Theories Of Gang Violence

The etiology of what has come to be the contemporary understanding and depiction of the word “gang” has a historical context set in the roots of psychology. For starters the term “gang” is where a group or collectivity of persons with a common identity who interact in cliques or sometimes as a whole group on a fairly regular basis and where their activities are similar from legitimate to criminal or even more (Sheldon 24). I point this out first because gangs socially control themselves right off the back by just having a common identity. They do distinguish by age, which also goes back to normally that’s where the cliques start because people tend to hang with people their age. Gangs control themselves by what type of gang they are, rather
Girls typically joining at age around 12 oppose to boys at 14. (Sheldon 214). Girls mainly join because they have some type of abuse at home and these gangs become a family and basically a way to get away and a sort of safety. Heroin is huge for girl’s gangs and a lot of them either join because it’s either family or it is because maybe some relationship like a boyfriend introduced them to the gang. Boredom is huge for girl gangs, mainly they take place where there is no extracurricular activities so they have not really anywhere to go and turn to. The main underlying things is poverty, neighborhoods, and friendships is mainly the three reasons for girls to be in a gang (Miller 146). When girls ask to leave the gang normally they get “beat out” and could possible end up with killing her. Girls also get arrested for more things like running away and other status offenses (136). Girls also tend to fix all their problems through the gang rather it is with their class, gender or race. More and more females are really increasing and as they increase they are really there to survive in large areas, they hold groups and really don’t have a dominant person in charge like males do. They do have certain girls who are really involved a bit more but really they are independently joined and kind of work together through violating rules and such. I do want to point out that even though female groups and male groups are into
This is a problem that we have faced in the past along with facing it now. From when Hawkins, Catalano and Miller studied adolescent drug use to even now the question behind it: “why does this continue to go on?” This part of the research we will examine and research deep into how parental drug use affects personal drug use and involvement in gang overall. Social Learning Theory explains the basic method to all this madness. Family is a very important role in adolescent drug use and gangs because these are learned by the parent. Peers are involved as well but solely in this research we will focus on how the parental drug use develops a child into think that is the way of life. According to Social Learning Theory attitudes and behaviors are learned, your first encounters and first people you socialize with are mainly your parents. Ages one to five you’re mainly with your parents before being involved in “peer” interaction to change you in such a way. Development is huge and if a child sees drug use, they may think that is the way of life or the way of getting out of life when times are hard. This problem needs to be herd to communities, schools, and new parents regarding the effects drug use has on