History Overview
If you can see it, you can be it! The “American Dream” paints a good picture right before your eyes, but the failure comes when our citizens aren’t provided the essential resources to make it all possible. In our American culture there is dissociation between value, culture, and social means to those ends. Our younger generations are faced with the need to compete, which is encouraged in schools, seen in the media, and enforced by our public leaders. In the United States an individual is measured by material possessions and monetary success. This opportunity is often blocked by this gulf, making it impossible to obtain. Throughout the United States the rise of gangs continue to plague rural, suburban, and urban communities. There is a devastating expansion of street gangs as of 2011, and there are becoming more sophisticated in the operations of drug trafficking and prostitution. Today’s gangs are becoming more organized and opportunistic with advanced technology to recruit new members each and every day. According to the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC) there are roughly 33,000 gangs in America, 1.4 million gang members of the prison, street, and One Percenter OMG’s motorcycle gangs. There gangs are known in the Northeast and Southeast states of America (Adler, 1995). It is important to explore the way gangs are influenced by the cultural risk factors practiced in society, limited conditions lead to an alternative lifestyle, and the roles law enforcement and policymakers are identifying factors that destabilize neighborhoods.
Gangs have plagued the streets of American for roughly 200 years as of today. Many of these gangs were immigrants that relocated to the United States to end up living in poverty. These youth members formed these gangs as a form of socialization and protection. These gangs compromised of members of the same race and ethnic background. The first known gang was the Irish immigrants known as the "The Five Points” living in New York City. They stood out by using special clothing, monikers, and nicknames. In 1826, Edward Coleman established the next gang to emerge from the alley was the "Forty Thieves". Due to the corruption of the law enforcement during these times, these gangs had the freedom to organize crime with ease. They committed break-ins and raided stores without being charged by the police. During the Civil War the on rise of Jewish gangs surfaced, and then African American, Irish, and Italian flooded the streets of New York. In California around the 1800’s, the Chinese gangs appeared and took over. The present day gangsters are among your African American and Hispanic populations.
The population of youth gangs usually increases whenever there are shifts in the communities and unstable communication. Gangs are increasing, developing and posing an snowballing threat to US communities nationwide. This trouble starts from many risk factors found in unstable neighborhoods. This giant continues to be feed through low academic performance among the youth in poor communities. It is estimated that it is three times more likely for youth to join groups when they are low performers in school. It is believed that children living in single parent homes have little authority figures to give discipline and structure. Students quality of school life begins to decrease has they move from elementary to middle school. Our youth are faced with the challenges of adolescence when they reach middle school age. The curriculum changes to focus on more regulations and academic success. This study reveals if the current school systems were to apply the findings of modern psychology to incorporate more programs focused on transitional stages and improves community programs, and that adolescents have an essential difference exists between the mental reasoning and decision making abilities of adults (Crews, 2007).