Gangs, Belonging, and Acceptance
A 12-year-old boy comes home from school. He enters his home through the front door and notices his mother sobbing. There is blood on the tissue she's holding. The boy starts to ask his mother why she is crying when he realizes what has happened. She answers his silent inquiry about why, by quietly saying, "your dad . . . he's on the back porch . . . he's had a bad day." Feeling helpless he goes to his room. From his window he can see his dad taking in the last swallow of beer and yelling, loud enough for the neighbors to hear, "Hey, bring me another beer. And where is that worthless son of yours? He was supposed to mow the lawn yesterday." The boy, having seen this too many times before, leaves the house the way he came in. Two blocks down the street he is approached by a gang member; and unceremoniously another child on the block has decided that gangs have something he wants; a since of belonging, acceptance. The gang becomes his family. This story is fiction, but fits the dynamics of a family system that supplies the gangs with its members.
Gang-member families differ from non-gang-member families in terms of quality of family interaction, supervision and discipline, family affection patterns, and maternal attitudes toward males. Non-gang member's families are more likely to go out together, are more likely to be consistent in their discipline, and are more likely to display their feelings openly in the family. The mothers of gang members described their husbands as rarely involved in the family's activities. They also had more negative attitudes toward their husbands (Adler,Ovando, & Hocevar, 1984).
The gang member is not the only one effected when he starts his life in a gang. He p...
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...e? What can the church and the community do to help? If we can't save the gang member, what can we do to protect the innocent family member and by-stander? It's easy to do nothing when asked, "What can we do?" Maybe the question should be, "What can I do?"
Works Cited
Adler, P.,Ovando, C. & Hocevar, D. (1984). Familiar correlates of gang membership: An exploratory study of Mexican-American youth. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 6, 65-76.
Morales, A.T. (1992). Latino youth gangs: Causes and clinical intervention. In L. S. Vargus & J. Koss-Chiono (Eds.). Working with culture: Psychotherapeutic intervention with ethnic minority children and adolescents (pp. 129-154). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Smith, Commander Bryan. Corpus Christi Police Department. (2-10-97) interview over phone. Subject: Psychological effects on gang members and their families.
1-The story tells, Real facts occurred in the 1940s, where it was a racist society. Gangs were scattered throughout the cities, and regions, and the streets. To live, you have full get away, or belonging to one of them. You should help the gang members that they were right or on falsehood. Also, it is a kind of bigotry, not much different from intolerance, national, ethnic, and sectarian That were prevalent in American society. in fact, it is the inevitable result of this society. When the corruption becomes prevails, injustice and lawless prevails too, and justice will disappear.
Michael Sierra-Arevalo received his B.A. in sociology and psychology (high honors) from the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include urban sociology, race and ethnicity, gangs, social network analysis, violence prevention, and policy implications of gang violence.
Mihailoff, Laura. "Youth Gangs." Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood: In History and Society. Ed. Paula S. Fass. Vol. 3. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 916-917. Student Resources in Context. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
Gang involvement has been quite higher than past years. The 2008 National Youth Gang Survey estimates that about 32.4 percent of all cities, suburban areas, towns, and rural counties had a gang problem (Egley et al., 2010). This represented a 15 percent increase from the year 2002. The total number of gangs has also increased by 28 percent and total gang members have increased by 6 percent (Egley et al., 2010). This shows how relevant gang related activity is in today’s society. More locations are beginning to experience gang activity for the first time. Gang crime has also been on the rise in the past...
Del Barco, m. (2008, march 10). South L.A. gang violence claims young victims. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88045529
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.
In contrast with urban gangs, studies of Native Americans living on rural areas on reservations in 1998 indicate that only 15% of the youth in these communities are gang members (Hailer 1998). Compared to the roughly 72% of youth persons related to gangs in Chicago IL, this percentage of Native gang members seems relatively small, as should it be. There are estimated to be around 4,500 active Native gang members in 400 gangs within tribal communities (Grant 2002) and over 1.4 million urban gang members involved in 33,000 gangs across America (Hazlehurst 1998). This is most likely caused by the 26% poverty rate, the 3 times as high alcohol related problems, and the 2.5 times rate of suicide in comparison to the rest of the American population (Major 2004). Also contributing to the high enrollment rate is due to the “neglectful and abusive treatment from federal and local government” (Theriot 2007). This treatment has been shown to leave feelings of isolation, exclusion and frustration coming from the Native population which in turn provides Natives an excuse to drink and turn to substance abuse and crime.
Echoing the structural strain theory is the differential opportunity theory, which states that learning environments and opportunities are not equally distributed in the social system and gender, class and ethnicity affects conformity and deviance (Deutschmann, 2007). Taking both theories into account, those susceptible to joining gangs would be people that are deprived of opportunities and resources to succeed, mainly people of the lower class and racial minorities as exemplified by the high volume of emergence of racially exclusive gangs in the past. In the 1970’s, the United States of America lifted its quota on immigration based on nationality and this saw the influx of immigrants from Asia and the West Indies coming into the USA in hopes of getting rich or simply to flee from their war torn native lands. Instead of assimilating into the American culture, these immigrants brought along their own cultural practices and religions, which were rejected by the Americans and resulted in resentment between both parties. Racial discrimination was rampant and these once hopeful immigrants soon found themselves being isolated in the outskirts, jobless and helpless.
In the books of the Confessions, Augustine praises God and confesses his sins while telling the story of his journey. The first half of the Confessions describe his journey away from himself, which include giving into his personal pleasure. The fifth book is when he has a revelation, and the rest of the Confessions gives the account of the process of getting back to himself, or being fully human. It is a path that took a large part of his life, but it in the end, he accepts his vocation of “being”.
Americans were not the first nation to discover the group of islands now called Hawaii. Seafaring Polynesians, people of Polynesia, landed in Hawaii. Some Polynesians sailed to New Zealand and some went as far as the well known island called Easter Island. However, the first American to set foot on Hawaii is Captain James Cook. He arrived in Hawaii on January 18, 1778. He brought many goods to trade with the Hawaiian people and the people treated him well. James named Hawaii “Sandwich Islands” in the name of Earl of Sandwich; who was the first lord of the British Admiralty. Hawaii is the only state in the United States of America that is not connected to any other American state. Hawaii is last state that joined the United States, making it the fiftieth state on Aug. 21, 1959. Hawaii consists of a chain of 132 islands, with the main islands being Hawaii (the Big Island), Maui, Oahu, Kauai, Molokai, Lanai, Nihau, and Kahoolawe. Hawaii’s population is over 1.392 million people. However, Hawaii’s economy and agriculture are very unique, thus making Hawaii a very diverse state.
CNN presents the documentary, Homicide in Hollenbeck, spotlighting gang activity in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollenbeck. This documentary explores the subculture of gangs existing within Hollenbeck from a several perspectives. The people documented include a mother who lost both of her sons to gang violence, a priest that has tried to help rehabilitate gang members, a police officer that has worked in Hollenbeck for five years in the gang unit, and a current gang member. For a conclusion, Homicide in Hollenbeck focuses on a juvenile exposed to gang life on the cusp of decided where they want their life to lead; gangs or freedom. Problems attributed to the high rate of gang activity and number of gangs in Hollenbeck are the high poverty rate, low employment rate, and broken families that make up the majority of Hollenbeck. The crime most discussed, as per the title of the documentary, is homicide The number of gang related homicides has risen even though the criminal behavior of gangs has ultimately decreased in the neighborhood. In order to fight the overwhelming gang presence, the police believe in increasing the amount of gun power on the streets and number of jailed gang members. The priest who runs Homeboy Industries stated that he feels most gang members are just young men who can’t get out of the gang life. With more funds and opportunities, he thinks the problem could be decreased. In the end, the documentary mentions that the FBI has formed a gang center where local law enforcement agencies can share information to gain more knowledge and to better fight the presence of gangs.
This book review covers Policing Gangs in America by Charles Katz and Vincent Webb. Charles Katz has a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice, while Vincent Webb has a Ph.D. in Sociology, making both qualified to conduct and discuss research on gangs. Research for Policing Gangs in America was gathered in four cities across the American Southwest; Inglewood, California, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona. This review will summarize and discuss the main points of each chapter, then cover the relationship between the literature and class discussions in Introduction to Policing and finally it will note the strengths and weaknesses of book.
Hallswort, S. And Young, T. (2004) Getting Real About Gang. Criminal Justice Matters [online]. 55. (1), pp 12-13 [Accessed 10 December 2013]
Many stereotypes of gangs have been fabricated. The problem is that a majority of gang members do not fit these stereotypes, which, in turn, makes it hard for the to be caught (Klein). Traditionally they organize their group around a specific neighborhood, school or housing projec...
As more people are claiming their rights and being accepted by society, the media is forced to reach the obedience in a modern way. Women are fighting for they equal right and starting to play leading role in movie and TV shows. For example, not so long ago, I watched “She’s the Man” a movie played in 2006 by Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum. Byrne’s character, Viola been playing soccer in place of his brother who didn’t want anything to do with soccer or any other sports for that matter. Bynes is really good at soccer and loves sport. She didn’t let herself brake by the tough guys in her team who think she was a man. She subsequently shows the absurdity of gender biases by being the best at what she loves. This type of movie prove there is nothing abnormal to our behavior and it do not make us less of a person when do not conform to norm of