The History of Youth Gangs - Essay Example

1 Youth Gangs It is believed that youth gangs initially appeared in Europe (Klien, 1996), or Mexico (Redfield; 1941; Rubel 1965: However it is not totally clear when or why youth gangs made their appearance in the United States. The earliest record of their appearance in the United States may have been as early as 1783, as the American Revolution ended(Sante 1991, Sheldon 1898). Thrasher (1927), says in the "Gang" that, "they may have emerged spontaneously from adolescent play groups as a collective response to urban condition in this country"(Thrasher) While others (Redfield, 1941; Rubel, 1965), suggests that gangs emerged after the Mexican revolution in 1813". As to why and how they were manifested Moore 1978; Vigil 1988) say that, 'gangs may have frown out of difficulties Mexican youth encountered with social and cultural adjustment to the American way of life under extremely poor conditions in the southwest". Gangs appeared to have spread to New England in the early 1800's as the industrial revolution gained momentum in the first large cities in the United States: New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Miller observed, the United States has seen four distinct periods of gang growth and peak activity; the late 1800's, the 1920's, the 1960's and the 1990's"(Miller). According to Klien, 1995; Klien and Maxson, 1989; Miller 1974, 1992; Spergel, 1995. "In the modern era, there are a number of trends that have contributed to the influence of gang activity, during the 1970's and 1980's given heightened mobility, and unfettered access to more lethal weapons, many gangs become more dangerous" According to Miller, "Gang fights oreviously involved fist fights or brass knuckles, but now they increasing involve guns. The growing availability of automobiles, coupled with 2 the use of more lethal weapons, fueled the growth of drive-by shootings, a tactic which formerly took the form of on foot hit and run forays"(Miller 1966) Miller and Spergel point out that Gangs of the 1980's and 1990's seem to have both more younger and more older members than before"(Miller, 1992 Spergel,1995) According to Sanchez-Jankowski 1991; Skolnick et al, 1988; Taylor 1989, "some youth gangs appear to have been transformed into entrepreneurial organizations by the crack cocaine epidemic that began in the mid-1980's. However, Howell and Decker in press) contend that, "the extent to which they have become drug trafficking organizations is unclear" According to Curry and Decker 1998, "The average age of youth gang members is about 17 to 18 years", but tends to be older in cities where gangs have been in existence longer, like Chicago and Los Angeles" The typical age range is 12 to 24. Although more younger members are becoming more prevalent, it is the older membership that has increased the most"(Hagerdorn, 1988; Moore,1990, Spergel, 1995) "Male gang members outnumber females by a wide margin, and this span is greater in late adolescence than in early adolescence"(Miller, 1992; Moore, 1978). "Gangs vary in size by type of gang. Traditional (large, enduring, territorial) gangs average about 180 members"(Klien and Maxson 1996). As per Block and Block, 1993, and Spergel, 1995, "In large cities gangs number in the thousands" In the 19th century, youth gangs in the United States were primarily Irish, Jewish and Italian"(Haskins, 1974; Sante,1991) According to a recent national law enforcement survey, the ethnicity of gang members is 48 per cent African-American, 43 per cent 3 Hispanic, 5 per cent white, and 4 per cent Asian"(Curry 1996) Bursik and Grasmick (1993) points out that, "despite the disproportionate representation of minority group members in studies as compared with white youths, "blacks and Hispanics have no special disposition to gang membership. Rather, they are simply overrepresented in those areas likely to lead to gang activity" Miller (1974:220) notes that, "observers of any given period tend to relate the characteristics of gangs to those of the particular ethnic groups prominent in the urban lower class during that periodroughly the more prevalent the lower-class populations, the more gangs". Spergel 1995 agrees, but with an important caveat; "contemporary youth gangs are located primarily in lower class, slum, ghetto, barrio, or working class changing communities, but it is not clear that either class, poverty, culture, race or ethnicity, or social change per se primarily accounts [sic] for gang problems". Spergel's observations appears to be correct, because gangs have recently become more prevalent in rural counties, small cities, and town's"(Moore and Terrett in press), for reasons which are still not yet well understood. Certain offenses are related to racial/ethnic youth gangs. African-American gangs are relatively more involved in drug offenses; Hispanic gangs, in turf related violence; Asian and white gangs, in property crimes"(Block et al, 1996, Spergel, 1990) Numerous ethnographic studies have provided excellent descriptions of Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles. They tend to be structured around age based cohorts, based in a specific territory (barrios) and characterized by fighting"(Moore, Vigil and Garcia, 1983), "the gang provides family like relationships for adolescents who feel isolated, drifting between their native and adopted cultures and feeling alienated from both"(Vigil 1990a, 1990b; vigil and Long, 1990). "In contrast African-American gangs in large cities tend to replace traditional social networks what linked youth with legitimate work opportunities"(Anderson 1990) Thus, these gangs tend tend to be involved in entrepreneurial activities more than other ethnic/racial groups and may evolve from "scavenger" groups to turf groups and drug-trafficking gangs"(Taylor,1989). "Data on the number of female youth gang members have not yet been gathered nationwide. Miller (1992) estimated that approximately 10 per cent of gang members were female" Among law enforcement agencies which reported male and female membership data in a 1992 survey, gang membership was estimated to be nearly 6 per cent female"(Curry,1995b). "Female membership is higher in earlt adolescence. Among all adolescents, female involvement may be increasing proportionately with male gang involvement"(Klein 1995). Miller 1995 states, "the initial survey of cities with gang problems indicates that by far the most common female gangs are auxillary gangs affiliated with male gangs"(Miller 1975) Decker and Van Winkle (1996), view young gangs as consisting of both pulls and pushes. Pulls pertain to the attractiveness of the gang. Gang membership can embrace prestige or status among friends, especially doe girls". Gangs provide other attractive opportunities, such as the chance for excitement, by selling drugs and making money. Thus, many youths see themselves as making a rational choice in deciding to join a gang"(Sanchez-Jankowski 1991). Yablonsky (1962) have found that, compared with non gang youth, gang members 5 are more socially inept, have lower self esteem, and, in general, have sociopathic characteristics. While the gang environment facilitates delinquency, gang members are already delinquent prior to joining a gang. However, rates of delinquent activity increases dramatically during the period of gang membership. From a prevention and intervention perspective, three thoughts emerge. First, the finding that delinquency generally precedes gang membership suggests that gang programs should not be linked to gang intervention or suppression. General prevention efforts that target the entire adolescent population may also prove to be beneficial in reducing youth gang involvement. Second, certain risk factors associated with gang members have already been identified. As such, prevention and intervention strategies that specifically target at risk youth are warranted. Third, given the level of delinquent activity that occurs within the gang environment, specific programs that seek to intervene in the lives of gang affiliated youth should be encouraged. According to Klien (1995:143), "Increased group programming leads to increased cohesiveness (both gang growth and gang 'tightness'), and increased cohesiveness leads to increased gang crime". Klien (1995: 147) concluded, "we had affected them, but no their community. The lesson is obvious and important. Gangs are by-products of their communities: They cannot long be controlled by attacks on symptoms alone: community structure and capacity must also be targeted". The Office of Juvenile Justice and delinquency Prevention, promotes Spergel's comprehensive gang model as a comprehensive gang model approach to gangs. The 6 model consist of the following five strategies, which are representative of secondary and tertiary prevention: (1) Mobilizing community leaders and residents to plan strengthen, or create new opportunities or linkages to existing organizations for gang involved or at risk youth. (2) Using outreach workers to engage gang involvement. (3) Providing or facilitating access to academic, economic, and social opportunities. (4) Conducting gang suppression activities and holding gang involved youth accountable. And (5) Facilitating organizational change and development to help community agencies better address gang problems through a team - problem - solving approach that is consistent with the policy of community oriented policing. Works Cited Block, C. R., Christakos, A., Jocob, A., And Przybylski, R., (1996) Street Gangs and Crime: Patterns and trends in Chicago Block, R., and Block, C.R., (1993) Street Gang Crime in Chicago Research in Brief, Washington, DC: I.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, NCJ 144782 Bobrowski, L. J., (1988), People and Folds: Gangs, Crime, and the underclass in a Rust Belt City :Chicago, Il: Lakeview Press Bursik, R. J. Jr., and Guasmick, H. G. (1993), Neighborhoods and Crime, The Dimension of Effective Community Control. New York, New York: Lexington Press Curry, G. D., and Decker, S. H., (1988) Confronting Gangs and Community, Los Angeles, California: Roxbury Curry, G.D., (1996) National Youth Gang Surveys: A Review of Methods and Findings, Unpublished . Talahasse, Fl: Report prepared for the National Gang Youth Center Finestone, H., (1976) Victime of Change, Westport, CT, Greenwood Hagerdorn, J. M., (1988) People and Folks: Gangs, Crime, and the Underclass in a Rust Belt City: Chicago, Il: Lakeview Press Howell, J. C., and Decker, S. H., In press, The Gangs, Drugs and Violence Connection. Bulletin. Washington, DC: U. S> Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Haskins, J., (1974), Street Gangs. Yesterday and Today.Wayne, Pennsylvania, Hastings Books Klien, M. W., (1995) The American Street Gang, New York, New York, Oxford University Press Klien, M. W., and Maxson, C. L., (1989), Street Gang Violence. In Violent Crime, Violent Criminals, edited by M.E. Wolfgang and N.A. Weiner, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 198-234 Klien, M. W., (1996), Gangs in the United States and Europe. European Journal on Criminal Policy Research (Special Issue) 663080 Miller, W. B. (1974) American Youth Gangs: Past and Present. In Current perspectives on Criminal behavior, edited by A. Blumberg, New York, New York: knopf pp. 410- 420 Miller, W. B., (1992) Revised from 1982, Crime by Youth Gangs and Groups in the United States. Washington, D. C., U. S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention NCJ 15221 Moore, J.P. and Terrett, C.P., In press. Highlights of the 1996 National Youth Gang Survey, Fact Sheet: Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Moore J. W., (1978), Homeboys: Gangs, Drugs and Prison: In the Barrios of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Moore, J. W., (1990), Gangs, Drugs, and Violence.In Drugs and Violence: Causes Correlates, and Consequences, edited by M. De La Rosa, E. Y. Lambert, and B. Gropper. Research Monograph No.103. Rockville, MD; National Institute of Drug Abuse, pp.160-176 Redfield, R., (1941), Folk Culture of Yucatan, Chicago, Il, University of Chicago Press Rubel, A.J., (1965), The Mexican American Palomilla. Anthropological Linguistics 4:29- 97 Sanchez-Jankowski, M.S., (1991) Islands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Society: Berkeley California: University of California Press Sante, L., (1991) Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, New York, New York: Vintage Books Skolnick, J. H., Cirrel, T., Navarro, E., and Rabb, R., (1988) The Social Structure of Street Drug Dealing. Unpublished Report to the Office of the Attorney General of the State of California. Berkeley, California: University of California, Berkeley Spergel, I. A., (1995), The Youth Gang Problem: New York, New York: Oxford University Press Sheldon, H. D., (1898). The Institutional Activity of American Children. The American Journal of Psychology 9: 424-448 Taylor, C.S., (1989), Dangerous Society, East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press Vigil, J. D., (1988), Barrio Gangs, Street Life and Identity in Southern California. Austin, Texas, University of Texas Press Read More