Gang Violence In Chicago

In Chicago, and all over the nation, the effects of gang activity have been displayed, specifically in low income and poverty torn communities. Poverty is measured depending on a family’s annual income and determining if the amount falls below the poverty threshold for the family’s size. If the annual income does fall below the threshold, then the family and every individual in it is considered to be in poverty. Gang activity is more visible in the areas specifically in major cities similar to Chicago where poverty is a commonality in communities. although gangs might add structure in order where the government fails to do so in the projects and and similar low income communities the negative effects such as the distribution of drugs, violence,
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The characteristics of the environment in which they are raised matter, especially taking into account those of the direct family in which they are raised in. When considering the difference between children who have experienced poverty, those who grew up in better neighborhoods are more likely to complete high school, finish four years of college compared to children who were raised in neighborhoods with a high crime rate, and where the financial difficulties of them are mirrored in their peers. Children are not given the same opportunities as their counterparts based upon the location of their birth. Children who are raised in poverty are automatically and unfortunately members of the cycle of poverty, in which crime rates are high, and education quality is
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Economic inequality is a large factor into the crime rates of a community. In the image of the 3 color coated maps of Chicago identifying poverty levels and drug violations, there is a clear indication that drug violations and abuse is more evident in poverty stricken communities and neighborhoods. The effects of the interconnections between crime rates and poverty is analyzed by Sudhir Venkatesh a sociology student in the non-fiction book, Gang leader for a day. It is in the Robert Taylor Projects where Venkatesh observes the lack of police enforcement, the high rates of homelessness, prostitution, drug abuse, and gang activity. The gang leader he observes often justifies the gang activity, drug distribution and physical assaults of disabled homeless men as “helping his community”(75). However the gang did bring some sort of structure to the Robert Taylor Projects, the only interest that JT, the gang leader, has was profiting off of the drug addictions of his community. Often throughout the book Venkatesh contrasts the effects of having low and high level of gang activity, arguing that teenagers with “appetites for crime” would have possibly been involved in misdemeanors, small crimes such as vandalism and shoplifting but with the emergence of JT and the heavy gang activity, they are more likely “to be involved in the drug trade”(72). One of the effects of having high gang activity is how more