Youth Gang Explosion

15 Pages 3640 Words

ding to public officials, the police and the media, the gangs in Milwaukee didn’t
reach its peak until 1986. The city was in complete denial of the issue of gangs living within its
city limits. In 1984 and 85, the city began to acknowledge that there were a growing number of
youth gangs springing up but minimized their impact by delegating funds to step up police and
corrections in the city.
The presence of gangs would do a couple of things to ruin the image of the city. For
one it would illustrate the ineffectiveness of the Milwaukee Police Department in being able to
control a so called group of kids. It would further destroy the image of Milwaukee being a
clean town known for its breweries. A far greater problem was the racial tensions and
problems that would arise by labeling the black underclass community as being the birthplace
for these violent gangs.
An example of the communities happenings was the closing of the Schlitz brewery that
provided many jobs to the inner city community. The building was stripped of it...