Bethany Carlson's List: Gangs Research

• • 24,500 gangs in the U.S (article 4 at bottom of page).
    
  • 750,000 gang members in 2000 and 2007 (see articles 4 & 6)
    
  • One Million gang members in 2009 (see articles1 & 2-bottom of page)
• U.S. with at least 250,000 people has gang activity.
• pproximately 32,000 teenage female gang
• approximately 48,000 adult female gang
• • School failure and learning disabilities: One out of three girls in gangs have been in special education
    
  • Lack of involvement in positive activities in or out of school
    
  • Sexual abuse and victimization
    
  • Family dysfunction
    
  • Low Income
    
  • Early drug use and sexual activity
    
  • Emotional disorders
    
  • Exposure to violence
• Reservation Gang members are mostly teenagers, not adults. The opposite of city gangs
• Girls who live on reservations join gangs at a higher rate than off-reservatio
• • Black/African-American Gang members: 31% or about 310,000
    
  • Hispanic Gang members: 47% or about 470,000
    
  • white/caucasian gang members: 13% or about 130,000 by police survey
    
  • white/caucasian gang members: 40% by self-reported youth survey (see article #6 below - they use a survey of youth rather than police records)
    
  • Asian gang members: 7% or about 70,000
    
  • Indian/Native American gang members: Not many by number, but an increasing problem on reservations

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• All My Enemies is  an impressive multimedia presentation on gang life in L.A.

• You can watch  a very short “trailer” to a documentary about Latino gangs. It’s called  Nuestra Familia, Our Family.

• Here’s a video  on Home Boy Industries, the group that was highlighted earlier in this post  in a New York Times slideshow.
• Young  Guns: A New Brand of Gangster is a slideshow from a Seattle newspaper.

• Gangs  On Tribal Land is a video from the New York Times sharing how “tribal  officials on the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Reservation are struggling to control a  rash of gang-related crime among native youth.”

• Knocking  Out Chicago Gang Violence is a CBS News video on an anti-gang boxing  program.

• From  Gangs To Breakdancing is another CNN video.

• Gang  Life Quiz

• The Lure of  Guns and Gangs

• You might also be interested  in a series of “Fotobabbles” (audio-narrated photos) that our Intermediate  English students did on the issue of what are the consequences of being involved  in a gang.
• Homegirl  Cafe is a video about a young woman escaping gang life

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• Gang violence is a problem in every major city in the United States and  membership is on the rise. According to the Department of Justice's 2005  National Gang Threat Assessment,
• Gathering accurate statistics on gangs and gang membership is difficult for a  number of reasons. Gangs obviously don't keep official records of their  membership
• The National Center for Juvenile Justice used a combination of police department  reports and self-reporting to compile the ­Juvenile  Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report
• Poverty
  
• Peer pressure
  
• Boredom
  
• Despair
  

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• Homeboy Industries is a place for young Angelinos to find a path away from  crime and trouble. As well as a place for gang members, at-risk youth, to  get some tattoos removed and some anger management classes.  But most  of all, it is a place to get a job.
• Jobs not Jails
  

• MS, Mara, and MS-13
• originated in Los Angeles  and has spread to other parts of the United States, Canada, Mexico,  and Central America.
• set up in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants in the city's Pico-Union
• purpose was to protect Salvadoran
• members cover themselves in tattoos.  Common markings include "MS", "Salvatrucha", the "Devil Horns", the name of  their clique, and other symbols.^[

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