The Link between Poverty and Teenage Gang Culture - Research Paper Example

The link between poverty and teenage gang culture Contents Introduction 3 Method 3 Discussion and findings 4 Conclusion 8 Introduction Violence done by young people has become very popular now a day. It has become most visible form of violence. In teenage gang culture young people gets involve in it and often contributes greatly in increasing the global burden of disability, injury and premature death. The teen age gang culture not only harms its victims but also harms many communities and families. Over a past decade there has been a strong connection between poverty and teen age gang culture. It expanding its geographical territory and the gang violence is becoming a huge problem in the society. This group of young people are engaged in various criminal activities like graffiti, drug dealings, violence etc. The teenagers of the gang are having ethnic and socioeconomic background. The teenage gang culture started from 17th century in Britain. There are many factors involved in motivating and influencing the poor teenager in get involved in these criminal activities. The aim of doing research on this topic is to discuss and find the link between poverty and teenage gang culture. Method Research is mainly of two types. One is primary and another one is secondary. This research on this topic of teenage gang culture and poverty is done on the basis of secondary data. Both quantitative and qualitative research work has been done here. Relevant information is derived from different books and journals. Study of various websites is done for gathering secondary data. Primary research is done on the basis of raw data which are directly extracted from people by conducting interviews, filling up questioners, observations etc. here primary research is not done because it is very much time consuming. Moreover the target market of this topic is vast and located in different places. Therefore it becomes difficult to extract data from individuals in many cases. The main filter applied for this research paper is based on the countries. Secondary data from different westernized countries are used in this paper. I have got nine relevant sources for this topic which had described the link between poverty and teenage gang culture. The youth crime is a social problem which has become an important part of the gang culture. The young people who are not employed and do not have proper education provokes the antisocial activities. Discussion and findings Poverty is one of the important reasons of influencing the teenager in getting involved in criminal activities. Young people in the gangs encounter dangerous situations, fear and distrust. It increases their criminal activities. According to the researcher Howell, the young people who are in this gang get involved in activities like alcohol abuse, drugs consumption promiscuous sexual activities etc. Teenagers want power, money and recognition in the society for their excitement for which they join these gangs (Howell, 2007). The poor families cannot afford to maintain a proper family structure and environment to survive in the urban society for its high cost of living. The teenagers of those families get inclined to do criminal activities for experiencing different benefits and advantages. Sometimes the family members who are involved in the gangs influences the young members of the family to participate in the antisocial activities of the gang. Education is becoming expensive day by day. Therefore many youth cannot afford to continue their education for their poverty. Johnson and Muhlhausen stated in their study that teenagers who have lack of scholastic achievements are perceived in a negative way by the educated people. This influences those teenagers to perform criminal activities on the educated rich people. They want to be rich and be in the position of the rich people and enjoying luxury instead of facing poverty (Johnson and Muhlhausen, 2005). The young people who regularly experiences drug abuse, poverty are more inclined to join gang activities. One of the important cultures of the gang is promising the youth who feels unprotected. By this the gang members compelled the youth to join in their activities in return of their safety. White and Mason concluded that most of the poor people are addicted to alcohol and drugs. The children of those people become use to it and they also become addicted to these things. But for the absence of sufficient money they get indulge in robbery and theft activities. Sometimes the poor teenager becomes so aggressive that they even murder people for money. The members of these gangs carry weapons with themselves. Once the teenagers get involved in gangs then it becomes very difficult for them to leave the gang or the criminal activities. The gang members often experience many personal injuries, death or imprisonment (White and Mason, 2006). The inequality in the society results in increasing the poverty. This influences the gang culture in gun crimes which is a major problem for any country. This problem is very predominating in Britain. The antisocial gangs are mainly formed on the basis of ethnic and racial oppression, slums and poverty and inequality. According to author Strocka, discrimination is often done on the basis of income level which encourages the poor people in snatching expensive materials and money from others for making themselves rich. By showing off those expensive materials the young gang members think that they can create their position in the society. The abuse language of this teenager creates a very bad impact on the society. In the past few years there has been an increase in division of socio economic environment in various countries especially in the western countries. Overt and intense consumerism is combined with this environment is explicit in the big urban cities where wealth and poverty is growing side by side (Strocka, 2006). The rise of economic knowledge and the decline of the industrial sector is the major factor influencing the gang culture of the teenagers. Many working people are becoming unemployed for the economic crisis which indulge them in criminal activities. In the modern time majority of the families depends upon the income of the young generation. Absence of good job and high cost of living creates monetary crisis. The young people residing in the deprived areas more provoked to get involved in the gang culture. The teenagers of this gang are alienated from the main society and created an alternative society of their own in their gangs. Hagedorn stated in the study, the socio economic changes lead to the breakdown of many families. Lack of strong control of the parents on the young gang members is also a vital issue of gang culture. For poverty people also faces problems in doing medical treatments. Sick poor people can afford expensive medical treatment which forces their next generations to earn money by unethical means. For this those teenagers becomes bound to perform different antisocial activities for satisfying their basic needs. Poverty leads to the increase of stress which results in increasing different violent acts. Per capita income increases the difference between the upper and lower class people which increases crimes. Higher crime rate is observed in the teenagers whose age is lower than twenty five. They are the most active members of the gangs. The main theme of gang culture is ride or dies (Hagedorn, 2005). Teenage gang culture is predominant in America, England, South Africa and many other countries. In US rapid industrialization develops the country but also influences the urban teenager to get indulged in gang culture. Teenage gang culture is very prevalent in the society of US. The countries infrastructure and community influences the young people in a large extent in theft, robbery and drug addiction. The young person who performs the criminal activities has different types of weapons with themselves without legal permission. G. Roger Jarjoura, Gregory P. Brinker and Ruth A. Triplett found out in their study that minority population is also related with poverty. The impoverished living of the people in the urban area is characterised by disproportionate amount of living. Racism among the minorities creates a negative effect on jobs, lowering the wages etc (Jarjoura, Triplett and Brinker 2002). All these lead to the increase of high poverty. An example of this incident is all the Metropolitan Areas in 1995 experienced unemployment over 12% and the countries were having 30% minorities in their population. Population density influences the living condition of the people. It creates an impact on the poverty and teenage gang culture. Densely populated area tends to have a significant amount of poverty. Maximum young people ranging between 12-20years have single parent. They lack in getting proper education and guidance which creates many chances for joining antisocial gangs. Poverty affects the gang culture of the teenager like a regression model. Williamson stated that the homelessness and poverty of the old and young became major problem in many countries. In the past time the black population were often confines to rural areas which are poorly developed. They faced extreme poverty and difficulties for their survival. This racial discrimination created feelings of revenge in them which was more provoked by their poverty (Williamson, 2007). The young teenagers who suffered from these situations joined and formed different gangs to destroy the traditional rules of the society. The lack of economic resources forms tension among the people which affects the peace of the country. Selling and distribution of drugs is an illegitimate source of income for the teenagers of the gangs. The Social and economic changes and the decline of cocaine price leads to have established such situation that the blue collar jobs are replaced by illegal drug jobs by many young people. These jobs are some of the main activities of the gang members. Money is the basic thing for survival. But for the few adequate opportunities have influenced the young gang members to turn drug dealing as a substitute job. Squires stated that in California teenage gang crime has most serious problem in California. The gangs motivate and protect the teenagers from its rival gang members. Poverty has become more important than cultural pride which results cultural and social isolation. The growth of teenager gangs in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago is for the higher concentration of poverty (Squires, 2008). The urbanisation of these countries leads in exploiting the teenagers. London, Liverpool and Manchester also face serious problems for these teenage gangs. London is known as capital of world’s gang. A large number of street gangs are present there where probably 1500- 2000 people are present. Their age ranges between 10-19years. The European countries are facing a huge development but still have not eradicated the poverty from its society. The culture of the European countries also increased its poverty level. The teenager got influenced by that and joined different gangs for abolishing their crisis. In Manchester the young people in between 14- 21 years get involved in gangs. Most of them reside in slums. The gang war of Manchester became so famous that it gained the attraction of National media. It became very violent that it threatened the whole community. These teenage gangs have become an organised group of criminals who can do many things for money and often invites deaths for those illegal activities. The poor people mainly reside in the areas where they suffer from having the facilities of public amenities. The condition of their house is deteriorating and they experience a bad quality of welfare service, health and education (Hudson, 2008). The neighbourhood of those people are is also very prone to criminal activities which attract the young people of those poor families to start criminal offence by joining different gangs. It is the easiest and quickest way to them for earning money. Conclusion Teenage gang culture has a strong relationship with poverty. In gangs the young people get engaged and perform different criminal activities. The main reason behind this is money and poverty. For different monetary issues the urban society neglects the poor people which turn them into antisocial. The teenagers of this gangs share a common goal or purpose. Unemployment and low per capita income influences the teenager to take unethical ways for their survival. In the modern world the necessary things of our lives are becoming very expensive. Many poor people cannot afford those things. So their young generation do criminal activities to gain money and avail those basic requirements. The best possible way to abolish this teenage gang culture is to educate the teenagers properly so that they can earn money in legal and ethical way. References Hagedorn, M.J., 2005. The global impact of gangs. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 21(2). pp. 153-169. Howell, J., 2007. Menacing or mimicking? Realities of youth gangs. Juvenile and Family Court Journal. 58(1). pp. 39-50. Hudson, S., 2008. Knife crime 2008. Magistrate. 64(1). pp. 290-291. Jarjoura, G.R, Triplett A.R, and Brinker. P.G., 2002. Growing up poor: Examining the link between persistent childhood poverty and delinquency. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 18(2). pp. 159-187. Johnson, S. and Muhlhausen, D.B., 2005. North American transnational youth gangs: breaking the chain of violence. Trends in Organized Crime. 9(1). pp. 38-54. Squires, P. 2008. New approaches to gun violence. CJM. 71(1). pp. 3-5. Strocka, C., 2006. Youth gangs in Latin America. SAIS Review. 26(2). pp. 133-146. White, R and Mason, R., 2006. Youth gangs and youth violence: Charting the key dimensions. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. 39(1). pp.54-70. Williamson, H., 2007. Gangs and image. Young People Now. 378(1). p.13. Read More