Role Played by Girls and Young Women in the Gang - Literature review Example

ROLE PLAYED BY GIRLS AND YOUNG WOMEN IN THE GANG By Location Role Played by Girls and Young Women in the GangGangs and gang related activities are in most cases dominated by the male gender. This is an assumption that has been made in many crimes related research. However, it should be noted that this assumption is not far from the truth. There are many factors that have affected the perception of the public on the participation of girls and young women in gang related activities. In gangs, girls and young women are always the minority. They are always expected to play certain roles that are believed to be best suited for them in the gang setting. There is the misconception that girls do not involve themselves in criminal activities, making them just suitable for certain roles in the gang because there will be less suspicion. Furthermore, the high rate at which gender equality issues is taking effect on the society there is an expectation that the role played by girls and young women in gangs is likely to increase in the near future. This paper aims at analysing the role played by girls and young women in the gang and whether the gang researches in the US and UK has overlooked the role played by girls in gangs. According to Eghigian and Kirby (2006) there are multiple reasons as to why girls and young women can decide to join gangs. However, Cyr and Decker (2003) also assert that it is not always obvious that female gang members would be involved in criminal activities. Even most of those who are involved in the criminal activities are usually are usually involved in assisting activities instead of the main criminal activities. The rate at which male gang members are involved in criminal activities cannot be compared to the rate at which their female counterparts get involved in criminal activities. The rate at which female gang members are involved in violent crimes was also observed to be generally lower that the rates at which the male gang members involve themselves in criminal activities. A research that was carried out in Los Angeles reveals that drug offences were among the most common offences committed by female gang members. Law enforcement records document this finding though do not give any particular explanation of this trend. However, a separate study revealed that a majority of the female offenders who were arrested for drug dealing were also addicts. The study reveals that they were used as drug peddlers so that they could also get their supplies through their involvement in drug dealing (Eghigian& Kirby 2006, p. 48). However, a certain section of the female dealers was also involved in drug dealing as a result of their romantic involvement with drug dealers. Most girls never know what they are getting into. At first they join the gangs in search of a sense of belonging. They do not intend to be involved in any of their criminal activities. Most female gang members reveal that their involvement in drug dealing without being addicts confess that it always begin as a onetime favour to the gang and before they realize it, they are doing the peddling frequently. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Young (2009) believes that female gang members are more likely to be involved in committing property crimes and status offences instead of violent crimes. This is supported by the fact that most gangs are always dominated by the male members. This dominance leads to a situation where the female members of gangs are considered to be weak, thus not expected to be involved in violent crimes. However, it should be noted that some of the criminal activities that female members are involved in can be equally if not even more dangerous than most violent crimes (Young 2009, p. 229). This is attributed to the fact that women can be involved in criminal activities without raising much suspicion. A good example of such a scenario is the use of female members of a gang in killing rival gang members through poisoning them. For a female gang member this would be an easy task because all they would have to do is entice their victims, get the victim to trust them and eventually commit the crime. This is easiest done by the female members of a gang as opposed to the male one. However, it should be noted that the end of it all the crime that will have been committed is murder despite the fact that there was no use of violence. Female gang members are also used as spies. Most gangs usually act on information that might at time not be easy getting. When a gang plans to rob a bank, it is of high importance for them to get critical information about the bank so that they can be able to prepare themselves appropriately. Most crime analysts believe that female gang members can make good spies. One of the reasons why women are believed to be better spies is the fact that they are always better listeners. Women also happen to have better skills in building social relations as compared to men. Furthermore, it should be noted that being street smart is a far better attribute than being physically strong when it comes to being a spy (Cyr & Decker 2003, p. 428). As a result of these attributes most gangs usually use their female members as spies. The role of spying in criminal activities should never be taken for granted. This is because the information collected in the process usually determines the strategies that are used by gangs in their criminal activities. Many crime researchers have ignored this aspect of criminal activities, thus putting much of their emphasis on the main criminal activities. During crimes such robbery gangs usually need some of their members to be on the outlook for any law enforcement officers approaching. These are the people who do not have to do much, but alert the other gang members when there are police officers approaching. In most gangs that happen to have female members, the female members are always the favourite candidates for such tasks. This is especially true if the crime that the gang is involved is a violent one. For them to do this they do not necessarily have to be violent, but just observant and notice the approaching police officers in good time so that they can be able to alert the other gang members. Such tasks can believe to be secondary tasks in criminal processes. However, their importance to the success of criminal activities should not be taken for granted. Most criminal processes are always focused on the people who perform the actual crime forgetting the fact that such contributions have always been influential in the rise of unpunished criminal activities in the society because criminals can avoid being caught by the police while in action. According to (Kelly 2015) female gang members are also likely to involve themselves in transportation of firearms. This kind of criminal involvement mainly takes place because people have been led to believe that girls and young women are less likely to be involved in criminal activities. It is easier for a girl or a young woman to transport firearms with them from one geographical area to another as compared to their male counterparts (Kelly 2015, p. 13). This is made possible because they are less likely to be stopped for searching by law enforcement officers. This kind of criminal involvement has been observed to be in the rise among girls and young women in the recent past. It will take a higher risk for a male gang member to carry firearm around as compared to the female gang members. The involvement of female gang members in transportation of firearms is also attributed to the fact that this kind of crime does not necessarily need someone who can be violent. The only requirement for someone to be able to do this kind of work is the ability to go from one geographical point to another in the possession of firearms without raising suspicion. It has also observed that female gang members are sometimes expected to perform some tasks that are not crime related. These are the tasks that are commonly expected of the female members of the society. These tasks include tasks such as cooking for the other gang members or caring for the male members of the gangs whenever they are injured as a result of their involvement in violent criminal activities. This is usually overwhelming to some of the female gang members because they are at the same time expected to involve themselves in other gang related activities that were traditionally expected of the male members only. It is common that members of a gang have to prove that they deserve being members of the gangs by showing that they are tough and strong willed (Densley, Davis & Mason 2013, p. 255). This does not only apply to the male members of gangs, but the female members too. Therefore, in a gang setting it is always observed that doing the female related tasks that are not related to crime is always not got enough. These are among the perceptions that might lead to a situation where female members of a gang are exploited because at some time they are even expected to take care of the sexual needs of the male members of the gang. It should also be noticed that there have been a significant change in the gender difference in gang related criminal activities in the recent past. While it has always been believed that female gang members were involved in the less violent criminal activities, it has been discovered that they have been increasing the involvement in violent criminal activities in the past decade. Female gang members have exhibited a high rate of involvement in criminal activities such as robbery, brutal assassination, and burglary (Southgate 2011, p. 112). This is something that has not come to the notice of most researchers that have been dealing with trends in crime related activities. It has not been taken into consideration the fact that the gender equality has taken many aspects of human lives. Women have developed the belief that they can be just as good as their male counterparts in criminal activities. This can be seen in the fact that there are a number of dual-gender gangs that are even being led by female members. Many UK and US researchers who have been carrying out researches on crime and gang related activity have always ignored the role of the female gang members in the criminal activities of gangs in the two regions. Instead, most researchers choose to depict girls and young women who are members of gangs as victims of gender based oppression. In most of the cases, it is pointed out that girls and young women find themselves having to involve themselves in criminal activities as a result of the influence that the influence that they get from the male people that they are close. Very few researchers take into consideration the fact that there is a possibility that the female gang members also have joined gangs at free will (Ulloa, Dyson &Wynes 2012, p. 402). Most researchers tend to make the female members of gangs in the UK and US look like victims of crime gangs despite the fact that they are part of the gang. It might be true that oppression might be a common scenario in the gangs. However, the main reason that gangs usually allow female members to join them is because they have some qualities that might be of importance to their criminal activities. However, this should not be taken to mean that there are no cases where female members of gangs are forced to go through oppression. For instance, female members of gangs are likely to have forced sexual relationships with some of the male members (O’Neal et al. 2014, p. 101). As much as this can be said that it is just, it can also be said that it is a trend that is gradually fading away. Very few researches focus on the contribution that female gang members make on the criminal activities which gangs are involved in. The activities that they are involved in are less focused on by many researchers. This can make such researches incomplete because of the failure to take into consideration of the contributions that female gang members to make the criminal activities that gangs are always involved. It is clearly evident that there is a difference in the role that is played by gang members of different genders. As seen herein, girls and young women are always expected to perform tasks that are less violent such as spying, drug dealing, and transportation of firearms. Crime analysts believe that female gang members are not only suitable for the tasks discussed herein because of their lack of physical strength. However, most analysts will be of the opinion that girls and young women are most suitable for these tasks because of the fact that they can perform these tasks without raising suspicion. This implies that girls and young women are not only members of gangs so that they can be taken advantage of, but because they can be strategically used to accomplish certain crimes. This is something that most researchers have ignored. In fact, it is because of this kind of ignorance that girls and young women have continually been involved in criminal activities without being detected or noticed. At the moment it has been observed that the female members are involved, not only in the non-violent crimes but even the violent ones. Bibliography Cyr, JLS & Decker, SH 2003, “Girls, guys, and gangs: Convergence or divergence in the gendered construction of gangs and groups” Journal of Criminal Justice, 31(5), 423-433. Densley, JA, Davis, A & Mason, N 2013, “14 Girls and gangs” Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrator Rape: A multidisciplinary response to an international problem., 255. Eghigian, M & Kirby, K 2006 “Girls in gangs: On the rise in America” Corrections Today, 68(2), 48. Kelly, A 2015, “Girls in Gangs: Listening to and Making Sense of Females’ Perspectives of Gang Life”(Doctoral dissertation, University of Ottawa). O’Neal, EN, Decker, SH, Moule, RK &Pyrooz, DC 2014, “Girls, Gangs, and Getting Out Gender Differences and Similarities in Leaving the Gang” Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 1541204014551426. Southgate, J 2011, “Seeing differently: Working with girls affected by gangs”. Ulloa, E, Dyson, RB &Wynes, DD 2012, “Inter-partner violence in the context of gangs: A review.” Aggression and violent behavior, 17(5), 397-404. Young, T 2009, “Girls and Gangs:‘Shemale’Gangsters in the UK?” Youth justice, 9(3), 224-238. Read More