Mara Salvatrucha Research Paper

Where I reside, Silver Spring Maryland (Montgomery County), there are no gang related activities. I live in a suburban area and the law enforcement are very strict and the area is safe. However, gang crimes exist in Prince George's County and Baltimore City, Maryland. Maryland had passed ordinances prohibiting loitering, and many forms of aggressive public behavior, such as, consuming alcohol in public, throwing up gang signs and disturbing the peace by playing music too loud. Law enforcement police attempted to discourage gang membership by prohibiting behavior that relates to gang activities. Such as, wearing gang colors or using gestures that communicate gang affiliation. Prince George’s County (PG) and Baltimore, prohibits individuals from wearing gang related colors and more in public or from making any utterances or gestures that communicate gang membership or insult to other street gangs.

The facts are that many public and private school youth are involved with gangs at schools. According to the National Gang Center Bulletin 2010, responding to gangs in the school setting between public and private schools a percentage of students say that there are involved with gangs or considered themselves gang members. (Arciage, Sakamoto & Jones, 2010) However, according to the School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (2007), a percentage of students reported the presence of gangs on their school campus. (Arciage, Sakamoto & Jones, 2010) Therefore, gang members bring their conflicts, attitudes, and behaviors to school; nevertheless, when passing classes, during lunch, around campus, and during assemblies events. Gang-involved youth somehow manage to engage in criminal activity, rival confrontation, delinquency, and violence. “Gang formation appears to be facilitated by social context characterized by broader changes in the economy, poverty, inequality, social disorganization, easy access to drugs, and an absence of well-paying jobs” (Elrod & Ryder, 2014, p. 68). Many gang members have family members who are involved in gang activities, and students have fewer

In the United States, every year there are around 2,000 gang-related homicides and in the realistic fiction novel, The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton, it explores the issues of gang violence, and teenagers in gangs. Around 40% of all members in gangs are teenagers, who are getting involved in some dangerous things very early in life. In the novel The Outsiders, the “Greasers” which is a gang of all teenagers, fight other gangs and commit serious crimes such as murder. We as a society need to pinpoint why teenagers join gangs and stop them beforehand. We also need to help people get out of gangs if they are already in one. There is a number of reasons that range from simple to complex, on why teenagers join gangs, and we can help by finding solutions to their specific problem before they choose to join one. To help someone get out of a gang, we as a society need to show there’s more out there in the world that they could do that will make a positive impact.

There is no denying that today, gang involvement is still very present and still a huge social concern in out society. Now a days, being in a gang is seen to be cool and is a way to earn respect form peers and one of the toughest and most dangerous decision that an individual has to make as a young adult is if they want to join a gang or not. One of the biggest topics when it comes to gangs is gender. We often hear about males joining gangs but we don’t always hear of females being involved in gangs let alone being gang members. When we think about the word “gang member” we typically picture a masculine male that commits a variety of serious and petty crimes. We don’t picture a female as being masculine and we definitely don’t picture a female when we think about the word “gang member.” If we were asked to visualize a female in a gang we usually stereotype them as being sex objects or tomboys. Even though we don’t usually think

Gangs desire to be seen as the most powerful and dangerous gang in the territory. To gain such a status prompts gang members to pamper violence for the sake of violence resulting in the murder of innocent people or assaulting a threatening person to the gang or their member (U.S. Department of Justice, 1999). The U.S. Department of Justice (1999), reported that even if such a killing is a result of mistaken identity, the perpetrators, across all gangs, are accorded the status of being powerful or dangerous and the members automatically rise in the gang’s

The gang is a way to obtain the goals they could not obtain by legal means such as work due to the outsourcing of jobs. Gangs show violence and a criminal subculture that attracts youth. The communities surrounding youth are unstable. Families are often single parent creating a strain between parents or the child and a parent. Schools are underfunded due to the lack of funding from the government due to segregation and crime. The more crime there is, the less funding they receive. Children receive a lesser education compared to a predominantly white school. Many drop out and obtain criminal educations instead. Having a broken home, no money, no education, the criminal world of gangs becomes more inviting to youth who are the streets looking for a family who will support them and their needs. Social inequalities foster crimes in adults, but can really influence the

These individuals have formulated small groups of individuals organized in many different locations throughout the United States. Although, the gang maintains their high status ties with their El Salvador counterparts, they continue to grow cliques in other parts of the Unites States and are known to be in operations of at least forty two states across the globe, as well as the District of Columbia estimating a membership total of over 36,000 in one area alone. Unfortunately, the members of this notorious gang are male and female who range from children as young as thirteen years of age to adults as old as forty. In addition, to the many cliques they have all over the US, and the age of these individuals, they are also, covered with tattoos all over their bodies from head to toe, and are known to wear the colors of their El Salvadoran flag, blue and white (Domash,

Slivers of light barrage into your room, cut only by the bars on your window: security. When you lay your head down on the pillow at night and you count nearby gunshots instead of sheep to help you fall asleep; you know your safe because of these bars, but what happens when the sun rises again and you are left to leave the comfortability of those walls? Your walk to school could mean the end if you take one wrong turn or talk to one wrong person. You quickly make your way to school every day while avoiding any unfamiliar routes and faces, but what happens when those routes are now someone else’s “turf” and you find yourself in the exact situation you have dreaded. You are no longer left

In conclusion, gangs are based in natural human behaviour, a person’s need for acceptance, wanting power to control their lives, and wanting to follow in the steps of role models. No matter how many people a gang murders, or whether they are the toughest looking people on the block, they, just like everyone in the world, are controlled by emotions and

“The Most Dangerous Gang in America” gives two great examples of Mara Salvatruchas use of brutality. “gang members armed with machetes hacked away at a member of the South Side Locos, slicing off some of his fingers.”, “a member of the 18th Street gang was pumped full of .38-caliber bullets.” (Campo-Flores) But MS-13 is not just brutalizing other gangs, innocent people are getting hurt too. In the documentary World’s Most Dangerous Gang it shows this first handily. In Houston, Texas members beat a teenage boy to death with sticks and stone. Another occasion where MS-13 brutalized an innocent victim was in Boston, Massachusetts. A teen MS member attacked motorist with a machete. Another way they show their power is through putting fear into the people that live on their turf. World’s Most Dangerous Gang explains that every block the gang controls earns income for the gang. Everybody gets taxed, every business must pay MS a protection fee. They make the laws for their

The purpose of this research study is to measure the impact of addressing and developing strategies to decrease risk factors that increase youth gang affiliation. There has been much research on the contributing factors for youth joining gangs, and some related to the impact of decreasing

Recent Department of Justice figures indicate that there are currently over 26,000 gangs involving over 800,000 members active in virtually every community in the nation (Decker, Melde & Pyrooz, 2013). Traditionally, a large presence of gangs have been found in the more specifically poor neighborhoods, however, gangs have now reached across territorial boundaries into the more affluent and isolated rural communities. Beyond engagement in illegal activity, and the economic rewards that brings, gangs provide a sense of power, belonging, and recognition for their members (Johnston, 2013). This paper will compare and contrast a traditional gang (The Outlaws Motorcycle Club) with a neo-traditional gang (Zoe Pound).

Officers own no positive influence in them and the law enforcement has no way to change that. Moreover It takes time and the mentality teen gang members obtain also does not help pave the way to a better lifestyle. Being an optimistic officer will not help trying to change their views could help, but this bond between the two may never change. There is no trust and without trust there is no backbone and no positive effect. Things just aren’t handled and prosecuted out correctly overall on both ends. As a result, The Law Enforcement has no positive influence on teen gang members due to teenagers mentality, lack of trust between teenagers and police officials and the way the officers handle the

The components for a successful gang intervention program are, fudamental changes in the way schools operate, job skills development for youths and young adults accompianated by improvements in the labor market, assistance to families, changes in the way the criminal justice system-particularly policing, and finally the intervention and control of knwon gang members. When it comes to the fudamental changes in the way schools operate, the schools should become community centers. They should provide services and education, while also activities before and after school. With job skills development for youths, there has to be an expansion in the labor market, and on the development of indigenous businesses in the communitites. Many youths drop

A contemporary urban social problem plaguing modern-day cities is gang violence. The following will describe this problem theoretically and the general problems associated with gang violence, as well as its existence in the city of Chicago, Illinois. Furthermore, discussing the programs in place by local, state and federal authorities to solve these methods, as well as their effectiveness. Concluded by a recommendation for tackling this issue in the future.