The Effects of Gangs :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

The Effects of rabble ups   What is a gang? According to St fifty-fifty Sachs, a probation officer since 1978, it is a structured, cohesive group of individuals, usually between the ages of xi and twenty-five, who generally operate under some form of leadership tour claiming a territory or turf, (Sachs XV). Distinctive clothing, the use of special lane names, language, symbols and signs, and the committing of organized and spontaneous criminal acts describe some of the characteristics of a gang. Gang members can be male or female, but they are more or less lots male. Jeffery Fagan and Joan Moore, researchers who primarily use self-reports and observations in the field, estimate that female friendship in gangs may be as high as 33 pct. In the first national survey that was conducted by Walter Miller in 1975, he estimated that 48 percentage of gang members in the six largest cities in the United States were black, 36 percent Hispanic, 9 percent white, and 7 percent Asi an. A few years later, in a more enormous survey in nine of the largest cities, Miller found that 44 percent of all gang members were Hispanic, 43 percent black, 9 percent white, 4 percent Asian. Based on these statistics, he speculated that illegal Hispanic immigrants may have contributed to the increasing number of gangs in California (Kinnear 76). Gangs are often rooted in the historical experience of discrimination and economic struggle. snow-white gangs exist mainly to promote and act on racist beliefs, such(prenominal) as the Ku Klux Klan and the Skinheads. Black gangs, Blood and CRIP, formed mainly for protection from separate gangs. Hispanic gangs like Latin Kings and Sureno are typically concerned with the vanity and integrity of their neighborhood. Asian gangs including Chinese and Korean are perhaps more organized than the Hispanic or Black gangs and have been associated with gambling, prostitution, and narcotics on a more sophisticated and profitable level than other types of gangs. They are as well more mobile (Landre, Miller, Porter 4). As a result of gangs, increase use and dealing of drugs, a persons sense of belonging to a gang, and gang related crimes have had negative effects on society.   Many of the images of gangs, ground primarily on media reports, include the use of alcohol and drugs. People carry to believe that gangs sell drugs to make extra money or even that many of them are structured as mini-corporations and are heavily winding in the drug trade.