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Gang Life: What’s the story?
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Written by Chelsea Qualls, Staff Writer
Gangs are defined as “a group of people who through organization, formation, and assembly share a common identity and use it to do criminal activity.” Gangs are responsible for roughly half of all homicides and other crimes in major cities. There are over 21,000 existing gangs with 731,000 active members some of the biggest gangs are MS-13, 18th Street, Latin Kings, Bloods, Crips, and also Folk Nation. From this huge number of active gang members they estimated that 49 percent of gang members were Hispanic, 37 percent were black, 8 percent white, 5 percent Asian, and 1 percent had another ethnicity.
Now the real question: Why would someone join a gang? You might think it’s just a big group of people with 1 person in charge, and that 1 person is telling you what to do and how to do it. If you don’t obey you get jumped by your own brothers or members. The truth is that it’s still something that more and more kids are getting into for a variety of reasons. For one, gangs are known to make a lot of money and they are able to do this by selling drugs or hitting licks (another term for doing any kind of theft). Another reason is peer pressure. Seeing your older brother, cousin, or anyone you look up to in a gang will initially lead you to wanting to join a gang too. Seeing how cool they are and how they have protection towards anything. Some might say gangs are like a brotherhood. Does that remind you of anything?
Fraternities are a lot like gangs they both go through initiation to get in and must obey the so-called leader. Just look at gangs as an underworld fraternity that instead of planning mixers and parties they plan crimes and instead of helping each other with their college work. Instead of throwing keggers or helping the other member get a guy or girl they help each other hit licks or sell drugs.
I interviewed some gang members who would rather not be named, for obvious reasons, and asked them why they joined them and what’s a typical a day in the life of a “gangbanger”. One told me “ I joined because I was going through a lot of problems with my family and being with the gang took my mind off of it, my big brother was in it too and the gang was always at my house because of him so I just figured why not just join. Usually through the day all we do is just chill, smoke, drink and sometimes go out together to clubs which just cause problems because we run into other gang members and we have to fight or murk them.” Another told me “ Being in a gang is not just something anyone can do it takes a lot of guts to be able to do it because you don’t get to run free and do what you want you are told an order and no matter how crazy you have to follow through with it.”
Gangs are on the rise and growing rapidly by recruiting peewees (gangbanger in training). While law enforcement tries to contain them it seems to be a never ending battle of back and forth.
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