Impact of Criminal Street Gangs on the Community

Impact of Criminal Street Gangs on the Community

The world today is experiencing a surge in violence which has led to thousands of fatalities and injuries and massive destruction of property. From gun violence in the United States to the terror attacks in France, we are witnessing a global epidemic that seems to have no solution in sight. One thing for certain is that violence is a choice and those who choose to practice it by joining criminal gangs do so at their own will. One fact that cannot be disputed is that criminal gangs have a adverse effect on any community. On that regard, the purpose of this essay is to discuss the impact of criminal gangs on the community.

One of the most adverse effects of gang activity is the rise of gun violence. For instance, the United States is experiencing a steep rise in gun violence which has led to much causality around the country. At minimum, there were 126 mass shootings in the period between January 2000 and July 2014 with deaths resulting from guns making up 60% of all homicides in the country. In fact, United States is the only first world nation that is in the top 30 list of countries that have the highest number of homicides resulting from gun violence. This shows the seriousness of the issue at hand. Statistics show that there are around 270,000,000 guns in the United States which translates to about 88.8 guns per 100 people. On top of this 22% of the country’s citizens own more than which is the highest in the world. A country with such a high number of firearms should not only enforce tighter gun control rules, but also crack down gangs to avoid the constant occurrence of mass shootings and to reduce the number of homicides resulting from guns. Although there have been some previous efforts to eradicate gangs, this has not been enough as proved by the rising number of gun violence cases.

Another critical effect of gang activity in communities is the rise in teenage delinquency and violence among young people. According to strain theorists Merton and Cohen, the playful like activities of the gang would have been as a result of deviance behavioral expression to show their frustration caused by their needs and wants. Delinquency behavior is described as obsessive and an act of desperation. Similar sentiments were echoed by cultural theorist’s experts as well as social control theorists Hirschi and Nye who stated that social control pressures and cultural deviance are some of the other causes of such observed activities in member gang. Young people join gangs to fulfill their self-ego and internal inferiority complex that they are experiencing.

In the event of making sense out of the senseless motive of violence by gangs, it was established that psychological strain could have been the “real cause” or rather the hidden motive. It would have made no sense for anyone who is rationally upright to indulge in such destructive behavior. Such reports were also dominated the media and people began to seek further conception member gang. Through their analyzation, scholars found out that most of the gang members as being frequent school drop-outs or are victims of meritocratic society therefore they are filled with rage arising from their inferior social positions. Thus, they hide behind the gang activities to hide such inferior feeling inside them. In other words, gang activity greatly contributes to the rise of illiteracy levels and violence in a community.

The third effect of gang effect on the community is the abandonment of moral values, especially by young people. A recent study done by the Pew Research Center that reveled one-fifth of Americans have no religious affiliation; this has been partly faciliataed by the rise of gag violence which forces people to disregard moral values as they sekk to survive in commuities full of brutalities. Furthermore, the abandonment of moral values is especially high among young people who were initially raised with strong religious beliefs. Such recent trends are bound to affect society and this is already being experienced in the United States in the form of increased violence. The country is witnessing an increased wave of gang activity and violence with teenagers increasingly becoming the culprits. It is quite concerning that children who have just turned into their adolescent years are joining gangs; this can be attributed to lack of a moral compass as dictated by religion. Young people today have no regard for religious values since they would rather watch a violent movie than go to church; as a result they lack the proper guidelines on how to conduct themselves appropriately thus are falling prey to gangs. It is an occurrence that is especially experienced in poor neighborhoods where parental abandonment is common. Such children lack the guidance of morally upright adults who would influence them to live by high moral standards. Young people entering their teenagers are at a vulnerable state thus need a moral framework to help them to turn into responsible citizens. As such, since society at large is abandoning its values, these young people are forced to turn elsewhere for guidance and some of them end up joining violent gangs.

Apart from the aforementioned effects gang activity has several other harmful impacts. These include; disruption of the family unit and disorganization; involvement in gangs by teens results in broken homes and parental alcohol addiction and drug abuse; violence in the family, neglect of responsibilities and a lack of accountability; recruitment of other siblings into gangs; exhibition of anti-social behaviors and poor or no communication between family members; economic difficulties for parents facing legal fees and fines; loss of family members. Other communal effects include economic depreciation whereby people experience high levels of poverty and low standards of living, proliferation of crime and gang activity in a neighborhood, youth who find themselves in constant trouble leading to an increase of arrests, and easy access to drugs in a neighborhood leading to massive drug addiction. In addition, since gangs contribute to the enhanced availability of ammunition and firearms in a community, it results to increased feelings of insecurity among the members. Also, there tends to be uneasiness due to constant vigilance by security forces. Overall, gang activity results in an undesirable state in a community due to the depleted security levels and standards of living.

In conclusion, gang activity only facilitates negative effects in a community. It lowers the status of a neighborhood due to increased insecurity, illiteracy, and poverty levels. To fight gangs, members of a community must be vigilant ad raise their kids with the highest moral standards. Nonetheless, this is not an easy fight due to the high proliferation of gangs.