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Gangs and Youth

In: English and Literature

Submitted By cilla1992
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HOW TO PREVENT LOOSING OUR YOUTH TO GANGS To prevent youth from being involved in gangs or gang-related activities more states should implement programs similar to A&E’s “Beyond Scared Straight” to let kids see what the consequences of their actions could lead to. Gangs and crimes are increasing each year that it’s no wonder why kids fall susceptible to them. There are currently about 400,000 youth gang members and about 600,000 adult gang members in the United States. Out of all the youth gang members 360,000 of them are boys and 32,000 of them are girls. A lot of youths that join gangs end up committing crimes which land them in juvenile detention, according to research 15% of youth females and 85% of youth males are incarcerated in juvenile detention. Gangs also often lead to death and in 1994, 24% of youth deaths were gang-related and I’m sure the number has tripled by now. Some kids are born into gangs because it runs in their family and others choose to join but no good ever comes from them. Youths are easy targets for gang members to recruit for many reasons. Children aren’t very mature and do not yet fully understand the consequences of joining a gang so their easy to convince. Children also don’t know that gangs can be very difficult to get out of and sometimes the only way out is death. Some gangs let females get out if they become pregnant but the other options are to get jumped out. Children also see gangs as a way to make easy money to buy those things they have always wanted such as cars, clothes, jewelry, and etc. However, they don’t realize that the way to make “easy money” in gangs is to be involved in illegal activities such as selling drugs which can lead to being arrested. Gangs also give kids protection and easy access to drugs and weapons. Kids seek protection because they live in bad neighborhoods or they want a reputation where they are feared by other kids so no one messes with them. Drugs and weapons can lead to many bad outcomes such as overdosing, addiction, improper use of a weapon, misdemeanors and felonies. Gangs are often glamorized today and can be seen everywhere from neighborhoods to movies and music. Some popular gangster movies are Scarface, Godfather, Blood in Blood Out, American Me, Colors, and Boyz in the Hood. There are also a lot of gangster rappers such as Snoop Dogg, The Game, Lil Wayne, and Z-Ro. A lot of television shows also go in depth on gangs such as GangLand and LockUp. The most common gangs are Crips, Bloods, and Latin Kings but there are many other gangs out there and all races seem to take part in them but the minority seems to be the most involved. Gangs have corrupted many children and that is why something needs to be done to stop this. Gangs not only affect children but hurt their families as well. So I think that if families, counselors, and police come together they can create a program similar to A&E’s Beyond Scared Straight. Beyond Scared Straight is a program that lets at-risk youth spend a day in jail where they are treated like prisoners, and get to interact with convicted felons. Although, the program is not 100% guaranteed to straighten kids out, it does have a lot of positive results. Prisoners talk to kids and the officers let them bully the kids a bit to try and scare them. The show also makes the kids wear prison uniforms, gives them a tour of the prison, feeds them prison food, and lets them see the prison’s morgue. Prisoners talk to the kids and tell them what they did to end up in jail and how much they regret it because they had to leave their family behind and they messed their lives up. At the end of the tour, the prisoners and guards get to decide who needs to spend the night in jail and give the kids a chance to convince them to let them go home. Although, sometimes, kids chose to stay the night in jail because they don’t trust themselves that they are going to change. This program is a very life changing experience for most of these kids because the prisoners try to break them. A lot of kids don’t realize what the consequences of their actions are until they see what really happens. However, since this program is not 100% fool proof I think we should implement a longer, better one to get us better results. We could make this program more wide-spread by making it easier for parents to sign up their children. A lot of parents see the show and really want to help their children by enrolling them in the program but cannot find where to. Also, I think the kids should get more visits to prisons, and maintain contact with an assigned officer and counselor. The more prisons kids see the more dangers they experience which will scare them more. Maintaining contact with officers will allow them to keep a closer eye on the children so they don’t keep making the wrong decisions. Counseling would also benefit kids because it would allow them to talk about their anger, problems, and be able to get help in making good decisions.
In conclusion, gangs are no good and can destroy many lives of young children. Gangs put kids at risk to many dangers such as violence, death, and prison time. The community needs to get together to eliminate this by creating a program to not only keep kids off the street, but scare them into wanting to turn their lives around. People say you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped but you can give them a life changing experience.

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