Gang Violence

What is a Gang? The definition of a gang is an association of three or more individuals who take

part in making a group to separate themselves from society to be known as something different.

This concept is cool , friends that separate themselves from other crowds and do their own

thing.It turns into a gang when these people decide to make signs and signature tattoos and stuff

and begin to do illegal things and start violence to look cool and tough. When these people do

the things they do we all suffer in some type of way and it's getting tiring. There are plenty of

reasons attempting to explain why these gangs act the way they do when really there is no

explanation to it at all. In this paper I intend to look into what makes them do what they do. Not

only that, but different ways people and kids can eliminate gangs or reduce the amount of young

people creating them period.

In the 1800s, around the time of the Industrial Revolution there were lots of people leaving their

rural homes and heading for the city. Times back then were rough, there wasn't a lot of work for

people and the housing assignments were all weird so there were a lot of people left without

homes and weren’t given ways to make money. So to survive there were people who went to

crime to keep themselves fed and clothed. People were doing their own dirty work to make their

money, but when they started going to jail they had to think of a way to keep doing these illegal

things but to a point where they would never get caught or there being less of a chance. Of

Course you would think they would stop but instead they found that it was harder for the police

to catch them in groups. With that being said gangs were becoming very popular and if you

didn’t have a job and weren’t in a gang then you were the odd ball making no money, dead, or in

jail.
In 1860, The jails were piling up and got to a crazy number of 19,086 people! All these people

were failed by the government, not only by the government but they failed themselves. As the

years went by the prisons just filled up even more, by 1870 the prisons were filled to 32,901

people and the next year to 58,609 and the next year to 82,329. The more people were out of

homes and jobless the more the crime spiraled up and the more the prisons were filled year by

year. The simple solution to this problem was to just create more job opportunities for people to

make a living for themselves instead of trying to keep a certain group of people happy. Not only

that, but people have to realize that violence and crime is not the alternative when there are no

jobs around, people are looking to blame the government for their own incapability of hard work.

Fast forward to today's gang violence, and it gets even worse. Today's gangs have the old heads

that teach them how the game came along in their day, but the majority of the gangs are young

people. It's sad because these kids have so much talent in this world that they can actually do

something with which they were just never given the opportunity to show them off. Now most of

them never will, with some of them going in and out of jail or just plain out being killed. The

kids today feel as if life isn’t cherishable, they go out and say life threatening things like it is

nothing. Then they also have the audacity to take people's lives and then laugh and taunt about it,

make rap songs about it. For example, Chicago, Illinois is known for the gang violence that goes

on in their city, it is horrible and the people of the city are scared to even go on specific sides of

the town because they are afraid for their lives. They make songs and diss each other and rap

about how they are going to kill each other and anybody they are with, this is not a way to live

and I feel like other places in the country are starting to pick up on this type of lifestyle. It shows,

with my own city turning to this choice of lifestyle and it is disgusting that these kids who were
good basketball players and football players do not get the opportunity to play at the next level

and turn to the streets to look cool and get money.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan the crime has gone up immensely and took a turn for the worse.

Grand Rapids used to be a city of family and good competitive sports, now it is known for all the

crime that has been going on for the past year. In the first seven months of 2022, there were

3,363 crimes recorded in the Grand Rapids area. Including 761 of those crimes being assaults

and 15 of them being homicides, these young kids are terrorizing the city and not caring and

there are things that can be set in place for things like this to not happen anymore. Before I get

into that I would like to touch on the reasons behind the young generation participating in all this

unneeded violence that has people scared to get out of their homes and enjoy their own city. The

amount of pressure that we as a society put on each other today is crazy, us as people hold each

other to high standards and the way we do that is talking about each other. People talk about

people everyday instead of worrying about themselves and it makes people get down on

themselves, and start to feel like they need to make a lot of money. Some young people get a job,

but there is a high percentage of young people who don’t want others telling them what to do or

they are just lazy and turn to gang banging to get them some money. What comes with gang

bannging is not worth it though, they make money but they are doing illegal things and those

people begin to build this persona that they have to be big and to protect themselves and look

cool. When really you don't need to impress anyone, just go on and live your life and be a kid

instead of trying to act older and cooler than everyone else. Some of these kids get no attention

or love at home so they turn to their gang for that emptiness that they are feeling inside and in

alternative are down to ride for that gang and the people in it.
Some things that we can do as a people to limit the amount of gang violence in the country is to

be more social. Have fun events that people want to go to so that people can have fun with their

own communities. As people we have to be in our kids' lives more, I understand that a lot of

parents work multiple jobs, that just means our men have to step up and be good role models.

When kids see people dining the right thing they are going to want to do the right thing too.

When the men see kids doing the wrong things they correct them, because us teenagers need that

correction sometimes to set us on the right path. As schols go, I think they need to do a better job

and keep the kids in school. Being creative and making kids want to be at school and be on time,

and helping them get to the next level which would be college. Trying more to get kids in school

programs and getting kids out to play sports, because the more occupied they are with doing

other things the more they are not in the streets making problems and chaos. With more structure

brought to the young people there will be a drastic change in how the country acts towards one

another.

Gang violence has been around for almost forever and it has only gotten worse and if the

government did their part and us people did our own parts life in the United States could be so

much better. We as people just have to stop putting the blame on everyone and everything around

us and put ourselves through some work and get a good living from ourselves and off our own

hard work. When we put in the work like I said, being involved in kids life more, bringing

structure and kids actually wanting to go to school and participate in sports and other programs.

Life in our country could be so much better, fun, healthy, and living full lives.
 Sources

1.https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/view
content.cgi?article=1031&context=jclc
2.https://www.16thcircuit.org/Data/Sites/1/media/family_co
urt/Documents/Gangs_Sheriff.pdf
3.https://www.bridgemi.com/urban-affairs/rise-violent-crime
-plagues-some-michigan-metros-summer#:~:text=In%20th
e%20first%20seven%20months,the%20same%20period%
20last%20year.