In order to meet the ideal measure of standards and morals to be a part of the usual social standard, one must be able to meet specific goals to achieve economic success. When these standards are not met, it is called anomie according to Robert Merton. In the documentary Bloods & Crips: Made in America, we see the underlying and outside factors which have provoked African American youth to become involved in gangs and gang related violence. According to Merton, “some social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons... to engage in nonconformist conduct,” (672). There are two social structures that are important in order for youth to succeed the normal standard of living which can cause pressure on the individual and cause …show more content…
Blacks were not able to go into white neighborhoods and vice versa. This created a boundary for the African American youth to leave their neighborhoods and reach those goals that are supposed to be met by society's means. These blacks had a feeling of alienation and became culturally disorientated due to the harassment from the cops. They were unable to have a sense of identity and who they really were due to the fact that there was a segregated society being created. These African Americans began to see themselves as having no value and became self hated. Blacks were shown their life has no value and they were rejected. Blacks were being arrested for non-violent crimes and drug offences. People of color have been targeted. This punitive impulse to punish folks of color is linked to our discrimination history here in America according to Michelle Alexander. When being swept into the criminal justice system, it comes hard to live a normal life and have a job to succeed a specific standard of living. Being black stood as a boundary for the youth in America. African American peace/non-violence groups and activists were torn down and that is how the gangs began to form. Mass incarceration, specifically in young black men leads to more violence due to how society has structured whites and blacks all the way back to the Jim Crow Laws. They then …show more content…
The functions that take place in Los Angeles is what is causing these gangs and violence. Anomie is the social feedback from an individual due to the impotent access of reaching the "American Dream", status, income, education, and freedom. Anomie is a burden that people are usually born into and causes them to operate in way that are not useful to society and do not promote societal stability. Anomie shows that the opportunities here in America are not equal for all and this is because of boundaries an individual is stuck inside of, just how Michelle Alexander believes blacks are trapped inside of a racist criminal justice system for
Gang violence is a complex issue with many causes consisting of; lack of jobs, dysfunctional schools, and a biased judicial system, these things have shaped and molded the social structure of this South Central society into something dark and perverse, it has given rise to violence and death, and the inconvenient truth of the matter is it’s our societies fault. References Anderson, Elijah. 1990. The. The Code of the Streets.
Gangs have been in existence since the beginning of the Roman Empire. There were speeches made by Roman orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, which references groups of men who constantly fought and disrupted Roman politics (Curry, 2013). The history of street gangs in the United States begins with their emergence on the East Coast around 1783, as the American Revolution ended. Though many believe the best available evidence suggests that the more serious street gangs likely did not emerge until the early part of the nineteenth century (Sante, 1991). Although our country has had their share of feared gangs like in the 1980’s with the turf war between the Bloods and Crips, back in the 17th and 18th century the Mohocks of Georgian, England were one of the most feared gangs. What draws juveniles to the gang lifestyle? Many people will say that most gang members are children from impoverished communities, single family homes where there was no father present, or maybe there is a more psychological/sociological answer? By appearance and presence most gangs cause fear, crime, and disillusionment in the communities they occupy. Throughout history joining a gang has been perceived as a life without any reward, yet by joining this lifestyle many juveniles are able to gain the needed stability and security in their lives.
In order to better understand the rise of these groups, I went into the original neighborhoods to document the history which led to these groups. There are 88 incorporated cities and dozens of other unincorporated places in Los Angeles County (LAC). In the process of conducting this research, I visited all of these places in an attempt to not just identify gangs active in Los Angeles, but to determine their territories. Through several weeks of field work and research conducted in 1996, I identified 274 black gangs in 17 cities and four unincorporated areas in LAC.
Prohibition sparked it, but things such as money, drugs, territory and a few others kept it going. Money for one was a very big problem that made gangs violent. In a time where money was few and far between, people had to do what was necessary to survive. People began robbing banks, stealing cars and even killing people for the green little piece of paper that makes the world go around, money.
There were three main periods where gangs in Los Angeles grew at a rapid rate. The first of which was...
Blacks were mistreated, they were subjected to biased laws and injustice. Blacks were the “victims of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality” according to Kings Speech (I Have a Dream). Police brutality includes, but is not limited to: false arrest, intimidation, racial profiling, surveillance abuse, sexual abuse, and tampering with
This can be applied to American society, where the society may lean too heavily towards either of these social structures. This can then create stress where stressing over goals mean that any form of achieving them becomes acceptable. Merton was more interested on the overemphasis on goals and how that may have generated antisocial behavior. This behavior arises when the expectation that all members of society should exhibit success but run into restrictions on legitimate means to succeed. He says that the cult of success can create illegitimate means because the violator knows the rules of the game, but the validation of success outweighs the weak imperative to play by the rules. He states, “…Crime… [And] the entire catalogue of proscribed behavior, becomes increasingly common when the emphasis on the culturally induced success-goal becomes divorced from a coordinated institutional emphasis” (Merton 675-676). This is shown in the Crips and Bloods documentary because the individuals in both gangs know what they do is wrong, such as dealing drugs, but they still need to be successful by having money and having good appearance by dressing nicely. It is difficult for them to go by the rules when at one point, the whites did not give them
According to http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/d_index.htm was “rooted in a multitude of political, economic, and social factors.” These included but were not limited to police abuse, lack of affordable housing, economic inequality, black militancy, and rapid demographic change.
The documentary, “Crips and Bloods: Made in America” talks about many social concerns. In the documentary, both discrimination and economics are the main factors for the problems in Southern California. The gangs started because of discrimination. By denying people because of their skin color to join social activities such as the boy/girl scouts is what led to the formation of groups that later turned into gangs. Apart from that, hatred and threats escalated the situations that then turned the gangs into what they are today. According to the documentary, because of the gang rivalry there exists an invisible line that separates the territories of both the Crips and the Bloods. Not only is that the only factor, but also
Differential Association Theory is defined as a theoretical perspective that examines how people learn to be deviant or a conformist based on the community they are a part of. For example, because students are sitting in class room they have learned to conform to gain rewards and now are able to achieve in society. Edwin Sutherland coined the term differential association to indicate this: from the different groups we associate with, we learn to deviate from or conform to society’s norm. (Handlin 2015, Smith 2017).
In the 1950’s, Cohen (1955) acquired Merton’s theory of crime further by concentrating on gang delinquency within the working class demographic. Cohen used the dominant knowledge of the anomie theory but narrowed its emphasis on this precise subculture and particularized it in order to clarify the features of gang delinquency. Comparable to Merton and Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin (1960) tried to clarify why certain individuals or groups are more likely to involve in criminal activities. They contended that people are strained when they fail to attain financial achievement through legitimate means. Cloward and Ohlin remained in...
From the mid 1950 gangs start to be a real problem in US, and in particular in several cities like Chicago. There was immediat response in form of labelisation by a local press and the gangs were assigned a particular image, of a poor, unsitisfied with their social milieu youth. Like stated in Diamond “ local press gave them the nick names, like “ gang feuds” “grudge killings” “ gang complexes”, “feelings of inadequacy” , “ new teen age terrorism” they were seens as a “Rebel without cause” ( Dean quotted in Diamond” ), all this confirm the rincipal quotation for this question and general thoughts of Adamson, as well insist on the structural construction of gang epidemic. Diamond confirms also Adamson statement on point of the white predominance amoung the juvenile delenquency, by stipulating them having “predominantly white face” (Diamond, 2009) in
You come home from school one day, you notice the door is unlocked, you step in. You see, your mother helplessly on the floor, blue and purple around her eyes. You see blood everywhere. She lays breathless, cold, lifeless you realize she is dead. Next thing you know the leader of the gang you are a member of walks into the room and holds you at gunpoint. He says “you shouldn’t have gone behind the gangs back” and pulls the trigger. Gangs have a negative effect on youths. Many youths join gangs and endanger their lives and the ones they love, being a part of a gang will fill your life with violence, and after joining you have no choice but to give up your family and friends. A gang will make your life be filled with agony, violence and they will distance you from your family.
The break down of neighborhood relation and social institutions create a higher likely hood that young people will affiliate with deviant peers and get involved in gangs. When there is lack of social controls within a neighborhood the opportunity to commit deviance increases and the exposure to deviant groups such as street gangs increase. Which causes an increase in the chances of young people joining street gangs. If social controls are strong remain strong within a neighborhood and/or community the chances of young people committing crime and joining gangs decreases. Many young people join street gangs due to weak family relationships and poor social control.