Street Gangs in America - Essay Example

The social relationships of gangs provide teenagers a sense of belonging, an especially important need for developing adolescents. In many neighborhoods, youths are actively recruited or intimidated into joining gangs and seemingly have little choice. “A few [teens] are virtually born into gangs as a result of neighborhood traditions and their parents’ earlier and perhaps continuing gang participation or involvement in criminal activity” (Moore, 1978). The gang offers disenfranchised youths experiencing feelings of isolation that are also wavering between their native and adopted cultures and connected to neither, a family-like affiliation.

These are many reasons that young people join gangs, all of which are relatively easy to understand. Therefore, this discussion will focus on the gangs themselves, their motivations, characteristics, general make-up and current trends concerning street gang activity in America. The typical age range of gang members is 12 to 24 years old with an average age of about 17 to 18 years, but this average is generally older in cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles where gangs have been in existence longer (Curry & Decker, 1998).

While the numbers of younger gang members are growing, the average age of members is also increasing. Gangs are progressively becoming proportionately older as they increase in total size throughout the country. Not surprisingly, male gang members well outnumber women by a large percentage, a disparity that widens as the members become older. Gangs differ in size depending on the types of criminal activity associated with the gang. “Traditional (large, enduring, territorial) gangs average about 180 members, whereas specialty (e.g., drug trafficking) gangs average only about 25 members.

In large cities, some gangs number in the thousands and even tens of thousands” (Block & Block,