Gangs
Honors Project: How does the oppression of inner city youth Contributes to gang formation
In groups they drift around the streets, looking cool but their eyes are constantly on the move. A circle of young boys stand idly on the corner with their eyes peeled searching for any sign of cops. A short distance from them a few young men wearing sweats and baggy coats sit on their steps talking quietly. A pair of young girls, one with a swollen belly, walks past the group of young men with their eyes downcast. The young men suddenly sit up when they hear a whistle down the street and seconds later a grey Honda Civic pulls around the corner and up to their curb. One of the men casually walks to the window and acknowledges the driver. An exchange occurs and the man resumes his place at the stairs. Some young boys coming home from school glance jealousy at the nice shoes and headphones that the young men are wearing. The boys adjust the uncomfortable schoolbags, for a moment wishing to discard thoughts of school put their bags down and join the other boys standing lookout.
The idea that kids have of gangsta’s often glorifies the roles they play but the reality is much different. Drug dealers and gangsters that will be in jail or dead by the weekend, little kids who have stopped going to school and young teenage girls that get pregnant before they are ready for that kind of responsibility. Kids who have grown up to become the very tormentors that they hoped to protect themselves from. People down the block see them and quickly move to the other side of the road.
Almost two million people are criminally active gang members in the U.S. Many of these gang members lived and grew up in urban areas. Fifteen percent of inner city youth become involved in gangs or crime. They think that joining these hustlers is the best option for them because it offers not only money, protection and brotherhood but a sense of meaning as well. Meaning that that they don’t find in a school that doesn’t care about their heritage or struggles.
These kids are tired of being treated differently in school systems, hospitals or any other establishment just because they’re not from an affluent area. Students aren’t able to get the individual support they need from their teacher because the teacher is overwhelmed by an overcrowded classroom. More than half of the schools in NYC have overcrowded classrooms. Studies about class size were done and most found that overall student achievement went up in smaller classes.
It's not that the teachers aren’t trying to engage the students and give them the help they need it's that there's one of them and 35 students. Something needs to be done to interrupt a cycle where most kids don't finish their education because they’re parents are struggling to support them because they themselves didn’t finish their schooling. The U.S. needs to put priority on funding schools so that they can have more teachers that motivate inner city youth so that they can take on dignifying and contributing adult roles in our society.
Prioritizing this will, in the end, not only benefit these areas but it will in turn benefit our whole society. Students in low income areas are 10 times more likely to dropout than students from high income families. Dropouts make up more than 80% of our prison population. If someone does give up and drop out they have limited options on what they can do in order to make money and find satisfying work. This often pushes them to join gangs and turn to other ways they think will offer them instant access to money, respect, and adrenaline.
After a few years in a gang spending time selling drugs or committing robberies etc. they get caught and then our system incarcerates them. Usually after this experience they are more enraged with society and unable to find work. Our justice system emphasizes punishment more than restoration. That's why more than 50% of ex cons end up just going back to prison.
Today African Americans make up nearly half of the U.S. prison population and only 15% of our total population. This statistic speaks volumes about the existing bias in our unjust system. How do you think the imbalance of wealth and the injustice of our system makes them feel. If it were me I would resent the racist ideology of our society and rebel against it. By joining gangs they are finding a sense of belonging, a sense of fraternity, a sense of family.
In 2009 and 2010 nearly 70% of the African American community was being raised in single parent homes. A study done by the U.S Bureau of Census found that the average income of a white family in 2011 was nearly double the income of the average black family. As well as financial problems this poses academic and emotional developmental problems.
Single parents often can’t provide the same encouragement because they are either working too much, they’ve given up, or they’re distracted by drugs and other relationships. So what these kids are learning at school isn’t being reciprocated at home and they aren’t getting the same substance out of their education. This cycle in the inner city works as a paradox trapping 90% of this generation in and by doing so trapping their kids in as well.
The role models for inner city youth are often limited to sports professionals and rappers and we need to start giving other more attainable, meaningful goals. If more inspiring educators, lawyers, medical professionals, coaches, and officers of the law existed as role models and made connections with these students then it would inspire them to achieve a life of meaning. We need to start investing our economy in quality education as well as a higher abundance of educators. Teachers with smaller classes are better able to engage students and the students have a better environment to learn in.
Currently there are youthful offender systems being put in place that work on healing instead of neglecting. These systems allow youth who have committed a crime to have a reduced sentence in a program that focuses on growth and learning. We need to find ways to respond to crime other than incarceration. 25% of the worlds prison population comes from the USA and yet we make up only 5% of that same population.
Other countries have raised the age at which you can be charged as an adult to 21, these systems have lower recidivism rates than ours. The U.S needs to consider any criminal under the age of 21 as someone who needs support and restoration. If our prison population decreased we could spend more money on positive institutions like education and employment.
We need to put emphasis in leaving no class behind, and find a way to catch the interest of the students in the inner city. We still have the opportunity to provide everyone with an equal chance of success in our society. These gangs should be a bright red flag, warning us to make a shift in our society.
When people are willing to turn to violence it's because they see no better option. We can see the inequality, now we need to start providing the impoverished and oppressed with better education and brighter futures. I believe that children in inner cities have a big part to play in our future so it seems we should make sure that they have an opportunity to play a positive role. The future, our future, depends on how we include all members of society in the ‘democratic’ process. Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out that we all have a dream. Many have lost the concept of a dream for the future, where can we go from here.