To express anger and frustration encountered daily in a life fuelled with poverty and joblessness and devoid of hope. Excitement and thrill. Looking for a surrogate family. Young people join gangs to receive the attention, affirmation, and protection they may feel they are lacking at home.
Breakdown of traditional family units. Many youngsters do not have a positive adult role model. Many see domestic violence and alcohol and other drug use in the home. Lack of parental involvement and the absence of rules and family rituals allow older gang members to be viewed as authority figures by young teens and children. Identity or recognition problems. Because of low self-worth and self-esteem, some youth join gangs seeking the status they lack due to unemployment or academic failure at school.
If young people do not see themselves as intelligent, leaders, or star athletes, they join other groups where they feel they can excel. Gang family history. Many street gang members carry on a family tradition established by siblings, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, or cousins who they see as role models.
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Hard copies of Facts sheets may be reproduced for personal or educational use without written permission, but cannot be included in material presented for sale or profit. Facts sheets may not be reproduced, duplicated or posted on any other website without written consent from AACAP. Gangs and Children. Return to Table of Contents. Gangs are associations of three or more individuals who adopt a group identity in order to create an atmosphere of fear or intimidation.
Gangs are typically organized upon racial, ethnic, or political lines and employ common names, slogans, aliases, symbols, tattoos, style of clothing, hairstyles, hand signs or graffiti. The association's primary purpose is to engage in criminal activity and the use of violence or intimidation to further its criminal objectives and enhance or preserve the association's power, reputation, or economic resources. If gangs are already present in the neighborhood, that can provide an outlet.
Alternatively, teenagers might form their own gangs. This is why many communities have tried to combat gangs by simply giving kids something to do. Dances, sports tournaments and other youth outreach programs can literally keep kids off the streets.
Unfortunately, many youths and even gang experts use boredom as an excuse. Authors of articles about gang violence often write something like, "There's nothing else to do where they live. But for every teenager who gets bored and joins a gang, there are 10 who find positive, productive ways to spend their time. If poverty is a condition, despair is a state of mind.
People who have always lived in poverty with parents who lived in poverty often see no chance of ever getting a decent job, leaving their poor neighborhood or getting an education. They are surrounded by drugs and gangs, and their parents may be addicts or non-responsive. A neighborhood gang can seem like the only real family they'll ever have. Joining a gang gives them a sense of belonging and being a part of something important that they can't get otherwise.
In some cases, parents approve of their children joining gangs and may have been a member of the same gang in the past. Gang History " ". Gang history and gang life have been the subject of several popular films.
Image Courtesy Amazon. Saniya Shakur, formerly Kody "Monster" Scott, became a member of the Crips at 11 and stayed in the gang for 16 years. Image courtesy Amazon. Gang Life " ". Many prisons catalog the tattoos of gang members to identify them. These tattoos identify the prisoner as a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. Ethnic gangs. These gangs define themselves by the nationality or race of the gang members.
One category of ethnic gang is defined less by the ethnicities of the members than by the ethnicities they hate. Neo-Nazi gangs, skinhead gangs and white supremacist gangs unite because of their hatred for non-Protestant Christians, Jews, blacks and Hispanics. Turf gangs. Turf gangs define themselves by the territory that they control. The gang members themselves usually live within this territory. There may be a common ethnicity within the gang simply because some neighborhoods have a certain amount of ethnic homogeneity.
These gangs often name themselves after the area they control, such as the 10th Street Gang or the East Side Cobras. If members of other gangs stray into their territory, the punishment is usually a beating or death.
This can spark deadly turf wars between rival gangs. Image courtesy Denver Police Gang Bureau Gangs have paticular recruitment strategies, initiations, and hierarchies. Explore gang life, from hand signs to tattoos.
Prison gangs. When gang members go to prison, they don't necessarily relinquish their gang membership. Street gangs continue to exist and fight other gangs inside prison walls. But some gangs start inside prisons, and only later do they extend their reach to the outside world.
These gangs obviously require members to have been in prison at one time, and are particularly tough and brutal.
One gang expert wrote, "Putting young gang members in prison is like sending them to criminal college" [ ref ]. Stopping Gangs " ". Forming neighborhood groups to clean up graffiti and maintain the area can help to drive out gangs. Image Courtesy of Stock. What does Bloods stand for?
What's the difference between the Bloods and Crips? The Crips were formed in LA during the late sixties while the Bloods were actually formed as an anti-crip gang in the early 70s.
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