A gang is considered to be a group of three or more people, they also identify themselves as a certain “group”. Today, “some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs are criminally active in the U.S. today (FBI)”. It’s crazy to think that we are living among so many people in gangs. Living near Johnstown, PA you can see a lot of gang violence in the midst of downtown Johnstown. It’s nothing like Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, but for a small town it is pretty crazy.

Gangs are causing problems not only in our communities but are corrupting young adolescents to. Young adults join these gangs because they don’t have the positive punishments for doing bad things at home, or even for protection for themselves. Someone young is motivated to join because they feel as though when they join these gangs they have sort of a “backup” family. It is stated that gangs are forming in communities where racism or poverty is a problem. Types of gangs within the U.S. are

 

  • The 18th Street Gang: out of Southern California.
  • Barrio Azteca Gang: out of El Paso, Texas.
  • The Latin King’s Gang: out of Chicago.
  • The Trinitarios Gang: out of New York.
  • The Outlaws: out of Johnstown, PA.
  • And many more!

So how are we going to solve these gang problems? Well through the FBI there are many different associations that are helping to solve this problems. Such as:

  • National Gang Intelligence Center.
  • Transnational Anti-Gang (TAG) Task Forces
  • Violent Gang Task Forces

The National Gang Intelligence Center is here to help stop the expansion of these gangs. “NGIC identifies those gangs that pose the greatest danger to our communities and targets them with investigative resources and the same federal racketeering statutes, as well as intelligence and investigative techniques, that have been used to attack organized crime (FBI)”. The Transnational Anti-Gang (TAG) Task Forces is a task force based out of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Their mission is to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle transnational gangs in these three Central American countries, as well as to collect and disseminate intelligence to support related U.S.-based investigations (FBI)”. The last association is the Violent Gang Task Forces. This is “the vehicle through which all of the federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies collaboratively address the violent crime plaguing communities (FBI)”.

My personal opinion on gangs is that, yes, we are finding ways to break them down but we are never going to find a way to completely stop them. Gangs are growing more and more every day, by the second, minute, and the hour. They continue to kill others in their acts of criminal behavior. We can kill them or send them to prison but there is always going to be more people to join them.

Gangs are always going to be a serious problem within our communities. What are some ways you think we can bring these gangs down, one by one? Are they going to continue to grow and it is never going to end? Leave your comments below and let me know what you think! As always, like, comment, share, and subscribe!

All the information quoted is from the FBI, give their website a look! I’ll post the link below!

FBI