Abstract
Juvenile participation in gangs has significantly gone up since the 20th century. What is alarming is that many gangs comprise young adolescents partaking in criminal activities ranging from assault to drug trafficking. Many of these children have gotten involved in such activities out of compulsion. Once a child has joined the gangs, it becomes hard to quit as many are threatened by other members. Many who have tried to leave the gangs have been harmed, seen their family members harmed or killed, or even killed themselves. Despite the glaring effects of joining gangs, young people continue to join old and new gangs every day. This reality begs questions on why they join and how such gangs impact young people’s lives. The purpose of this project is to shed light on the prevalence of juvenile gang participation in the United States. The paper shall also explore the impact of juvenile participation in gangs, including the risk and protective factors that either push juveniles into or away from gangs.
Juvenile Participation in Gangs
Every parent aspires for their children to have the best that life has to offer. When a child is born, the parent expects that the child will grow up, go to school, get a good job and live a comfortable life thereafter. However, things do not always go to plan for many parents across the globe. Juvenile delinquency has been a persistent problem that has often painted parents and guardians inadequate and ineffective in raising their children. Children have been involved in numerous delinquent activities such as bullying, burglary, theft, rape, murder, including terrorism. It is worth noting that these delinquent activities are commonly undertaken in organized groups or gangs. In the United States, there has been a sharp increase in juvenile and youth gangs since the second half of the twentieth century. There is no better time to look into why the youth are joining gangs and their impact on them. Juvenile gang participation has adverse effects on the life of youths and is caused by a wide range of factors, including individual, social, and environmental factors.
Juvenile Gang Participation Prevalence
The history of gangs in the United States goes back to the late 19th century during the Industrial Revolution. During this period, there was rampant rural-urban migration that was followed by inadequate jobs and housing. As a result, the poorest in the cities turned into crime and found solace in bands that formally became gangs. These gangs would flourish into the 1950s before diminishing in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since the late 1970s, the gangs reappeared stronger and more brutal than ever. Today’s gangs comprise of young people in search of interaction and attention. The number of cities registering gang presence has gone up significantly. As of 2014, gangs maintained a presence in approximately 34 percent of all U.S. jurisdictions (Boxer et al., 2014). About 2 percent of U.S. youth are reported to be gang members. This represents about 850 000 gang members affiliated with about 30,000 gangs (Mora, 2020). Between 14 and 30 percent of adolescents are likely to join a gang at some point in their adolescence. Furthermore, adolescents are highly likely to be involved with gangs at 14 years of age.
Although gangs may offer psychological, social, and physical protection to youth from unhealthy and unsafe home and school environments, youth in gangs are more likely to be exposed to or be perpetrators of violence. Juvenile gangs are linked to higher rates of juvenile delinquency, antisocial behavior, and deviance (Lenzi et al., 2014). Statistics show that of the average 15,500 homicides reported annually in the United States, about 2,000 are linked to gangs. Youths who join gangs are more likely to be involved in drug trafficking, assaults, threats and intimidation, and robberies.
The Impact of Juvenile Gang Participation
Juvenile gang participation severely impacts both the youth and the society in many ways, including an increase in crime rates, recidivism and incarceration rates.
Increased Crime
Youth who join gangs do so for various reasons such as a sense of connection and belonging, peer pressure, protection, or money. The moment the child belongs to a gang, they are obliged to undertake any activity that the gang compels them to, even if it contradicts their beliefs or convictions. Affiliation with gangs intensifies deviance and delinquent behavior. It is no wonder that the youth are more likely to engage in crime in gangs than they are likely to do so alone. The book of 1 Corinthians 15:33 says, “Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals” (ESV). No matter how conscientious a child is, the moment they join a gang, they are susceptible to becoming as evil as the gang is. The youth commit serious criminal acts at a much higher rate in gangs than before joining and after quitting the gangs. Furthermore, the impact of gangs on youths’ crime rates is long-lasting as even after leaving the gangs, their predisposition to crime is still high.
Gangs adversely impact the community by increasing crime rates. Gangs are involved in lethal and nonlethal criminal activities, including robberies, street-level drug trafficking, assaults, and intimidation. Innocent citizens and rival gangs are often the victims of such crimes (Mora, 2020). On the one hand, the gangs create a false image of respect and power, while on the other hand, they instill fear within the population, making communities unsafe and inhabitable.
Recidivism
In the criminal justice system, recidivism refers to a convicted offender’s tendency to relapse into criminal behavior. Recidivism is one of the major problems that make rehabilitating offenders associated with gangs difficult. Gang membership makes re-entry of convicted offenders into the community hard as they find themselves in an endless cycle from the prison system into the community and back into the prison system. Offenders belonging to gangs are at a higher risk of reoffending after being released from prison than are offenders not linked to gangs.
It is worth noting that even when gang-affiliated offenders are incarcerated, they continue their activities in prison. Although the prison gangs have a different structure, they still conduct business with street gangs. Incarcerated gang members must stay attached to their gangs on and off the prison, lest they risk harm coming their way or their families and friends. Consequently, offenders are kept in an endless chain of gang membership such that prison does very little to rehabilitate them.
Increased Incarceration Rates
There is an overrepresentation of gang members in U.S. prisons. Gang membership disrupts a child’s normal development into adulthood and denies them an opportunity of living a normal life free of crime. Affiliation to gangs predisposes youth to a higher risk of getting arrested than youth not affiliated with gangs. The book of Proverbs 13: 20 says, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm” (ESV). Therefore, it does not matter whether the gang member has committed a crime or not, but their involvement with the gang makes them a target of the correctional system.
Risk Factors
Risk factors that predispose the youth to participate in gangs may be grouped into individual, social and environmental factors.
Individual Factors
Individual factors are intrinsic factors that tend to push the youth towards gangs. These factors include academic failure, aggressiveness, impulsivity, gender, alcohol, and substance use. Students with little educational aspiration and commitment to school are highly likely to join gangs. Such students perform poorly in their studies as they have a low expectation of success. School absenteeism is common among such students who eventually are likely to drop out and join gangs. Boys are at a higher risk of joining gangs than girls. Youth who are highly aggressive and impulsive are more prone to violence. Furthermore, youth who use alcohol and drugs are more likely to join gangs, mostly for easy access to such drugs.
Social Factors
Social factors influence the youth during their interactions with others within the community. Parental hostility and peer influence are among the most common factors pushing youth into gangs (Merrin et al., 2020). Many times, peer influence comes from delinquent friends with a criminal history. Parental absenteeism or negligence affects the youth’s social life, and the youth are highly likely to join gangs to feel a sense of belonging. The book of Deuteronomy 6:7 talks about parental presence in children’s lives “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (ESV). The parents’ failure to guide their children on the right path pushes the children into delinquency. Additionally, children bullied by peers in school or mistreated by teachers have a higher tendency to join gangs for protection.
Environmental Factors
Environmental factors include the homes and communities the youth find themselves in. Such factors include broken homes, disorganized or disadvantaged neighborhoods, and easy access to drugs. The home is where delinquency begins. Children need parents to raise them and show them direction. The book of Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it’ (ESV). When such parents do not exist, the children are forced to figure their way out as they grow (Pyle et al., 2020). Disorganized or disadvantaged neighborhoods tend to have a higher rate of gangs. Youth who join gangs in such neighborhoods do it for survival. Access to drugs at a young age leads the youth into dependency, which forces them to do anything to access such drugs, including joining gangs to earn money.
Protective Factors
Protective factors against juvenile participation in gangs work by eliminating the risk factors.
Parental Involvement and Support
Social bonds are an important protective factor against participation in gangs. Lenzi et al. (2015) argue that weak social bonds increase a child’s risk of participating in a gang. Perception of a high level of parental support increases the likelihood of gang membership. Parental involvement ensures that children are raised correctly and decreases the risk of delinquent behavior, which is a prerequisite for gang membership. The book of Leviticus 19:29 says, “Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land falls into prostitution and the land become full of depravity” (ESV). Therefore, parents are responsible for how their children turn out.
Peer Support
Children and youth may seek to join gangs because they lack peer support. Peers provide a sense of belonging to young people, and provided such peer groups are positive, they can provide a better alternative to gangs. Peer support from classmates can offer a better environment for the youth to flourish in their studies. Peer support provides the empathy an individual needs even as they interact with others in their day-to-day life.
Academic Achievement
Underachievement in school is a major factor that kills a child’s morale. Poor school performance is linked to an increase in delinquency. Such poor performance is associated with disconnection with the school environment, teachers, and peers. Schools should identify such students who are out of touch with the school and help them adjust to the school environment. That way, the student’s academic performance is highly likely to improve, and their likelihood of participating in gangs will be lower.
Conclusion
Juvenile participation in gangs is a serious issue in the modern world. Many children and youth join gangs out of a false promise of respect and power. Hidden to them is the reality of poverty, incarceration, and shuttered prospects in life. In the end, the juveniles do not achieve the peace and identity that they seek in gangs and are instead left broken and vulnerable to everything that their kind of life throws at them. Discussing the various risk and protective factors is important in understanding why certain groups of juveniles are more predisposed to participate in gangs than others.
