Gang Culture In Scorpions By Walter Dean Myers

Situated predominantly in urban areas, gangs are becoming a major problem in today's society. The youth and adults are turning into gang members often times to leave behind the current situation they are living now. Many people who aren't familiar or affiliated with gang members are known to be curious as to why it is that the youth and adults join a gang. Some answers might be the current situation, obtaining social status, sense of protection, amongst other personal reasons. Everyone who joins a gang has different situations about why they decide to associate with gang members. In the novel, G-Dog and the Homeboys by Celeste Fremon, focuses on the gang members about East Los Angeles. This book draws the attention on the youth residing within the East Los Angeles territory and a look at the East Los Angeles gang members and how they play a major role in the book as one of the Latino gangs in East Los Angeles.

Gang involvement and its associated violent crime have become a rapidly growing problem for the United States. Generally, gangs consist of young people of the same ethnic, racial, and economic background. Usually of a low socio-economic status, these gangs engage in illegal money making activities and intimidate their neighborhoods and rival gangs with violent crimes and victimization. Gang members exemplify a high value for group loyalty and sacrifice.

Gangs originated naturally during the adolescent years of a child. They started from small play groups that eventually found themselves in conflict with other small groups of youth. Due to the conflict between the two small groups of youth it became a part of a child’s mind set to come together as a gang and protect their rights and satisfy the needs that their environment and families couldn’t provide. There are about 24,500 gangs in the U.S and out of those gangs 40% of them are juveniles (Hess, Orthmann, Wright, 2013). There are numerous reason why a child would join a gang, and the

This book was different than other literature that had been produced, because Duran was able to get closer and inspect the deeper characteristics of gang life and gang members themselves. This is something that other researchers in the field are typically not able to accomplish. He took on the perspective of investigating what role racial oppression had with the development of gangs. His perspective and his ex-gang membership background allowed him to be more trusted by all the gang members that he interviewed for this research.

Why is gang affiliation such an alluring, appealing lifestyle? Admittedly, the appeal is conceivable. Watching Boyz in the Hood or listening to hip-hip may cause some to think, “I can live that life,” but thought does not turn into action while others never formulate such a thought. This raises the question, why does Monster Kody Scott, consider devout gang membership as a sole objective despite constant contingencies of incarceration and demise? To answer this question, this paper will take the social disorganization position in its review of Monster: An Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member. In addition, this paper will use examples to show that social disorganization explains the behavior portrayed the book.

In James Howell’s “Gangs in America’s Communities” book he mentions that a gang should be looked at more of as a social network rather than an “organization” (Howell, 2012, p.60). This can be especially true for the youth who get involved in gangs. For the youth it is normal for them to want to belong somewhere so their peers have major influences in what they do and even how they think. The emergence or involvement of a gang among youth is identifying with each other and eventually giving themselves a name. Howell then describes the next step as grasping the gang culture by wearing distinctive clothing, colors, having rituals, gatherings, and the exclusion of other youth. Most youth join gangs between the ages of 11 and 15, the peak of gang involvement usually occurs between the age of 14 to 16. Some of the risk factors that get them involved in a

Life in the Inner-City In the novel “Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City” written by Elijah Anderson, Elijah discusses how socioeconomic problems affect the choices that youths in the inner-city make. Elijah asserts in order not to be harmed, individuals need to understand the code in these areas. An important key point to remember from this novel is that violence happens because of the social disorganization and socioeconomic issues that surround these cities. Issues like poverty impact how people live their lives.

There are more than 450 active gangs in the city of Los Angeles, California. These gangs in Los Angeles, California all combined have over 45,000 members. From 2015-2017, there was over 16,398 gang crimes in Los Angeles. The book Always Running is by Luis Rodriguez and he summarises his rough life that he has been through in L.A, and the significance of this essay to inform the readers about how gang life is. Despite the school board’s recent sentiments regarding the lack of value that fiction provides, fiction should remain in the school’s curriculum because there is no purpose in gang affiliation, gangs are everywhere throughout America, and gangs serve no purpose, and only cause trouble. The message in Always Running is gang affiliation

Gregory Boyle, the author, said, “A spacious and undefended heart finds room for everything you are and carves space for everybody else.” In the novel, actual accounts from gang members evoke heartfelt and sincere feelings. Additionally, their life experiences widen my outlook on the gang members. The harsh circumstances each individual experienced was heartbreaking and miserable. Men and women are unable to escape their past incidents without Gregory Boyle’s help. Gregory Boyle, a courageous and sincere person, was able to transform people’s lives dramatically. The gang member’s realization to change evokes blissful and content feelings. Overall, the factual stories of the gang members were genuine and cordial.

From my perspective, the most surprising gang myth was that gangs, drugs, and violence were linked. I was under the impression that gangs made their income from the sale and distribution of drugs to fund their activities. It was unique in that Coughlin and Venkatesh (2003) actually stated that drugs were secondary to that of identity, protection, and recreation (28). Though from just these two chapters, I can see there is a pattern to why youth join gangs and the gang’s desire for identity as a primary goal. All of the offered criteria of identity, protection, and recreation signal to me that of any troubled teen/youth trying to establish their way through not only a changing environment of high school, but also a changing body of hormones. I was curious in the details regarding to the fact that few gangs control distribution, in that if not them then who actually

The reason behind the street gangs has been largely associated with myriad of social and economic reasons. Among the reasons as to why youth join gangs are desperation due to poverty as well as breakdown of a family as a cohesive unit. According to the survey of gang areas, Los Angeles showed identical poverty map within the area. In ss much as there are some other reasons behind youth joining gangs, when critically analyzed it, reveals that such reasons are always directly or indirectly related to family poverty and situations. Examples of these gangs are Surenos and Nortenos whose mode of operation and activities though different, share some similarities.

Another reason why kids join gangs is because they feel like they are misunderstood. They feel like school, parents, and law enforcement don’t understand who they are. “One felt besieged, under intense scrutiny. If you spoke out, dared to resist, you were given a “jacket” of troublemaker” Rodriguez mentions (18). School and polices see a group of adolescents living in poverty, give them the “jacket” of troublemaker and label them as a lost cause to the community. They don’t understand the reasoning of why they have chosen to gangbang, they don’t see the struggle that they face

As the article continues, Amara offers reasoning why the poor economy in black communities is a major reason young African American males are involved in gangs. In these communities, African American families are struggling and it causes the family structure to be weak as well. Thus, these African American youths

Gang Culture has increasingly become a subculture for many teenage youths. Mainly minority teens, these social outcast are often have no real economic stability and no parental supervision or guidance. As a result, teenagers often rebel and seek comfort in gangs. These gangs provide what is lacking in their lives, a sense of belonging. Minorities are often stereotyped and criticized, especially minorities born into poverty. They are condemned simply because they are not of the same race or of the same class as the majority (often middle class whites). Before these minorities can even prove themselves equal, society already pushes them towards the subculture that has risen out of oppression and rebellion. Gang culture reinforces, and in

Gang culture causes major affects in neighborhoods. The fashion and the money are two attributes that attract the adolescent. Mainly, young boys through young men. For acceptance and initiation boys are involve in violence, drugs, and all sorts of crime. These attributes are deeply attach to the gangs. Because of these attachments it is difficult for kids to breakaway from gangs, or it is complex for kids to engage in productive activities. Moreover, aside from the crime, the culture is enticing. The colors, the details of the thread, and the logos allow for the fashion to be presentable. The money gives access to many things that not accessible to someone who is employ in a minimum wage job. The notoriety of the culture allows for the gangs to be alluring.