Gangs
The problems that gangs cause to communities is enormous. And the resources that police departments and other law enforcements are required to use to monitor gangs is costly. Since gangs aren't going away any time soon the problems they create and the young lives they waste will be with society for the foreseeable future. This paper reviews the problem based on the government Web site, CrimeSolutions.gov.
Definition of Gangs and Gang Membership
The National Gang Center (NGC) explains that the most important aspect in terms of defining a gang lies within the realm of actually committing crimes. If the group is involved in criminality -- in rural or urban or suburban areas -- it doesn't matter what their leadership is in that particular group. It's also not important in the process of defining whether a group is truly a gang or not as to whether they display colors, have a specific name, hang out together, claim certain turf as their own; the authors say when a group of young people are committing crimes together they constitute a gang. In some cities, rural counties and suburban counties, when individuals claim membership, they are considered by law enforcement as gang members.
Gang-Problem Onset
It is logical to assume that the larger the city, the more likely they will have active gangs, and according to the National Youth Gang Survey Analysis (NYGSA) "…nearly half" of larger cities in the U.S. "have experienced ongoing gang problems" since prior to the 1990s. When asked to report when gangs began to appear in their area, nearly half of larger cities reported that they had gang problems prior to the 1990s. Nearly 20% of smaller cities and nearly 30%...
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