More handpicked essays just for you.
Juvenile delinquency effect on development
Juvenile delinquency effect on development
The Effects of Violence Among Children
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Throughout the years, women have been mistreated brutally by gangs in their neighborhood. In a memoir by Luis Rodriguez, Always Running, the main character experiences many random acts such as shootings, rape, and many arrests. Even though, Luis may seem like a very tough young man, he gives the women the respect and love they wish to receive from a gang member. In today’s society, many young girls are attracted to what society calls a “bad boy” because their lifestyle seems exciting. When one decides to join a gang, one must prove their loyalty to their new family by getting “jumped” by the whole gang or committing a serious crime. When a young girl begins to date a gang member, she begins to see how quickly a situation can escalate to a violent scene and abuse. As soon as a young girl is expose to that lifestyle, they tend to get mistreated mentally and physically by other gang …show more content…
Even though Luis’s gang try to change his way of treating women, Luis is a strong character and does not change his beliefs. “Some gangs initiate females by having them have sex with all the ranking members of the gang” (Report Gang Crime Tips). Just like the gangs on the streets, Luis’s gang also believes women are only meant to have sex. His gang keeps reminding him, that women are weak and men have more power than them. However, Luis knows women should not be treated that way and simply ignores them. Some kids have no other choice but to join the gangs at an early age. Lack of parent supervision has been shown to be linked with both boys and girls joining a gang. Even though most have men to prove they are the violent ones, not every gang member is shown to be violent. While the rest of Luis’s gang members treat women with disrespect, Luis seems to respect everyone no matter what gender they are. Being told his own mom the pain she had to go through influenced his ways of viewing and treating
Jumped in by Jorja Leap is an autobiographical book about the experiences of a UCLA professor’s struggle to understand the lifestyle of gangs, and to figure out a way to end gang violence. Jorja Leap is an outsider looking at these communities from an intellectual sociological point of view, but she also has her personal biases shown. She stated in the book she is similar to an anthropologist, committing research specifically on gangs to comprehend their motivations. Her research leads her to interact with individuals that were or are affected by gang violence, whether they were the culprit or the victim. A large amount of the individuals she interviewed also want to end gang violence. These people know the negative effects that it has had on their communities and the suffering that it causes. These
8-Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters is a compelling glimpse into the lives of females in gangs. The book highlights two things: these women do exist, and they are screaming for help. The book's author, Gini Sikes, is a New York-based journalist who spent two years chronicling the worlds of these girls and women in three cities--Los Angeles, San Antonio and Milwaukee. Through her travels she became immersed in the lifestyles of each gang. What she found on her journey through backyards, living rooms and housing-projects was startling. There are perhaps thousands of girl gang members across the nation, and yes, many of them are violent. Sikes' portrait of female gangs in America will both shock and move you. She delves far beyond the usual clichés and shows a depth to her subjects that are rarely seen. These girls carry razor blades in their mouths and get into fights just like their male counterparts, but many of them overcome tremendous adversity to get out of their gangs and change their lives. Sikes reports on these girl gangsters with compassion and honesty, compellingly raising the issue of our troubled urban youth without posturing or preaching. Sikes details the girl's reactions to her as well as to their own environment. 8-Ball Chicks describes everything from gang members' stories of dangerous initiation rites (girls knowingly having sex with an AIDS infected boy; gang rape initiations; gang wannabes allowing a dozen girls to beat them up at once) to the conditions that drive these young women to join gangs in the first place. Most of these girls she discovered entered the gangs for power and belonging. They did not care if they were hurt because survival became their most significant recourse. If they survived the abuse and the poverty, then they felt powerful. In 8 Ball Chicks, we discover the fear and desperate desire for respect and status that drive girls into gangs in the first place--and the dreams and ambitions that occasionally help them to escape the catch-22 of their existence.
If only he was given the opportunity when he first came here from Mexico, he wouldn’t have had to live the violent life he lived. Luis and his Family weren’t excepted nor given any hope. Sadly, Luis’ story is the story of many. Racism is real, it exists and it is affecting young people causing them to turn to a life of gang and violence in order to gain acceptance. It all starts at a young age and something that will determine the direction of one’s life. Luis’ life was a prime example of what society and statistic said he would be as if he would never amount to anything but against all odds the fire that has always lived in him, that desire to be someone and rise above out of the pits of hell is exactly what he has done. Giving others hope. “There are choices you have to make not just once, but every time they come up” (132). Unfortunately, there will always be obstacles, weather its racism, violence, drugs, gangs in life battling against you but it’s a choice you have to continue to make, it’s all up to the individual to persevere and raise above to get out of that life and become someone before that life takes
Rodriguez’s situation was that “his parents are immigrants to the United States and several of his siblings were born in the United States in the State of Texas.” His dad was well educated back in their country, Mexico, but they’re being declined because of the existence of bigotry. “His parents were having a tough time finding a job because of their situation – they have found several jobs but are paid below minimum sometimes.” Rodriguez’s parents have multiple jobs just to survive on their daily basis. Rodriguez’s family situation has affected them all – Luis was affected the most and went astray as he was so desperate into fitting into the society and is able to help his parents. No matter how hard life will be, there are ways to avoid gangs and criminal behavior – government programs and other resource center helps a family to survive and even lend a hand to parents and educate them of how to suppress their child to go astray and be involved with crimes and gang
For the children of the projects, the pressure to join a gang never waivers. Quick cash and protection are hard forces to resist in a world of poverty and violence. However, the children's role in these gangs is inferior to that of the leaders. At first, the concept of joining is quite attractive. According to Lafeyette, one of the two brothers profiled in the book, " 'When you first join you think it's good. They'll buy you what you want' " (31). However, " 'You have to do anything they tell you to do. If they tell you to kill somebody, you have to do that' " (31).
In the book Luis thinks that by joining gangs he will be empowering others.The author exposes the readers to gang violence, rape, drugs, and trouble with the police.
The novel, The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela is a great perception of the Mexican Revolution. The stories of exploits and wartime experiences during the Mexican Revolution was fundamentally driven by the men. The war was between the people and the government. Throughout the novel, these men had to isolate themselves from their families and battle for a cause they greatly believed in. Even with not enough resources, the people were able to fight aggressively in order to overthrow the government. Regardless of the men who were at war, there were two females who played a significant role in the Mexican Revolution, Camila and War Paint. While the representation Mariano Azuela captures these ladies and their role in society are accurate, he neglects
The gang and the community are intertwined as the gang encompasses many of those that live in the area, as presented in the ending of the film. The ending is important because it sets up the permanency of label theory, and when the role of delinquent becomes evident. Throughout the movie the main character Montoya Santana speaks of respect and his gang, until the end where it states how he regretted his role, as a kid turning to gang culture for respect. In the movie it states,” You know, a long time ago, two best homeboys, two kids, were thrown into juvie. They were scared, and they thought they had to do something to prove themselves. And they did what they had to do. They thought they were doing it to gain respect for their people, to show the world that no one could take their class from them. No one had to take it from us, ese. Whatever we had... we gave it away” ( ) This quote connects of labelling theory because it relates the role of gang members they had to play at juvenile detention and extended to that identity being the basis of them growing up. Proving themselves became the bases of their identity being labelled as criminals at such a young age created a need for a role to protect themselves the only way they knew how. They come from a place where gang was the only prominent role in their
In his observation of the boys, he finds that these boys are criminalized by many social forces besides the police. “I found that schools pushed out boys who had been victimized.” (pg. 6). Many boys feel that their school system blames them for crimes that have occurred in their area, or as a danger to other students in the classroom. These boys think that these experiences of victimization are part of their street life. Rios says that if the institutions of social control believe that all young people follow the code of the street, then programs and interactions with margined youth’s will be based on this false information. This dishonest perception of youth is what leads to their
The kids became gang members for many reasons. Some needed to find what their place was in the world, and they needed to know who they were as human beings. Joining the gang gave them a feeling of being involved in something and made them feel better about themselves. They felt that as a gang member they received the attention, emotional support, and understanding that they couldn’t get from their actual family members at home.
Not all gang members grew up with poor home lives, and not all are career criminals, although that is the case for Ramon Mendoza. Ramon Mendoza was born in Los Angeles to his mother and father. By the time he was older, he was living with his mother and stepfather. As Ramon grew older and his step father grew abusive, he began searching for someplace he could find a family. For him, that was on the streets. Describing himself as “raised by the state” Mendoza grew up jumping to and from different juvenile correctional facilities. He felt proud as he eventually graduated to high security prisons and prided himself on his ruthlessness. Looking back, it was his “warrior mentality” that pushed him to be so disobedient. It was through the stories
Government and its policies have always challenged the debate of the governing factor in our universe, fate or free will. In ancient times, monarchs were believed to have been given a divine will to rule and exert laws, as if their path had been predestined. However, as kingship fell out of influence, our government has considered itself, “by the people.” Modern issues, such as the controversy over the National Minimum Drinking Age, raise questions on the effects of free will and fate, and the association between the two. Viewing this specific contention through the context of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Tom Tykwer’s thriller Run Lola Run we can speculate about the role of determinism and free will in our lives.
Luis could not resist being influenced by many girls since his absolute weakness was due to feminine power. However, he lost his trust in many girls since many of his previous girlfriends were untrustworthy because they used their bodies materialistically to gain reputation and money. Due to this, he gained a different perspective of girls after having his heart broken several times from infidelity. He transformed emotionally, intellectually, and sexually, due to the encounterance of psychological and physiological life events. It is very difficult for any person to suppress this betrayal, so he turned to drugs and alcohol. In the following quote Rodriguez demonstrates that he tried to reach out to God for help,“God I wanted that light, this whore of a sun to blind me, to entice me to burn-to be sculptured marble in craftier hand” (pg. 105). There was a point in Rodriguez 's life where he felt the light at the end of the tunnel after overdosing on toxic, addictive drugs. His near-death experience from narcotizing himself to an extreme was one of the causes which made him change his perspective of the world at a faster
Traditionally, there has been little research on or interest in the impact of female crime in modern society. In addition, juvenile crime rates are on the rise, which combine for a void of research or information on female juvenile offenders. In general, crime rates for women offenders have risen since the 1990's. Increasing numbers of young women are also offending at higher rates. In a 1996 U.S. Department of Justice Report, the number of arrests of young women had doubled between 1989 and 1993. Twenty percent of all juvenile arrests were committed by girls, an increase of 87 percent. However, according to The National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, males are far more likely to admit to criminal involvement than are females. For example, 12 percent of males and 4 percent of females reported carrying a hidden weapon other than a pocketknife in the past year (Wilson, p.150). There are several theories for this rise in crime proposed by modern feminists, including that the introduction of women into traditional male roles prompted women to commit increasingly dangerous and violent crimes. However, this paper will rely on Meda Chesney-Lind's theories from The Female Offender.
One night we talked into the early hours of the morning about his life in San Francisco. I could only listen wide-eyed and in disbelief as he talked about how close he had been to joining an El Salvadorian gang. I watched him with intense curiosity as he slowly told his story. I noticed how he would almost squeeze his eyes closed with his large cheeks when he was remembering something that made him angry, or thrust his chin out in a clumsy manner when he was excited. He told me of how he had been ready to be beaten into the gang. When I asked him why he would be willing to do that, he responded by describing how vicious his world was, and then explained that the initiation was a tiny price for the protection he would get from the gang in return.