Essay on Gang Membership And Gang Related Crimes

A member of the United States House of Representatives, David Reichert, said it best when he said, “gang violence in America is not a sudden problem. It has been a part of urban life for years, offering an aggressive definition and identity to those seeking a place to belong in the chaos of large metropolitan areas” (“Dave Reichert Quotes”). Gang membership and gang-related crimes have been around since as early as 1783 on the United States’ East coast; however, youth affiliation with gangs was not commonly seen until the 1970s, and is only growing to a worse, more problematic issue (Franzese, 2006, p. 116). Throughout North Carolina, several gangs are found in nearly every county. Wake County, considered one of the best places to live in America, is crawling with gangs. There are over ninety-eight gangs located in Wake County alone; the smaller cities and more rural areas of the county have more underage gang members (“National Youth Gang Service Analysis”). As gangs form and expand throughout North Carolina as a whole, the amount of teens that are involved in gang-related crimes is also growing. In order to decrease the number of teen gang membership, teens need to have a loving environment to grow, schools need to encourage the growing children, as well as teens need to know that it is okay to turn away and get help. Home to nine hundred thousand people, Wake county is not even close to being as populated as some other counties in North Carolina. There has been an…