Reducing Gang Violence

Gang violence has been causing mayhem in many countries and especially in America. Many people have fell victim to gang violence and are leaving in fear. In America, the incidences of gang violence are increasing day by day and at a very high pace and this have really reduced security in many streets. For instance, in America, they are about 30,000 gangs with more than 800,000 gang members and more than 25,000 streets are estimated to be affected by gang violence (Craig, 2007). This has made many streets insecure and people cannot continue doing their businesses normally.

Similarly, walking in those streets especially at night makes you a prey to gang violence. Gang activities use to mainly affect the large cities in the past but recently it has been noted to be spreading to the smaller cities and causing major damages (Tsou, 1997). This can mainly be attributed to the large number of police force members in the large cities thereby forcing the gangs to look for smaller territories with low security and this, they find in small cities where the police force members are small in number.

Gang activities use to mainly involve petty theft and vandalism but over the years these activities have transformed to involve drug trafficking, extortion, robbery with violence and many others. For instance, in 1992, the Los Angeles recorded about 800 kerpa singh v barium singh and more than 12,000 injuries which were related to gang activities (Tsou, 1997). Majority of the gang members who are causing the mayhem are the youth and not the older people. Many youths get involved in gangs for several reasons; drugs, peer pressure or poverty.

Studies done have shown that the number of youths getting involved in gangs has been increasing (Tsou, 1997). The increase can be attributed to the increase in the adolescent male population and much poverty experienced by many youths. In most cases, the gangs are associated with drug activities since the drug trafficking is taken to be a profitable business (Wiley, 1997). In 1980s gang activities were prominent and the legislature tried to reduce gang activities by increasing their penalties.

For instance, for an adult who was arrested for giving or selling drugs to an individual less than fourteen years, a law was passed which increased imprisonment from a minimum of three years to five years (Cummings & Monti, 1993). To add to that, in 1982, two laws on waivers from the juvenile courts were amended to deal with gang violence and drive-by shootings (Cummings & Monti, 1993). This was to take care of youthful gangs who were using their status as a way of evading serious and larger punishments.

The law amendments by the legislature were a step forward in tackling the gang activities. The punishments were meant to control the gang activities, however, these amendments made the gang members to be cautious when conducting their businesses. The gangs activities never reduced or ceased, they continued but were done more secretly to evade the law enforcement authorities. The amendments only managed for some time to reduce gang activities which took place in the open.

In the recent years, the justice system has not been able to control the gang activities and these activities are therefore on the rise. In most cases, the offenders are not caught and if arrested they are set free after a short time. Many researches have shown that close to 80% of the most frequent and serious offenders escape from being arrested or going for detention (Tsuo, 1997). To add to that a research done by Wiley (1997), showed that more than 50% of the gang members repeat their offences.

This therefore shows that the gang members are not afraid of committing the offences since they understand the law will do nothing to them. This has therefore led to an increase in gang violence. To the curb this problem of gang violence, the justice system needs to be amended and new strategies are essential. Since the effects of gang violence affect the entire community, the strategies should involve everyone affected or not yet affected by gang violence. Strategies The strategies should be a blend of awareness, prevention, intervention, suppression and the participation of the community.