Gangs

6 Pages 1471 Words

“GANGS”

Across the United States there is a type of subculture that needs to be dealt with and destroyed. Gangs are the type of subculture at hand. Gangs can be defined as a subculture because they exist within society while maintaining their own norms, beliefs, and values. Gangs are a subculture of violence, whose values demand the use of violence in overt situations (Adler, Mueller, Laufer 2001). Gang membership promotes violence and other delinquent behavior from its members (such as vandalism and drug relations). Gangs need to be abolished if we hope to clean up our streets, get our children back in school, and have a chance at winning the drug war. Are you as person looking to seek a public office ready to deal with this issue? I will continue to give you some background knowledge of gangs.
Let the fact be known that it is not illegal to be in a gang, but once a criminal action takes place gang members have stepped over the line and their membership is now perceived as illegal. One of the main ways that gang membership forms is from generation to generation. A child is exposed to the gang activity taking place in his or her neighborhood and may want to take part in this gang to fill an emotional void. This void might be in need of love from a “family” group, respect, or a sense of belonging to a peer group. A child might have older siblings that are members of a gang and the younger child longs to be like the older sibling. Youth might also join a gang for the protection from other gang violence and the chance to make money fast. Whatever the reason is for joining gangs, America’s youth believe that gang membership allows them to achieve a level of status that was impossible to attain outside of the gangs.
It is estimated that there are more than 24,500 gangs active the United States in 2000 (Egley, 2001). The average number of gang members for 2000 was 750,000 (Egley, 2001). These number...