gangsterism

Introduction
Crime and violence in schools is threatening the well being of the young people in Malaysia. Despite national efforts to restore a culture of learning and teaching, incidents of gangsterism, theft, vandalism, burglary, rape and even murder are reported on school grounds. Gangs are not necessarily bad but gangsterism invariably is. Gang can defined as a group of recurrently associating individuals or close friends with identifiable leadership and internal organization, identifying with or claiming control over territory in a community, and engaging either individually or collectively in violent or other forms of illegal behavior. A member of or gang may be called gangster. Gangsterism can be described as the use of tactics associated with gangsters as intimidation or violence in order to achieve something.

Gangsterism is an ever growing crisis, which affects all youth involved as well as the entire community in a specific country in which it has taken claim. The subculture of gang violence has become most feared phenomenon in many poverty stricken communities. The gang violence that is prevalent in these communities affects mostly the adolescents, who are supposed to be the ‘the leaders of Tomorrow’. In school is one of the frequently happened gangsterism issue, the study also is primarily influenced by gangsters. The study also indicated that students participate in gangsterism because of the main three main factors that are family, living environment and academic achievement.

There can be serious long standing effect such as physical, emotional and psychological implications for the both teacher and pupils including distress, reduced self esteem, risk of depression and suicide, and reduced school attendance, impaired concentration, fear and a diminished ability to learn.