Youth Gangs And Youth Violence Criminology Essay

Youth Gangs And Youth Violence Criminology Essay To believe that the existence of youth gangs and juvenile violence is a myth is to believe that its causes are also fictional. But what is so fictional about this reality? There is no denying that there are gangs, brought about by many of Americas youth, who wants a quick fix in life. Studies back this up. The national survey of law enforcement jurisdiction counted almost a million gang members in the United States. Among these gang members, 46,000 were involved in gang accidents that spurred a violent crime (Hunzeker, 1993). According to the study by the West Virginia University (Hunzeker, 1993), about 20,000 violent offenses were connected to gangs, which includes 974 homicides, occurred in Americas 72 largest cities. Our contemporary information about gang formation considerably attributes their existence, again, to poverty and other social problems. This factor is magnified further when you add the availability of drugs and weapons in the community into the scenario. These variab les (poverty, drugs, and weapons) tell us much about the trend of gang formation. Research suggests that gangs and their crimes increase when community degenerates or if the economy drops (Hunzeker, 1993). Furthermore, when neighborhoods, schools, families in the community disperse or decays, most youth turn to gang membership as a means to build their esteem and re-establish their social identity. Now, there is absolutely nothing mythical about this. Truth of the matter is, gangs seem to be an attractive option where legitimate means of survival is lacking. Thus, gangs mirror societys identity-juvenile gangs are the reflection of the youth on the very society they live in. Almost any enrollment to gangs affords the youth protection and excitement, which is why the propensity for violence is always there. Drugs and weapons connected to the crime is only the direct result of the gangs inherent objectives. But the most violent crimes connected to gangs are not random shootings or drug disputes; rather it is the escalation of disputes between rival gangs. II. There are various points of views from experts on the causes of youth gangs and violence. John Hagan and Bill McCarthy of Cambridge University offer an insight between the relationship between juvenile and their participation to criminal activities. Moreover, they added, the common profile of a street youth is male, around 18 years old and comes from a broken home. Approximately 30% had lived with both biological parents before leaving home, 24% had lived with step-families, 18% had lived with a lone-mother, and 17% had lived in foster or group homes before taking to the street (Hunzeker, 1993). A full 87% of youth have undergone physical violence from their parents or guardian; and another 60% of them were bruised due to assault. Most criminologists peg street crimes to young men who are poor, unemployed, badly educated and frequently raised in unstable homes. These men account more than half of street crimes occurrences. These are the base roots of street crimes, but to explain why juvenile turns to street crime needs a much detailed analysis. Experts say that variables like poverty and poor health influence criminal behavior, but there is a large disagreement among them in what actually causes youth to go against the law and injure others. Elliot Currie, a crime expert of University of California at Berkeley for example, believes that street crimes are largely due to the U.S. failure to support poor families (Robinson, 2003, 2). In this case, there is a widespread inequality that gives rise to resentment and anger. Mercer Sullivan an anthropologist of Vera Institute, on the other hand, believes that education is to blame (Mears Travis, 2004, 31). He thinks that poorly educated young individuals, regardless of their race, are all curious of exploring crime. But as time moves on when some individuals mature through getting decent jobs, while others didnt because of racial disparity, inequality or other unjustifiable reasons that negatively affected them, these individuals become desperate and turns to street crime-such as burglary and mugging-to compensate. Other experts thrust their blame on the environment; others to mental disorder; still others to negative influences. At the same time, these youth begin to see the social system as unfair who look at themselves as unemployable, which significantly increases their involvement to possible criminal action. Now, why is this so? Because these juveniles grew up in a conventional society where they believed eventually betrayed them. Thus, they responded with depression and guilt, leading to a passive withdrawal and criminal behavior inhibition. They begin to narrow down their options and see that crime is the better alternative than employment to compensate their material needs. III. Addressing this issue begins looking for changes on how this problem can be mitigated, which can lead to more feasible solutions. In this case, we describe law enforcement authorities. Typically, the police try its best to curb the increasing problems of juvenile street crimes. They have two approaches: An aggressive stance and punishment to those hard-core predatory gang members; and the prevention of recruitment and early intervention to would-be gang members These two approaches may be effective on a poor community that has had enough of gang-related street crime. But what happens when theres a gang increase in a comparatively affluent towns and suburbs. The loophole of this approach is purely on perception. Usually when forums revolve around homeless youth, they are always tagged as the criminal perpetrators. This is due to the deeply rooted perspective that endured to popular media, which believes that delinquent street, homeless youths are bad, deviant, troubled, or misgui ded, who apparently have left their homes with insignificant reasons. Once out to the streets, they are labeled as involved in criminal activities, which puts at risk the publics health and safety. It is they who are the usual suspects for disturbing the peace; that causes problems to the public; that are driving away tourist by making streets unsafe; etc. Yet, these forums fail to point out that these homeless juveniles equally are victims of street crime. When living in the streets, young individuals are highly exposed to delinquent activities, dangerous locations, proximity to other offenders-that can all lead to victimization. Police and the community must have a better understanding of the causes. IV. First essential facet to improve on change preconceived ideas and stop the stereotyping and profiling juveniles on the streets. Officials and law-makers can start with the media, especially in this time and day where the bread and butter of television news are the spicing up of events. According to Rose (1994), street crimes are the coal that boils the crisis boiler. Reportage of street crimes are exaggerated in the United States that the real facts of the matter are left out to give way to perception and sensationalizing of events. The trouble with this source of information is that media executives reinforce their viewers stereotype by showing only one side of the offenders and not taking account of other reasons of the crime. Television enables its viewers to categorize what crime to what offender commits them, without giving more extensive information on why that crime took place in the sociological level. Viewers, in turn, are fed with profiling street juveniles. It shows that news reports overstate crime committed by minorities by consistent reportage and tableau of either Blacks, Latinos, Asians, etc. in a crime that shapes to false perception, which skews reality by giving a scary and untrue image of crime in America. What is needed as one of the most essential solutions to curbing juvenile street crimes is more information towards the public viewers on what sets criminal behavior among their youth. The community should realize that a criminal incident is not an isolated case-it is brought about by multiple, interrelationship of the juveniles condition, including poverty, homelessness, etc. The viewing public should see the connections of why street crime occurs. This is the only way to begin a solution against social delinquency, through a keen observation of interrelated factors.

The Human Genome Project :: Science Genetics Papers

The Human Genome Project Imagine having the recipe to make a human being. Knowing its entire genetic make-up from beginning to end. Sounds far fetched, well it isn’t with the latest scientific achievements in sequencing the Human Genome. It’s only a question of how far we will take this information to get an understanding of its full potential. The Beginnings: Long before there was a formal Human Genome Project (HGP), the Department of Energy (DOE), the National Institute of Health (NIH) and some of their predecessor agencies were interested in developing more sensitive methods to detect changes in our genetic make-up, induced by ionizing radiation, and to begin understanding the related health effects due to this type of exposure. It has been know for some time that the genetic-information containing deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the molecule in the cell that is the most sensitive to the effects of radiation and other pollutants, even at low levels. One can only begin to imagine the impact it will have, in the pharmaceutical, and medical fields as well as how research will change, once we have our complete genetic make-up spelled out.(www.ornl.gov/hgmls/publicat/judges/aren.html) In 1984, researchers got together at a conference to discuss a single question. The question being asked was if modern DNA research provided an adequate way of detecting genetic mutations. Particularly, if there was sufficient evidence to indicate an increasing mutation rate in those people and their descendants, who survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The overwhelming conclusion was, not yet, and so this was the underlying question-answer series that sparked the idea for the formation of the Human Genome Project. (www.ornl.gov/hgmis/publicat/tko/01_forword.html) In 1988, the DOE and the NIH signed a memorandum joining them in a combined effort to sequence the human genome. Then just two years later, on October 1, 1990 the official clock began counting down, signaling the journey and adventure to sequence the entire human genome. (New England Journal of Medicine, July 1, 1999) It was evident that once this project was completed it would furnish a highly detailed and accurate genetic reference guide that others could use to build on, without having to repeat the sequencing process from scratch. Originally the goal of the project was to have a completely sequenced genome within15 years. Due to improved sequencing techniques and the increased competition generated by the private sector, a "highly accurate" version of the human genome is set to be completed by the year 2003.

Ctguji

We had Just gotten back from a very disappointing game. I don't remember what the score was but we got lose pretty bad. So there are a number of us chilling around the park talking afterwards and we all decided that we needed to get some weed and go hangout somewhere and try and forget about the beating we had Just gotten in the game earlier that night. We all chipped in and one of the guys made a weed run. When he got back we decided that it wasn't a good idea to stick around the park and smoke so we were trying to figure out someplace to go and chill.Then Dave chimes in hat his family had Just moved from their home a couple weeks earlier and the place was still empty and he still had his key. It sounded like a pretty good place to go to the rest of us so we Jumped in our cars and headed on over to Dave's old house. We pull up to the place and Dave Jumps out goes and unlocks the door for us. We all get inside and start playen some music and smoking and haven a good '01 time. So we'r e all having a pretty good time until after a while Dave, the guy whose place it was, starts throwing bottles around and trashing the place.My friends and I saw this and new something was up so we all decided to split. After we left it wasn't to late yet so some of us take a little Joyride around town before we head home. Well, when we got back to school the following Monday we thought it was going to be Just another day at school but later in the morning the cops show up. One by one all of us who had been at the party end up getting called down to the front office and are questioned by the cops. 5 guys ended up getting arrested that day (l wasn't one of them). It turns out that the house we went to that night wasn't actually Dave's.His Family had Just been renting the house and had been evicted from It a couple weeks earlier. The cops tracked us down because they got fingerprints from the house and a couple of the guys already had a record with the cops and they got pulled In first which lead them to the rest of us. It was a whole big mess, the cops had a paddy wagon there and News Crews were set up across the road filming as they took guys out In cuffs. Our football team Just kind of fell apart after that happened. We ended the season with 15 people on the team.

Social Darwinism

Definition: Social Darwinism is the application of Darwinian thought to society in which the â€Å"survival of the fittest† is the driving force of social evolution. Social Darwinists conceive that society is an organism that evolves from simple to complex in a process of adaptation to the environment and society is best left alone to follow its natural evolutionary course. They thus argue for a laissez-faire (â€Å"hands off†) approach to social change and believe that the current arrangements in society are natural and inevitable.