Francis Bautista
Writing 10
Rex Krueger
05 November 2012
Research Paper
The increase of youth gang activity over the past few years has been a major cause for
concern. The growth of young gangs has brought fear to the public and negatively magnified
possible misconceptions about youth gangs. The concerns revolve around gang migration, gang
growth, female involvement, homicides, drugs and violence, and the needs of help of
communities and especially the youth who live in the presence of youth gangs. Since 1980s, the
expansion of the American youth gang problem has been constantly documented. There has
been a great spread of such gangs among the nation. The nation has demonstrated great concern
about young violence during the past few years. The concern focuses on the violence, drug use,
and the delinquent actions. The increase of gang membership and violent crime rates during the
past few years and in addition to the increasing availability of lethal weapons and crime activity
has become an eye opener for communities. The next important step for such communities
involved law enforcement activities and prevention efforts in order to decrease gang youth
activity and violence.
In order to preventing gang activity to preventing adolescents from joining gangs, it is
important to understand the causes of how and why gangs form and why adolescents join them.
(Wait, state the idea before you bring in evidence. What point is this supporting?) Michael
Hughes states that “the gang formation is a product of postindustrial development” (Hughes page
#?). Street gangs are the combination of urban underclass poverty, and of the minority and
younth culture. Occasionally, the most common gang members are male and are part of a racial
or ethnic minority. Law Enforcement estimates generally indicate that more than 90 percent of
gang members are male (Hughes page #). One of the main explanations of gang affiliations can
be determined by demographic characteristics. Hughes indicates that “minority youth residing in
single-parent households are at greater risk for joining gangs than are youth from two-parent
households (Hughes #). Families encourage the increase of gang involvement when they fail to
provide youth with resources and support. In most cases, this way, families are simply too poor
to provide the economic resources that many gangs are capable of supplying to its youth. In
addition, these gangs provide that certain missing piece to the youth. Gang members bring
comfort and support to those who need them. In gang, the adolescents feel in place when they
are involved. Furthermore, according to Hughes he states that “compared with non-gang youth,
gang members are more socially inept, have lower self-esteem, and in general, have sociopathic
characteristics” (Hughes). David Curry explains that:
[researchers] has examined gang youth … and their findings indicated that the
non-delinquent youth were different from the delinquent and gang youth … nondelinquent youth reported lower levels of commitment, social isolation and
tolerance for deviance to delinquent peers (Curry).
Gang members are significantly different from those who are from non-delinquents. This study
finds that youths who are involved in gangs are more impulsive, engaged in risking seeking
behaviors, less committed to school, and reported less communication with parents. In addition
with families failing to provide the recommended resources to adolescents, their peers are also a
huge influence with their involvement with gangs. According to Hughes, in his article it states
that “association with delinquent peers is one of the strongest predictors of gang membership”
(Hughes). Youth who are associated with and intimidated by delinquent friends are at risk of
gang involvement. The reality is that once an individual is in a gang, it is very hard to leave the
gang. Youth gangs develop among the socially marginal adolescents for who school and
families do not work. Given the factors in why adolescents join and are involved with gangs, the
next step is to find prevention for such activity.
One way to stop gang involvement is primarily focusing on the entire population that is at
risk and identifying the conditions that promote criminal-like behavior. Other prevention factors
could possibly include targeting individuals who may have been identified as being at a great
risk of becoming a delinquent. In addition targeting those individuals who are already involved
with such criminal activity and who are already are gang members. Law enforcement also has a
role with disrupting gang activity. Gang prevention programs are considered to be rare, that
requires accurate knowledge of gang membership. With this in mind, it is more difficult to
develop gang prevention programs and asses the impacts of youth involvement with gang
membership.
Chicago Area Project, CAP, is the most widely known delinquency prevention program
in the United States. The intention of this prevention program was to prevent delinquency,
including gang activity throughout neighborhoods and communities. In his article, Lim Si Huan,
states that “[CAP] organized community residents through self-help committees based in
preexisting community structure” (Huan). CAP’s primary effort was to prevent and target all
adolescents in neighborhoods with gang activity. The reason behind violent behavior is not by
the individual, however but by the cause of social environment. With this in mind, CAP
organized a program which recruited community members to build and develop recreational
activities and community involvement campaigns (Huan). The program targeted neighborhoods
with gang activity. With the help of the program, it helped gang members find employment and
educational assistance. Both which advocate the increase of gang activity, when those two
categories are not present in an individual’s life. The main focus of this program was to change
the lifestyle of a current gang member or prevent the involvement of an individual with gang
membership. The CAP program, according to Huan, was adopted by many other programs that
are currently presented today; such as the Los Angeles’ Group Guidance Program and Chicago’s
Youth Development Project (Huan). Members who were involved in the CAP program for
building recreation activities proclaimed the successfulness of the program. However, the results
of decreasing gang activity were kept to a minimal, showing very little progress. In addition to
similar CAP programs, there are other ways to also prevent increasing gang activity such as
school-based programs.
In recent years, schools have been a reliable program for general delinquency prevention
programs. There are various programs that schools have provided that advocated prevention,
such as ones that consist of violence and drugs. Sherree Wood explains a program called Gang
Resistance Education and Training program (G.R.E.A.T) in her article “Title of article”. Wood
states that “[G.R.E.A.T] introduces the students with conflict resolution skills, cultural
sensitivity, and the negative aspects of gang life” (Wood). Basically, G.R.E.A.T is a program
that helps reduce the gang activity among adolescents and also at the same time provides them
with strong knowledge of the consequences of gang involvement. The target is primarily
teenagers around the seventh and eighth grade. Wood explains the program consist of nine
lessons: introduction, crime, victims, and your rights, cultural sensitivity and prejudice, conflict
resolution, meeting basic needs, drugs and neighborhoods, responsibility, and goal setting
(Wood). The program is well thought-out and is very detailed about each lesson. The program
teaches a new lesson each week. G.R.E.A.T focuses on the effects of what gang involvement
can do to an individual’s life and resisting peer pressure. Like the CAP program, G.R.E.A.T has
taken small steps for its efficiency. However, G.R.E.A.T has better positive effects on student
based on their attitudes and resistance to peer pressure. Wood shows reports that the G.R.E.A.T
program had a slightly increased ability to teen resisting pressure to join gangs (Wood). In
addition, Wood also provides reports that G.R.E.A.T has greater effect on students who
underwent the program than those who did not undergo the program (Wood). The program
showed lower levels of gang affiliation and higher levels of school commitment with those who
attended the program than those who did not. The program provides strong life skills that
empower youth with the ability to resist the peer pressure to join gangs or engage in such violent
activities. G.R.E.A.T approaches to produce change in attitude and behavior through their nine
provided lessons.
Works Cited
Curry, G. David, and Irving A. Spergel. "Gang Involvement And Delinquency Among Hispanic
And African-American Adolescent Males." Journal Of Research In Crime & Delinquency 29.3
(1992): 273-291. Kristy Williams, et al. "A Second's Chance: Gang Violence Task Force
Prevention Program." American Surgeon 78.1 (2012): 89-93. Academic Search Complete. Web.
3 Nov. 2012.
Si Huan Lim, et al. "Gang Affiliation, Aggression, And Violent Offending In A Sample Of
Youth Offenders." Psychology, Crime & Law 18.8 (2012): 703-711. Academic Search Complete.
Web. 5 Nov. 2012.
Wood, Sherree F., and Jane B. Huffman. "Preventing Gang Activity And Violence In Schools."
Contemporary Education 71.1 (1999): 19. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.
Francis:
This paper is well organized and has a lot of good research. Your final draft will need a much
better intro. You will also need to make sure that each paragraph clearly advocates a solution.
Right now, many of your paragraphs just summarize solutions and I don’t know what you are
suggesting. This is a good start and with substantial revision, it will make a solid final paper.
Feel free to see me as you revise.
--Rex
Francis Bautista
Writing 10
Rex Krueger
21 November 2012
Research Paper
The increase youth gang activity over the past few years has been a major cause for
concern that experienced the existence of gangs. The growth of young gangs has brought fear to
the public and negatively magnified possible misconceptions about youth gangs. The concerns
of these communities revolve around gang migration, gang growth, female involvement,
homicides, drugs and violence, and the needs of help of communities and especially the youth
who live in the presence of youth gangs. Since 1980s, the expansion of the American youth
gang problem has been constantly documented. According to the FBI website, there have been
about 1,150 complaints, 4,000 arrests, and 2,168 convictions in 2001 throughout the nation as
compared to in 2010 there has been increase to 1,681 complaints, 7,190 arrests and 3,180
convictions (citation?). There has been a great spread of such gangs among the nation. The
nation has demonstrated great concerns about young violence during the past few years. The
concerns focused on the violence, drug use, and the delinquent actions of the gang members.
The increase of youth gang membership and violent crime rates during the past few years has
become an eye opener for communities and in addition to the increasing availability of lethal
weapons and crime activity. The next important step for such communities involved law
enforcement activities and prevention efforts in order to decrease gang youth activity and
violence. Understanding the attraction of individuals in joining gangs will help the prevention
efforts of decreasing the activity of gangs.
In order to prevent gang activity preventadolescents from joining gangs, it is important
for communities to understand the causes of how and why gangs form and why adolescents join
them. Michael Hughes states that “the gang formation is a product of postindustrial
development” (Hughes 89). Street gangs are the combination of urban underclass poverty, and
of the minority and young culture. Delinquency in general and youth gangs in particular are the
products of the social environment and these societal factors could contribute to juveniles joining
gangs. However, communities where gangs exist are not the main factor of individuals joining
gangs; there are other factors that explain why individuals do. Occasionally, the most common
gang members are male and are part of a racial or ethnic minority. The law enforcement
estimates generally indicate that more than 90 percent of gang members are male (Hughes 90).
Gang behavior has been described almost exclusively as a male phenomenon. Males have a
higher tendency of joining gangs than female. Females were usually restricted to some of the
activities that included any serious gang violence. However, when females were involved with
gangs, they were usually viewed as sexually promiscuous and have low self-esteem. In addition,
one of the main explanations of gang affiliations is the individual’s relationship with their
family. Hughes indicates that “minority youth residing in single-parent households are at greater
risk for joining gangs than are youth from two-parent households (Hughes 89). Families
encourage the increase of gang involvement when they fail to provide youths with resources and
support. In most cases, this way, families are simply too poor to provide the economic resources
that many gangs are capable of supplying. In addition, gang members bring comfort and support
to those who need them. In gangs, the adolescents feel in place when they are involved.
Furthermore, according to Hughes he states that “compared with non-gang youth, gang members
are more socially inept, have lower self-esteem, and in general, have sociopathic characteristics”
(Hughes 92). Individuals who are suffering from low self-esteem have a higher risk of joining
gangs. It would be easier for them to find comfort with other individuals who accept them in
their own society. In addition, David Curry explains that:
[researchers] has examined gang youth … and their findings indicated that the
non-delinquent youth were different from the delinquent and gang youth … nondelinquent youth reported lower levels of commitment, social isolation and
tolerance for deviance to delinquent peers (Curry 275).
Gang members are significantly different from those who are from non-delinquents. This study
finds that youths who are involved in gangs are more impulsive, engaged in risking seeking
behaviors, less committed to school, and reported less communication with parents. In addition
with families failing to provide the recommended resources to adolescents, their peers are also a
huge influence with their involvement with gangs. According to Hughes, “association with
delinquent peers is one of the strongest predictors of gang membership” (Hughes 91). Youths
who are associated with and intimidated by delinquent friends are at risk of gang involvement.
The reality with this is that once an individual is in a gang, it is very hard to leave the gang.
Youth gangs are the development among the socially marginal adolescents for who school and
families do not work. Given the factors in why adolescents join and are involved with gangs, the
next step is to find prevention for such activity.
One way to stop the gang involvement is primarily focusing on the entire population
that is at risk and identifying the conditions that promote criminal-like behavior. Other
prevention factors could possibly include targeting individuals who may have been identified as
being at a great risk of becoming a delinquent. In addition targeting those individuals who are
already involve with such criminal activity and who are already are gang members. Law
enforcement also has a role with disrupting gang activity. Gang prevention programs are
considered to be rare, that requires accurate knowledge of gang membership. With this in mind,
it is more difficult to develop gang prevention programs and asses the impacts of youth
involvement with gang membership. However there are various prevention programs such as
Chicago Area Project, Gang Resistance Education and Training, and the Boys and Girls Club
that possibly could influence and encourage other programs to implement their various ideas of
preventing the increase of youth involvement with gangs and their violence.
Chicago Area Project, CAP, is a widely known delinquency prevention program in the
United States; the intention of this prevention program is to prevent delinquency, including gang
activity throughout neighborhoods and communities. In his article, Lim Si Huan, states that
“[CAP] organized community residents through self-help committees based in preexisting
community structure” (Huan 4). CAP’s primary effort is to prevent and target all adolescents in
neighborhoods with gang activity. The reason behind violent behavior is not by the individual,
however but by the cause of social environment. With this in mind, CAP organized a program
which recruited community members to build and develop recreational activities and community
involvement campaigns (Huan 4). The program targeted neighborhoods with gang activity.
With the help of the program, it helped gang members find employment and educational
assistance. Both which advocate the increase of gang activity, when those two categories are not
present in an individual’s life. The main focus of this program was to change the lifestyle of a
current gang member or prevent the involvement of an individual with gang membership. The
CAP program, according to Huan, was highly adopted by many other programs that are currently
presented today; such as the Los Angeles’ Group Guidance Program and Chicago’s Youth
Development Project (Huan 5). Members who were involved in the CAP program for building
recreation activities proclaimed the successfulness of the program. However, the results of
decreasing gang activity were kept to a minimal, showing very little progress. It is a great effort
to start with in order to stop gang affiliations within communities that are experiencing such
activities. In addition to similar CAP programs, there are other ways to also prevent increasing
gang activity such as school-based programs.
In recent years, schools have been a reliable program for general delinquency prevention
programs. There are various programs that schools have provided that advocated prevention,
such as ones that consist of violence and drugs. Sherree Wood explains a program called Gang
Resistance Education and Training program (G.R.E.A.T) in her article that is specifically for
gang prevention. Wood states that “[G.R.E.A.T] introduces the students with conflict resolution
skills, cultural sensitivity, and the negative aspects of gang life” (Wood 5). Basically, G.R.E.A.T
is a program that helps reduce the gang activity among adolescents and also at same time provide
them with strong knowledge of the consequences of gang involvement. The target is primary
teenagers around the seventh and eighth grade. Wood explains the program consist of nine
lessons: introduction, crime, victims, and your rights, cultural sensitivity and prejudice, conflict
resolution, meeting basic needs, drugs and neighborhoods, responsibility, and goal setting (Wood
5). The program is well thought out and is very detailed about each lesson. The program
teaches a new lesson each week. G.R.E.A.T focuses on the effects of what gang involvement
can do to an individual’s life and resisting peer pressure. Like the CAP program, G.R.E.A.T has
taken small steps for its efficiency. However, G.R.E.A.T has better positive effects on student
based on their attitudes and resistance to peer pressure. Wood shows reports that the G.R.E.A.T
program had a slightly increased ability to teen resisting pressure to join gangs (Wood 7). In
addition, Wood also provides reports that G.R.E.A.T has greater effect on students who
underwent the program than those who did not undergo the program (Wood 7). The program
showed lower levels of gang affiliation and higher levels of school commitment with those who
attended the program than those who did not. The program provides strong life skills that
empower youth with the ability to resist the peer pressure to join gangs or engage in such violent
activities. G.R.E.A.T approaches to produce change in attitude and behavior through their nine
provided lessons. The program is intended for the youth. This is a great idea because the
program could possibly lower the involvement of youth with gangs. Even before a problem is
present with an adolescent, G.R.E.A.T does wonderful job with intervening with the factors that
could lead to the involvement of adolescents with gangs. In addition, there are other various
programs that reach out to the youth about the risks of gangs.
The Boys and Girls Club also has established a program that grabs the attention of
adolescents of the risks they are taking when being involved with gangs. The program is called
Gang Prevention Through Targeted Outreach. The prevention program targets for structured
recreational, educational, and life skills program. According to Max Vasquez, in his article, he
explains that “these programs will help to enhance the communication skills, problem solving
techniques and decision making abilities of the youth” (Vasquez 2). The programs are aimed for
youths who may be at risk of becoming involved with gangs and seek to change their attitude
about their involvement. The program helps by being involved with the lives of the youth in the
Boys and Girls club. They keep records of the individual’s attendance with school, which
factors in with their involvement with gangs. In this way, the program rewards the youth
because of their good behavior or take proactive measures when youths show behaviors that are
leaning towards to gang involvement. Such behaviors consist of skipping school or being
associating themselves with delinquent friends. Vasquez states in his article that the individuals
involved with the Boys and Girls Club program “showed that 48 percent of [the participants]
showed improvement in school” (Vasquez 4). Enforcing youths to be more involved with school
could possibly decrease the involvement of youths being involved with gangs. Their
involvement with skill and how well they do are one of the leading factors that lead to youths
joining gangs in the first place.
Other prevention factors include the involvement of law enforcement. The approach will
have to rely on law enforcement tactics to suppress gang activities. The prevention program will
target communities or areas that already have gangs existing. Both Chicago and Los Angles are
prime examples of cities that have high involvement of gang activities. These cities have
experienced constant gang problems ,leaving residents feeling intimidated and harassed by them.
With such great activity from both cities, a great approach to this could be increasing the number
of police officers in those certain areas. Although increasing the number of police officers may
be costly, this approach could contain the gang activity. Along with increasing police officers to
contain gang activity, another approach could possibly include an organized suppression unit
within the community. The Los Angeles Police Department has a program that has special
forces that help combat gang crime. Michael Hughes explains in his article that “[LAPD] has a
high profile gang control operation, carried by uniformed patrol officers, stressing high visibility,
street surveillance, and proactive suppression activities “ (Hughes 95). The involvement of such
units could help lower the involvement of gangs in communities that experience such activities.
The involvement of law enforcements could also respond to the juvenile violence in the
community. By enforcing laws that include curfew and anti-loitering laws could possibly
suppress gang activities. Enforcing such laws will limit large groups of people coming together
in public places. Although this may sound harsh but it could possibly put restrictions on gang
activities. With the help of law enforcements that could lower the involvement of gang, it will
eventually help suppress the activities of gangs from increasing within communities that already
experiencing such problems.
The growth of youth gangs has been a major problem for rural areas and cities. It is
appropriate to formulate gang prevention efforts that target the entire adolescent population in
order to stop juveniles to join a gang and decrease the high levels of criminal activity that they
engage in. The overview of gang prevention strategies has sought the complexity of the youth
gang issue. These type of prevention programs could provide future framework within which to
develop or improve prevention programs. It is clear to say that there isn’t a “best” way for
preventing gang affiliations and associated violence however there are comprehensive strategies
that could possibly lower the youth gang problems. There various steps in preventing gang
violence. Such as that starting with preventions that target at-risk population or communities, the
other is to identify those who are at risk and lastly focuses on the people who are already are
involve in gang activities. The programs listed above can build a comprehensive strategy to
prevent youth gang problem within the larger context of juvenile violence.
Francis:
This is a generally strong paper with a lot of good research. The main problem here is
that I often don’t know what solution you are proposing. There are lots of solutions in this paper,
but you just mention them without saying that you want to see more programs like these. You
could also suggest changes to these programs to make them even better. A lot of your paper is
just a summary of other people’s ideas with little input from you. While many of your
paragraphs have good topic sentences, you could get to the point a lot faster.
Still, you have very good organization and lots of good research. You paper does have
some good solutions in it. You have really improved in many ways this semester. Good job.
B+
--Rex
Works Cited
Curry, G. David, and Irving A. Spergel. "Gang Involvement And Delinquency Among Hispanic
And African-American Adolescent Males." Journal Of Research In Crime &
Delinquency 29.3 (1992): 273-291.
Hughes, Michael, et al. "A Second's Chance: Gang Violence Task Force Prevention Program."
American Surgeon 78.1 (2012): 89-98.
Max Vasquez, et al. "Impact Of A Comprehensive Whole Child Intervention And Prevention
Program Among Youths At Risk Of Gang Involvement And Other Forms Of
Delinquency." Children & Schools 31.4 (2009): 1-7.
"Recent Statistics." FBI. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://www.fbi.gov/aboutus/investigate/vc_majorthefts/gangs/recent-statistics>.
Si Huan Lim, et al. "Gang Affiliation, Aggression, And Violent Offending In A Sample Of
Youth Offenders." Psychology, Crime & Law 18.8 (2012): 1-8.
Wood, Sherree F., and Jane B. Huffman. "Preventing Gang Activity And Violence In Schools."
Contemporary Education 71.1 (1999): 1-11.