GANGS Essay, Research Paper

by Anh Phu

psychology 202

Dr.Norwood 11:00-12:00 (MWF)

Gangs are a violent reality that people have to deal with in today’s cities.

What has made these groups come

about? Why do kids feel that being in a gang is both an acceptable and

prestigious way to live? The long range

answer to these questions can only be speculated upon, but in the short

term the answers are much easier to find.

On

the surface, gangs are a direct result of human beings’ personal wants and

peer pressure. To determine how to

effectively end gang violence we must find the way that these morals are

given to the individual. Unfortunately, these

can only be hypothesized. However, by looking at the way humans are

influenced in society, I believe there is good

evidence to point the blame at several institutions. These include the

forces of the media, the government, theatre,

drugs and our economic system.

On the surface, gangs are caused by peer pressure and greed. Many

teens in gangs

will pressure peers into becoming part of a gang by making it all sound

glamorous. Money is also an crucial factor.

A

kid (a 6-10 year old, who is not yet a member) is shown that s/he could

make $200 to $400 for small part time

gang

jobs. Although these are important factors they are not strong enough to

make kids do things that are strongly

against

their morals.

One of the ways that kids morals are bent so that gang violence becomes

more acceptable is the influence of

television and movies. The average child spends more time at a TV than

she/he spends in a classroom. Since

nobody

can completely turn off their minds, kids must be learning something while

watching the TV. Very few hours of

television watched by children are educational, so other ideas are being

absorbed during this period of time. Many

shows on television today are extremely violent and are often shown this

from a gang’s perspective. A normal adult

can see that this is showing how foully that gangs are living. However, to a

child this portrays a violent gang

existance as acceptable. ‘The Ends Justifies the Means’ mentality is also

taught through many shows where the

“goody

guy” captures the “bad guy” through violence and is then being

commended. A young child sees this a perfectly

acceptable because he knows that the “bad guy” was wrong but has no

idea of what acceptable apprehension

techniques are.

Gore in television also takes a big part in influencing young minds.

Children see gory scenes and are

fascinated by these things that they have not seen before. Older viewers

see gore and are not concerned with the

blood but rather with the pain the victim must feel. A younger mind

doesn’t make this connection. Thus a gore

fascination is formed, and has been seen in several of my peers.

Unfortunately kids raised with this sort of television

end up growing up with a stronger propensity to becoming a violent gang

member or ‘violent- acceptant’ person.

“Gangs bring the delinquent norms of society into intimate contact with the

individual.”1, (Marshall B

Clinard, 1963). So, as you can see if TV leads a child to believe that

violence is the norm this will manifest itself in

the

actions of the child quite, often in a gang situation. This is especially the

case when parents don’t spend a lot of time

with their kids at the TV explaining what is right and what is wrong. Quite

often newer books and some types of

music will enforce this type of thought and ideas.

Once this mentality is installed in youngsters they become increasingly

prone to being

easily pushed into a gang situation by any problem at home or elsewhere.

For instance, in poor families with many

children or upper-middle class families where parents are always

working, the children will often feel deprived of

love. Parents can often feel that putting food on the table is enough love.

Children of these families may often go to

the gang firstly out of boredom and to belong somewhere. As time goes

on, a form of love or kinship develops

between the gang members and the child. It is then that the bond between

the kid and the gang is completed

because

the gang has effectively taken the place of the family.

The new anti social structure of cities also effects the ease in which a

boy/girl can join a gang. ” The

formation of gangs in cities, and most recently in suburbs, is facilitated by

the same lack of community among

parents. The parents do not know what their children are doing for two

reasons: First, much of the parents’ lives is

outside the local community, while the children’s lives are lived almost

totally within it. Second, in a fully developed

community, the network of relations gives every parent, in a sense, a

community of sentries who can keep him

informed of his child’s activities. In modern living-places (city or

suburban), where such a network is attenuated, he

no longer has such sentries.”2, (Merton Nisbet, 1971).

In male gangs problems occur as each is the members tries to be the most

manly. This often leads to all

members participating in “one-up-manship”. Quite often this will then lead

to each member trying to commit a bigger

and more violent crime or simply more crimes than the others. With all

members participating in this sort of activity it

makes for a never ending unorganized violence spree (A sort of

Clockwork Orange mentality). In gangs with more

intellegent members these feelings end up making each member want to

be the star when the groups commit a

crime.

This makes the gang much more organized and improves the morale of

members which in turn makes them more

dangerous and very hard for the police to deal with and catch (There is

nothing harder to find and deal with than

organized teens that are dedicated to the group). This sort of gang is

usually common of middle or upper class

people

although it can happen in gangs in the projects and other low rent districts

too.

This “one-up-manship” is often the reason between rival gangs fighting. All

gangs feel powerful and they

want to be feared. To do this they try to establish themselves as the only

gang in a certain neighborhood. After a

few

gang fights hatred forms and gang murders and drive-by’s begin to take

place. When two gangs are at war it makes

life very dangerous for citizens in the area. Less that 40% of drive-by’s kill

their intended victim yet over 60% do kill

someone. This gang application is one of the many reasons that sexual

sterotypes and pressure to conform to the

same must be stopped.

Lastly one of the great factors in joining a gang is for protection. Although

from an objective

point of view, we can see joining a gang brings more danger than it saves

you from, this is not always the way it is

seen by kids. In slums such as the Bronx or the very worst case,

Compton, children will no doubt be beaten and

robbed if they do not join a gang. Of course they can probably get the

same treatment from rivals when in a gang.

The

gang also provides some money for these children who quite often need

to feed their families. The reason kids think

that the gang will keep them safe is from propoganda from the gangs.

Gang members will say that no one will get

hurt and make a public show of revenge if a member is hurt or killed.

People in low rent areas are most often being repressed due to poverty

and most importantly, race. This

often results in an attitude that motivates the person to base his/her life on

doing what the system that oppresses

them

doesn’t want. Although this accomplishes little it is a big factor in gang

enrollment.

So, as you have seen gangs are a product of the environment we have

created for ourselves. Some of these

factors include: oppression, the media, greed, violence and other gangs.

There seems to be no way to end the

problem

of gangs without totally restructuring the modern economy and value

system. Since the chance of this happening is

minimal, we must learn to cope with gangs and try to keep their following

to a minimum. Unfortunately there is no

real organized force to help fight gangs. Of course the police are

supposed to do this but this situation quite often

deals with racial issues also and the police forces regularly display their

increasing inability to deal fairly with these

issues. What we need are more people to form organizations like the

“Guardian Angels” a gang-like group that

makes

life very tough for street gangs that are breaking laws.

THE END

by Anh Phu

Bibliography

Margot Webb, Coping with Street Gangs. Rosen Publishing Group, New

York, 1990.

William Foote Whyte, Street Corner Society. University of Chicago,

Chicago, 1955.

Peter Carroll, South-Central. Hoyte and Williams, L. A., 1987.

1 Marshall B. Clinard, Sociology of Deviant Behavior. University of

Wisconsin, Wisconsin, 1963, Page 179. 2

Merton Nisbet, Contempory Social Problems. Harcourt, Brace &

World, New York, 1971, Page 588.

America On Line, search egines for Lycos , Web Crawler, Yahoo , for

internet topics to sites