when the
groups commit a crime. This makes the gang much more organized and improves the morale
ofmembers which in turn makes them more dangerous and very hard for the police to deal
with and catch (There isnothing harder to find and deal with than organized teens that
are dedicated to the group). This sort of gang isusually common of middle or upper class
people although it can happen in gangs in the projects and other low rent districtstoo.
This one-up-manship is often the reason between rival gangs fighting. Allgangs feel
powerful and they want to be feared. To do this they try to establish themselves as the
onlygang in a certain neighborhood. After a few 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 killtheir intended victim yet over
60% do kill someone. This gang application is one of the many reasons that
sexualsterotypes and pressure to conform to the same must be stopped. Lastly one of the
great factors in joining a gang is for protection. Althoughfrom an objective point of
view, we can see joining a gang brings more danger than it savesyou from, this is not
always the way it is seen by 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. Of
course they can probably get thesame 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 them safe is from propoganda from the
gangs.Gang members will say that no one will 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 povertyand most importantly, race. This often results in an attitude that
motivates the person to base his/her life ondoing what the system that oppresses them
doesn't want. Although this accomplishes little it is a big factor in gangenrollment. 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 end the problem of gangs without totally restructuring
the modern economy and valuesystem. Since the chance of this happening is minimal, we
must learn to cope with gangs and try to keep their followingto a minimum. Unfortunately
there is no real organized force to help fight gangs. Of course the police aresupposed to
do this but this situation quite often deals with racial issues also and the police
forces regularly display theirincreasing inability to deal fairly with these issues. What
we need are more people to form organizations like theGuardian Angels a gang-like group
that makes life very tough for street gangs that are breaking laws. THE END by Anh Phu
Bibliography Margot Webb, Coping with Street Gangs. Rosen Publishing Group, NewYork,
1990. William Foote Whyte, Street Corner Society. University of Chicago,Chicago, 1955.
Peter Carroll, South-Central. Hoyte and Williams, L. A., 1987. 1 Marshall B. Clinard,
Sociology of Deviant Behavior. University ofWisconsin, Wisconsin, 1963, Page 179. 2
Merton Nisbet, Contempory Social Problems. Harcourt, Brace &World, New York, 1971, Page
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