The Importance Of Gang Prevention

The United States is going through a national epidemic that is taking over our youth. Gangs are becoming more and more prevalent in the lives of our youth and violence is becoming the answer to our problems. Necessary gang prevention programs are heavily underfunded, and the need to rehabilitate the troubled kids, take them off the street, and integrate them to be positive roles in society is barely an option in the views of todays society. With the demand of gang programs come the demand of gang intervention specialists. The main task of a gang intervention specialist is to relate to the individual, and help them develop goals and plans for their future aside from being a gang member. Additional tasks include, helping the individual not

At the CYS (Community Youth Services) a Bachelor 's of Arts or Science degree in counseling or related field is required. Or four years of experience working in a related agency or with troubled youth and gang members. Also, under the desired characteristics sections of the CYS opening, it lists the knowledge of the Restorative Justice System. Any additional training received prior to the job would give that applicant an edge in who would be hired. Other degrees that would be useful in this career would be a Bachelors in Criminal Justice, Youth Development, or Juvenile Corrections. All of these would be useful in a gang specialists career. The Criminal Justice degree would come in handy when helping the individual with legal issues that they may have from the past. A Youth Development degree would help in creating activities and plans that would help further the individuals goals and give them a bright future. A Juvenile Corrections degree would help when managing possible anger issues and management skills. Typically a Juvenile Corrections certificate is made to accompany a degree in Criminal Justice, so those two degrees would

In a cover story, Docuyanan and Males say that “adult society (is) increasingly angry and punishing towards its youth” (1). They proceed to say, later in the story, that “Rehabilitation and reintegration into the community are concepts that have already fallen out of fashion” and that “instead of prevention and rehabilitation programs, more prisons are being built to warehouse juveniles along with adults” (1). These “opinions” can be backed up by statistics that were collected in California from the years 1989-1994. In these years seven new prisons were built at a cost of $1.3 billion, and from 1995-1996 four more prisons opened their doors at a cost of $839 million (Docuyanan and Males 3). With all the money that is going towards punishing people, half of that could have been used to rehabilitate and integrate individuals into contributing to society. The costs that were calculated exclude the living expenses and everything else that an inmate needs. The real problem is society avoiding and being scared to give juvenile delinquents a true chance at change. Many people would agree with the statement that, “only more cops and more prisons will bring down the juvenile crime. Instead of proposing more money for alleviating poverty or for crime prevention, they want more law enforcement - at all cost of tens of billions of dollars.” (Docuyanan and Males