Family and Community Violence: Youth and Gang Violence-U.S. Perspectives, Week 4, Blog #2

The violence that is perpetrated by juvenile gang members has had a lot of attention and focus for the elimination of gang involvement over the last couple of decades. Gang activity is something that is motivated in the media as an attractive and lucrative career by way of selling drugs and having the support of such criminal activity by members alike. But as we seen in the film," Why Do Crack Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?" being  a drug dealer hardly guarantees a lucrative income and the mortality rate for those that participate in the drug dealing gang business, isn't very high. 

The lifestyle often portrayed by older drug dealing gang members are often misrepresented. The fancy cars are often leased vehicles, gold plated jeweler passed off as the real thing and the money given to the younger "foot soldiers" of gangs are tactics to get them to become indebted to the higher gang members for their own personal gain later.  

Three things that the the article and films attempt to identify and conclude are why juveniles join street gangs and what are the risk factors that are making youth prone to get involved in this type of activity.  

I believe that the media has had a large influence on gang activity. This not only includes television shows and movies, but I believe "gansta rap" has a huge impact on glamorizing this lifestyle. Recruitment by active members I believe is the most prominent and common way someone becomes involved in gang activity. Whether it be a friend, brother, sister, neighbor, etc., these people influence younger more vulnerable and impressionable youth into joining and becoming  part of a "family." 

The risk factors for youth gang membership can be extensive. An individual may have only a few identified risk factors or have a lot that makes that more likely to become a gang member and play a more active role in illegal activity. 

The risk factors come from a variety of sources such as the community, family, school, individual, and peer group. Risk factors in a community include the presence of gangs in the neighborhood, availability to drugs and firearms, lack of economic and and social capital and poverty. Family plays in an important role when it comes to risk factors for juveniles joining gangs. These risk factors include broken homes, parental drug/alcohol abuse, family members in a gang, lack of adult and parental role models and low socioeconomic status. Academic failure, low commitment to school and education and few teacher role models are just several risk factors that are associated with school.

Identifying and making attempts to intervene in lives of youth that are susceptible to these risk factors may be a solution to try and stop gang involvement and to educate them on the truth of gangs, drugs, and other illegal activity before it's too late.

References:

Krohn, M.D., & Thornberry, T. P. (2007). Longitudinal perspectives on adolescent street gangs.  In The long view of crime: A synthesis of longitudinal research. (pp. 128-60). New York: Springer.

TED Talks. "Steven Levitt analyzes crack economics." Feb 2004. Online Video Clip.