Comparing The Criminal Behavior of Youth Gangs and At-risk Youth
The amount of gangs is growing from day to day, as well as the amount of crimes, committed by them. However, there are only few researches about the nature of the gangs. The National Institute of Justice decided to sponsor the research, aiming to use the founded data about gangs and those, who are at-risk group in Denver (and its suburban area Aurora), Broward Country (located in South Florida), Colorado and Cleveland (Ohio) for involving into gangs' activity and preventing their expansion. These locations were chosen because of their ethnical diversity and combination of metropolitan areas and suburbs. The article under consideration depicts the result of these researches.
A gangs is considered as a well-organized group of youth, aged between 10 to 22 years old, who were believed to be the members by local law authorities and social agencies and admit themselves as being (or used to be) active in gang. The research shows the average age of gangs members is 16 in Cleveland (18 in Florida and Colorado), mainly male and half of them are Afro-American, the quarter are white and about 6% are Hispanics. By the way, the first arrest happens almost after the becoming the gang member (from 6 month to year since he first starts to hang out with gang). The at-risk group includes those young people, who may join to gang, but have not done it yet. Their average year is 15, also most of them are male and three quarters are Afro-American and only 11% are white.
The gangs members are more likely to commit auto thefts and thefts, carry weapons in school, participate in homicides and drive-by shootings and even selling, stealing and using drugs (mainly cocaine and marihuana). They usually sell more expensive and profitable drugs daily, according to Huff "earning about $1,000 per week from only 30 customers, while non gang youths earned about $675 per week, based on an estimated 80 customers". However, the drug sale is not the main gang activity. On contrary, it is an individual business, that is preferred due to inability of the seller to find a regular, full-time job. Weapon is also widespread among gang members: about 75% of them posses own guns, preferring powered and deadly weapons. As for the at-risk group, only half of them have guns.
Unlike the widespread opinion, those young people who refused to join the gang do not subjected to physical assault or persecution, while being the gang member increases the frequency of injuries and fatal outcomes. Moreover, the research of gang members shows the progression (taking 1,5-2 years) from property crimes to violence, the increased number of criminal record history and longer prison term.
Thus, the research of gangs helped to determine some peculiarities, which are to be used in order to improve gang resistance programs and help to tackle their crime activity. The best time to prevent the teenager to join or persuade to leave …
