Introduction

            A gang is group of persons who go about together or act in concert especially for antisocial or criminal purposes.  Gangs are a growing social problem that exists throughout the United States.  They exist in large urban areas an also in the small suburb towns.  Gangs are a social problem because of the deviant activities they participate in.  Gangs operate as though they are their own society by creating private worlds complete with elaborate codes, social rituals, and standards of expected behavior.  Some of the most popular gangs are the Crips, Bloods, Skinheads, and neo-Nazi groups.

Literature Review

This article titled Gang Buster by Kevin Clarke focused on a gang in the inner city of Chicago.  This article consisted of information such as signs on how to tell which gang someone belongs to, why kids join gangs, and also how these kids can be taken away from these gangs.  One School’s Gang War was an article that was also written by Kevin Clarke that told stories of gang members and how they fight to claim their hallways in school.  This article also mentions how the teachers struggle to reclaim the hallways and their classroom from gang violence.  Don’t Mention the War is an article made up of opinions from reformed gang members, concerned parents, and law enforcement officers.  This article suggests ways that parents could possibly prevent their kids from getting involved with gangs.  Authors Nikki Ruble and William Turner wrote the article, A Systematic Analysis of the Dynamics and Organization of Urban Street Gangs.  In this article they reported the findings of a study that looked closely at how and why gangs are formed.  This study was the most helpful to me, because it helped to understand why and how boundaries were established, also it helped me to learn why certain gangs wear certain colors.  The authors had a section in their study that explains the logic behind how the gangs are named.  In my research I also learned about the social organization of gangs in an article titled The Social Organization of Street Gang Activity in an Urban Ghetto.  This article also emphasizes on the relationships between gang members and the border communities.  Another article that was very helpful was an article called Preventing Street Gang Violence, this article focused on incidence of street gang violence in the U.S..  The article provided static’s as of April 1999, historical perspective, characteristics, and prevention strategies.

                                                                                Graphs and Tables                                             

Table 19 addresses the question "What percentage of gang cities fell below designated population levels in the 1970's and 1995?" Ten levels are distinguished, ranging from 500 to 1 million. For example, in the 1970's, 188 of 201 cities, or 94 percent, had populations smaller than 500,000 while in 1995, 1,456 out of 1,479 cities, or 98 percent, had populations below 500,000. The percentage of gang cities at each population level was lower in the 1970's than in 1995, but the major differences were found at the 25,000 level and below. At the 25,000 level, percentages for the 1970's and 1995 stood at about 29 and 42 percent, respectively. For cities with populations smaller than 10,000, the percentage was about 6 percent in the 1970's compared with about 20 percent in 1995, and at the 5,000 level, 2 percent and 9 percent, respectively. Thus, by 1995, almost 1 in 5 gang cities had a population of 10,000 or less, compared with about 1 in 15 in the 1970's; and almost 1 in 10 had populations of less than 5,000, compared with about 1 in 50 in the 1970's.¹⁸
* Total number of gang cities=201.
Total number of gang cities=1,479 (populations were not available for eight cities).

Table 25 shows clearly that State and national surveys provided the names of most of the gang cities—approximately 87 percent—reported after 1995. Results of four national surveys were reported—two by the National Youth Gang Center (1997, 1999) for OJJDP and one each by the National Drug Intelligence Center (1996) and the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) Branch of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (1998). Of these four surveys, a clear majority of the data (94 percent) were provided by the two national surveys conducted by NYGC in 1995 and 1996. The 865 gang cities identified by these surveys accounted for about 80 percent of all gang cities reported after 1995. Information supplied by police departments and sheriff's offices provided about 10 percent of the post-1995 gang-city reports, the second largest source. State surveys conducted in Florida, Georgia, and Utah contributed another 60 gang cities.

Conclusion

            While researching this topic I have realized that not only is gang violence a social problem but it also a major problem in our criminal justice system.  Gang violence happens for many reasons, but ways to stop it are very limited.  As stated earlier on there are many programs focused on getting kids out of the streets and also out of gangs, but it is obvious that it is going to take more than that.  Perhaps if the school systems cooperated more we could start there.

Works Cited

“Don’t Mention the War”  Economist 8316 (2003): 30-31

Clarke, Kevin.  “Gang Buster” U.S. Catholic 68 (2003): 49-51

Clarke, Kevin. “One School’s Gang War” U.S. Catholic 68 (2003):

            36

Hixon, Allen.  “Preventing Street Gang Violence” American Family Physician 59

            (1999): 2121

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 30 Jan. 2003

<http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/site.html>

Rumble, Nikki M.; Turner, William L.  “A Systematic Analysis Of the Dynamics

            And Organization Of Urban Street Gangs” American Journal of Family

Therapy 28 (2000): 117-124

Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi.  “The Social Organization of Street Gang Activity In

            An Urban Ghetto” American Journal of Sociology 103 (1997): 82-84