Street gang violence refers to a group of individuals, either juvenile or adults who engage in criminal activities. People involve in delinquent activities for various reasons, for instance to acquire a sense of belonging, gain respect from others, get access to money, enjoyment, or for protection. Street gang violence has become a common challenge in the past three decades, and there is a need to prevent further involvement in such activities. Young people fall into the risk of performing poorly in school, disrespecting their elders, acquiring an aggressive attitude, and undergoing through multiple caretaker transitions. Street gang activities increase the insecurity level in the households since many gang-oriented youths live in insecure communities.
The street gang problem hinders the possibility of a society attaining productive future leaders and labor force. The activities prevent young people from acquiring school related knowledge that is useful in their lives; studies show that only one percent of gang members acquire quality education worldwide (Street gangs throughout the world, 2005). It is essential to ensure disciplinary actions among children to promote a healthy development. Gangs mainly occur in schools, where there is a high concentration of students. Other areas where gangs reside include major cities that have a population of more than fifty thousand dwellers. There has been an increased existence of gangs in small cities over the last two decades. According to the United States National Longitudinal Youth Survey, 8 % of young people engage in gang related activities in a sample of nine thousand individuals.
Causes of Street Gang Violence
Young people may tend to resist certain rules designed by school authorities or the law enforcers. They organize themselves into groups to implement strategies to break the formulated rules; as a result, the groups engage in criminal activities. The law enforcers, for instance, the police departments who act according to the traditional tactics for fighting crime tend to encourage young people to form gangs. This is because youths feel neglected, and find ways to retaliate to the unfair systems.
Engaging in gangs and criminal related activities can be seen as an accomplishment for some young people in the society. Young people may respect famous members of gangs in the neighborhood. Other gang members may neglect or physically harm an individual who fails to join a gang. The need to acquire a sense of belonging may lure an individual to engage in gang and criminal related activities. Several people feel protected by their respective gangs than when operating alone.
Some children lack moral support from their families and seek refuge from their peers, who involve them in street gang activities. The young people engage in criminal activities such as possessing illegal firearms, petty thefts, and drug abuse. The school authorities may contribute to gang membership challenge among the young people; some teachers harass students by correcting them publicly. This tendency creates an unsuitable for students, who retaliate by engaging in gang related activities.
Young people may engage in street gangs’ activities to acquire money; many activities within gangs have financial benefits. Individuals in street gangs involve in theft that enable them to acquire money. A person can depend on the gang for financial resources without necessarily relying on parents. Young people use the money to buy illegal drugs and firearms, which are not beneficial to their welfare. Street gangs can be a source of enjoyment for the members. The young people enjoy each other’s company since they spend most of their leisure time together.
Impact of Street Gang Membership
Street gang membership has adverse effects on the society; young gang members have a higher probability of attaining individual violence than other regular adolescents. Delinquent peer association is common among gang members since they lack guidance from elderly experienced people. Studies indicate that people tend to be more criminally active while active in gang membership than in other periods of their lives. Prolonged periods of gang membership have negative effects on an individual such as increasing the criminal level of a person.
Adolescents involved in street gangs have poor family management and poor parent-child relationship. The aggression acquired from the gang activities hinders a person from obeying a parent’s authority, and prefer to dictate their own activities. There is a low level of school attachment and poor relationship with the school fraternity (Street gangs throughout the world, 2005). Teachers may punish a gang member by mistake for a crime due to the negative attitude portrayed.
Young people lack development skills from family, school, and community setting. Knowledge acquired from these institutions contributes to a healthy development of a person. The society lacks responsible future leaders, which leads to poor social management skills. An individual may be injured or die in the course of criminal activities that are caused by gang membership. The police department has strict measures to curb criminal and gang related activities in the society; a person may face jail terms or be killed by officers in an attempt to escape from a criminal incidence. Gang membership contributes to early parenthood and unstable employment as members lack responsible roles in society.
Recommendations
Ways to curb the street gang membership include recreation and pro-social programs, opportunities provision, community organization, organizational development and suppression. There is a need to formulate strategies to curb street gang and crime related activities by the law enforcers, especially the police officers. The police departments use the traditional tactics in preventing the gang challenge; the measures have failed to achieve the set targets, as there are increased numbers of young people engaging in delinquent behaviors in street gangs. Proper formulation of law enforcement policies will enable the police department to curb the problem.
The opportunity to solve the gang and criminal problem through a comprehensive approach provides a solution to the increasing gang problem. The coordinated approaches include programs for prevention, intervention, and suppression measures; the police department can attain productive results if they apply the tactics in their implementation process. The first step is to recognize that each community faces a different problem of gang and criminal involvement, and the issues should be tackled differently. The government and the police department should collaborate, and use the suppression measure to curb gang violence and criminal challenges in the society.
The suppression measure involves enacting law enforcement measures; the process comprises of measures such as arrest, prosecution, surveillance, and imprisonment of criminals. Proper implementation of suppression measures and surveillance tactics in neighborhoods can reduce the gang membership involvement. This strategy can be effective in the attempt to curb the increasing level of gang violence and criminal problem among the youth in the society
Suppression tactics have been successful in some countries, for instance United States of America and Canada. The United States department of justice has developed various programs to curb the gang and criminal acts among the youth. The Bureau of Justice Assistance developed an initiative in the year 1997 to be applied by the police officers, the public, and other law enforcers in preventing gangs in the United States of America. The model, which is an on-going process has three principles: the ability to adapt to various gang related activities and a variety of jurisdictions, flexibility in dealing with the gang and criminal challenge, and the applicability of a multifaceted approach by various institutions such as government, private organizations, and community participation.
The model primary characteristics include its continuous focus on harmful behaviors among the young members in the society, diagnosis of the gang and criminal related challenges, coordination of responses among law enforcers, performance monitoring of the set objectives, evaluation of impact among the affected youth, and the ability of adaptation to change. This model uses a four-stage problem solving approach. The stages are identifying and scanning of the problems, coordinated analysis, response, and assessment of the results. The model bases its findings on facts rather than assumptions, which makes it the most appropriate measure.
The first step in the prevention of street gangs involves evaluating the problem by the police departments. Understanding the youths’ perceptive and circumstances that lure them to gang involvement can help in formulating the prevention measures (Pyrooz, Decker, & Fleisher, 2011). Police officers should assume the young peoples’ positions to understand their social environment. It is essential to abandon forceful measures that assume police officers as merely ‘crime fighters’. According to Doctor Scott Decker, law enforcers have vast knowledge on gang membership characteristics since they are well situated within the society. Police officers can identify factors that lead to an increase in gang membership, and where the activities are rampant in the society (Decker, 2002). The police department should focus on gathering relevant information that can help in implementing the set tactics. The information should include identifying where gang risks exist, and young members that are vulnerable to membership.
Continuous patrolling of the community by the police officers will reduce the chances of young people involving in gangs. Patrolling is cost-effective and benefits the society since there are reduced crimes and drug abuse among adolescents. Leaders should formulate law enforcement programs to reward and reinforce police officers who attempt to prevent gang membership through effective patrolling. Factors that lead to an increase in street gangs in the small towns include large influx of immigrants, which encourage the creation of language barriers and marginalization of the immigrants; hence, fostering gang formation and affiliation. Police officers should eradicate illegal immigrants in cities; people should have valid identification cards and passports to verify their nationality.
Police departments should formulate an agreement with other stakeholders in the government to address the street gang challenge. The agreement should include measures to conduct an objective assessment, setting goals and targets, developing and integrating relevant rules to curb the gang challenge. The police officers can help those at risk of joining gangs by applying for a peace bond. This measure helps to keep the young people from engaging in gang related activities. Deploying more law enforcers in the high-risk areas can suppress the gang and criminal related problem (Wyrick, 2006). The development of an action plan that defines the activities in these areas has proven to be efficient in organizing and solving criminal related problems.
There should be an increase in the number Gang Incident Tracking Systems, which enables law enforcers to reduce and prevent further spread of street gang related activities. The system collects and avails useful information to the law enforcers regarding gang members. The system enables the police officers to share information with other stakeholders on active members, the legal status, and their respective probationary restrictions.
Street gang membership is an increasing problem in the world today. Gangs, especially among the young people has adverse effects, for instance delinquent behaviors, aggression, drug abuse, poor relationships among parents and children, and overall poor performance in school. Suppression is one of the effective ways to curb gang membership; it involves the formulation of law enforcement strategies to reduce and prevent the gang challenge. Police officers can achieve their objectives by applying comprehensive approach to prevent gang and criminal related activities.
References
Decker, S., (2002). A decade of gang research: Findings of the National Institute of Justice gang portfolio. In W. L. Reed & S. H. Decker (Eds.), Responding to gangs: Evaluation and research, (pp.2-23). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.
Pyrooz, D. C., Decker, S. H., & Fleisher, M. (2011). From the street to the prison, from the prison to the street: Understanding and responding to prison gangs. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 3(1), 12-24
Street gangs throughout the world. (2005). Adolescence, 40(158), 445-446.
Wyrick, P., 2006. Gang prevention: How to make the “front end” of your anti-gang effort work. United States Attorneys’ Bulletin, 54(3), 52-60.
