Youth Gangs: Problem and Response

Irving Spergel begins his research by noting that the phenomenon of y come to the foreh camps is not exclusively a crossroad of Ameri discharge civilization or the modern urban condition, pointing out that syndicates date as far back to the 17th century England and track as far as Asia and South America, have evolved from places as divers(a) as the secret societies from Hong Kong and the prison conditions of New Zealand.Spergel also observes that attempts to research younker gangs have yielded varying results and drawn wildly differing conclusions as to their criminal severity, the percentage which spawn them, and the correlation they have with jejuneness guilt. Researchers also choose to trammel gangs and/or categorize them in relation to non-gang-related youth delinquency in rather varied ways, which only complicates this. I find this kind of companionable and historical context very fascinating. It certainly lends the concept of youth gang a certain legitimacy that is n ot afforded in mainstream representations of them.Too often, gangs be simply viewed as products of depressed argonas of urban America. They are considered a symbol of social failure rather than as a natural product of civilization, simply because it makes for more sensational content on television. But as Spergels research summary shows, youth gangs are a means for the youth to address their own communitys shortcomings, most notably a lack of self-assertion in ones family or an inability to completely connect with peers at a school or work environment.In addition, Spergel suggests that law enforcement, social eudaimonia agencies and other ways a community addresses youth gangs are problematized by how the demographic complexities of gang formation are distorted and/or exaggerated by how mainstream news media and governmental organizations choose to profile them. One theorise example is how such distortions lead even the Department of Justice to lineage research that relies o n flawed methodology or rely on grossly inflated figures for the purposes of rhetoric.Despite these acts, studies have indicated that the gang problem cannot be singularly reduced to one demographic and that the various activities they engage in are not necessarily limited to criminal air. Spergel does attempt to address this by reviewing such literature, and through this has suggested that gang behavior differs from other forms of youth delinquency in that the former must lie completely within the expanse of group oriented conduct protecting the turf, maintaining an ideological code, etc.He also decidedly defines delinquent youth groups against gangs by noting that the latter must have a relatively stable social order/ class whereas the former prevails to be more fluid in structure, and leadership is not a fixed constant. Furthermore, gang violence or crimin solelyy-oriented gang behavior is not as dramatically problematic as popular accounts tend to suggest. While some cities are certainly known for their alarming figures, the oecumenic average of criminially-oriented gang behavior is actually quite low.Spergel takes research data to task by suggesting that the veracity of any such statistics is immediately do suspect by problematic measurements used to derive such data. They can be distorted depending on how one counts gang population and criminally-oriented gang behavior. Spergels research is quite too long to really address all his points in a brief manner, but let it suffice to say that he presents a rather thought provoking look at research and its perceptions of gangs and gang behavior, most notably because it suggests the heterogeneity of the phenomenon and the ease at which it can be distorted.