In this article, we shall evaluate the effectiveness of the measures that have been taken to control the children and adolescents who have a high risk of future offending. According to researchers, there has been a lot of arrests of young children and adolescents. Law enforcement in the United States for example arrested 2.4 million children aged 18 years and below. This was a 18% of all arrests made, 33% of all property crimes and 17% of the criminal activities that were committed that year (Snyder, 1999). More significant is that cases of cases of youthful offenders are on the rise on among the young female compared to their male counterparts and this situation is raising an alarm (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999).
Gangs on the Rise in Metro Houston Without a doubt, Houston has a growing gang problem according to a recent article in the Houston Chronicle. Gangs are a violent reality and a way of life for many who are seeking acceptance and a means to “fit in”, regardless of the price that must be paid. Many people have their own view as to why gangs are formed and why they exist in our society. One of the main reasons is friendship and they often tell their friend about how “cool” it is to be part of something, to be accepted. Children from poverty, who experience hopelessness, and who are bored and are looking for nice clothes and long to have money think being in a gang can earn them lots of pocket money.
It allows the police departments to take proactive law enforcement action normally before the gang gets an organized structure. The gang can or may range from a loose knit group of individuals who hang around together and commit crimes together, to a formal organization with a leader or ruling council, gang colors, gang identifiers could be such as tattoos, and a gang name. In the textbook on page 145, “Islands in the Street: Urban Gangs in the United States, it says that the functions that gangs fulfill or motives for joining a gang is to possible to escape a broken home, but many members that join still interact with their families. So that must not be the only reason in some cases of why people join gangs. It also say its because of money, drugs, woman, to commit a crime, and for protection because its better than the police.
I also knew that gangs appeal to young people because there’s a lot of power that you get. Almost all the people that join gangs have no idea what they are getting themselves into. Before my group and I started our research about gang violence we had a few questions. Some of our questions were- why do people join gangs, what do they offer, what do they do, and how do they get into the gang? While we were researching we found almost all of the answers that we needed.
The film Boys of Baraka shows the story of four young twelve years old boys from one of the most dangerous and violent ghettos in Baltimore. Directed by Ewing and Grady, they used different themes and film techniques to show how the boys got a second chance in education and life. The theme that was carried throughout this documentary was that there is always hope and with help, you could go far in life. The film dealt with kids whose parents have failed them and those who are in risk of not graduating and in risk of going to jail early. One of them was dealing with a mother on drugs.
''Over 1,000 studies point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children.". The effects of media violence on society,especially children and teenagers, are doubtlessly very negative. Several studies done in the United States and Canada have shown a positive relationship between early exposure to television violence and physical aggressiveness in later life. Media exposure leads to a desensitization to violence and is associated with violent and aggressive behavior, bullying, fear, depression, nightmares and sleep disorders. The results of a longitudinal study tracked 700 male and female youths over a fifteen-year period.
WP2 Synthesis 7/6/2012 Gangs Gangs in the world today have been a major issue to all governments. Gangs will continue to be a problem in our world today because of an informal market, poverty and the youth today. Danny Malec wrote a review on Transforming Latino Gang Violence in the United States. In this article he believes and understands that due to the United States having an informal market, seduces the youth today by replacing family role models with gang members. Grossman agrees with Malec’s views, while taking a media strong stand point on this issue.
The program BUILD mentions above also adopted their techniques by giving questionnaires to the community youths in Chicago. There was a national study developed to evaluate the effectiveness of the GREAT program through a cross section survey involving 5,935 seventh and eighth grade students. That reveals some kind of lower delinquency behavior in the students. Overall there has been a huge increase in numbers of gang membership and gang related crimes. There might not be a cover all solution for the gang epidemic that is occurring all over the United Sates today.
Young teens have a large target on their back because most gangs look for them to be new recruits. They feel the younger generation is a great age to start teaching them what they need to know so that one day they can be the leaders. Teens get pressured and threatened to get them to join (Recruit Their Members). In many cases there’s no way of getting away from it. Gang members also bribe young teens with alcohol and drugs.
Like if someone was a kid no more than 14 years old and one day he headed how from school and his finds out his mother was murdered. This will have a effect on where the kid might go with his career. He might want to help get those murders of the street. Police Officer is a growing career which aims to change the community by a number of practices such as being a K-9 Officer. As joyful, exciting, and productive as daily life can often be for the average citizen society is still fraught with danger.