Youth gang involvement has been a crucial issue for both New York City and other big cities in the USA, mostly due to its social danger and strong interrelation with violent crimes. According to the Report by U.S. Department’s of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2000),” despite years of research and years of suppression, intervention and prevention efforts, considerable disagreement exists regarding the nature and extent of youth gangs” (2). So, most of existing programs are designed to deal with quite a broad target (e.g., one program can target both gangs, which have organizational structure and lack it or gangs, which consist of absolutely different number of members etc. Nonetheless, even such kind of programs can be quite effective.
The good example to prove this statement is S.N.U.G.. program, which follows the design of well-known Ceasefire Chicago program. Overall principles of the program include concentrating on street intervention and combating violence, combining national, state and local funding and using celebrities and centers (Operation S.N.U.G, 2012). Specific attention is paid to combating youth gangs in Harlem. The peculiarity of S.N.U.G. intervention program lies in the fact that ex-gang members are going to help New York City Mission Society to conduct it. Furthermore, the program targets lots of youngsters at-risk to give them a chance to make a change and launches well-designed media awareness programs with the involvement of celebrities. Particularly involvement of ex-gang members and celebrities makes messages, transferred by organizers of the program. Moreover, despite having broad target and several goals, which require separate efforts, project’s implementers manage to get all the work done, as they use specific strategies for each of the aspects of the project.
Concluding, I would like to mention that both Ceasefire Chicago program’s and S.N.U.G.’s experience testify to the effectiveness of complex approach towards addressing youth gangs issue.
References
Operation S.N.U.G. Official Website (2012). Retrieved 5 March 2013 from http://www.operationsnug.org/
U.S. Department of Justice (2000).Preventing adolescent gang involvement. Washington, D.C.: John J.Wilson
