What can be done about the gang problem in US?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MikeH
I know but as long as you have people living in such relative poverty you're going to have them turning to crime as a way out of it.

Gang members don't join gangs for the money. It doesn't pay at all. In fact your chances for survival aren't good. Young men join gangs because they want to be part of the group and they really don't give a **** about anything else. The only solution is to give them something to live for, and put cops everywhere. We will probably have to take away some of their rights too.

[Al B. Sure!]

Pekka:

recruit inner city youth into a para-military group

nah for real though... i think after school programs and midnight basketball and all that jazz has helped to reduce the preponderence of gangs in philly. when they turn 18 though and leave these programs, that can be a different story, but fortunately, a few of them stay on to play with and tutor the next generation

[Pekka]

AS, so you say the problem has changed its face?
Some money pooring in, some people making it big with drug dealing, and pretty much rest of them faliing behind these guys?

[Dinner]

I haven't noticed any gangs here.

[st_swithin]

No, people join gangs so they can kick the tar out of people like me, and have backup just in case I ever decide to try to fight back. That's REALITY - that's what I've been brought up in, it's what I see every day on the streets, it's how working in the industry has been - it's as all-pervasive as an audibly wet fart in a crowded elevator that's stuck between floors.

And it IS true - if I hadn't already messed up so many times to begin with, I wouldn't HAVE to wish someone would shoot me. I'm just a coward.

As my mom once told me, 'You can't even kill yourself right! Now we're gonna have to pay for the hospital bills! I hope you're proud of yourself!'

My inferiority complex is a Moebius strip.

I hate hospitals. I hate having to live in them, because everything smells like ammonia (or pee, same thing). I hate it because no matter how nice you try to be to people, or how much you try to make things better, they just eventually tell you to fvck off, or just shut up.

That's my other area of expertise: shutting the fvck up when I'm told to shut up. I'm just waiting til someone here tells me to shut up so I can stop with my own amateurish attempts at self-therapy. In fact, I don't even respond to the words anymore - you just have to shoot me a look like the way people in Hollywood look at homeless people.

[Pekka]

Oerdin, we don't have them either. Few wannabes, watching too many movies. The kinds that harrased me the other day.. nothing too dangerous.
Except few biker gangs, but they mostly do other stuff than make trouble in public.
And few ethnic minorty gangs, few local gangs and few mixed ethnic gangs that fight each other, most of the times with fists and stuff like that though. So we don't have that problem.

[Al B. Sure!]

Pekka:

generally... i think the average young male's life goes something like this... at 12, he starts getting all hormonal and wanting to be tough and **** and tries to imitate what rappers talk about and what not and starts smoking and having sex and his friends start hanging around on the corner... by 14, they start playing gangster, getting a hold of guns, mugging people, beating up people, car-jacking, hollering Hunting Park up in here when they beat up out of towners etc. hell, some of my friends are seriously scared of the young boys in our neighbourhoods just because they're young, stupid, and got weapons and they're hyped enough to use them without thinking... by around 16 or 17 though, these young boys mature... a couple end up in juvenile detention, some 'find christ or allah' and fix themselves up, and most just plain grow out of it... their ties with their friends do remain strong and even if they're not running the street like they used to, if something goes down, it's like they're 14 again, busting rounds, except now, they're old enough and smart enough to cause some serious damage.

in fact with the young boys, three years ago or so, i related how i was attacked by several guys, some of whom had weapons, all over an incident with a girl (it was part of my infamous love life series )... i think that incident back when i was 15 kind of sums up how young boys are here at that age

[Pekka]

So you say it isn't that big of a problem, but more youngs kids acting tough these days? But young kids who have guns and no brains?

Sounds like lack of interest of other things. How about forcing them to school, and then lots of after school activities like sports and what ever they find fun to do, so they don't have too much time to hang out in the corners and all that?

[Al B. Sure!]

by the way, i'm waiting for one of apolyton's communists (perhaps chegitz or kidicious) who act like they know everything about poorer people, to claim that i dont know what i'm talking about...

[rah]

In chicago this week they're starting to install bulletproof video cameras on top of street lights.
This will get entertaining.

[Sava]

Speer: While I don't discount your experiences and the way life is in your neighborhood, just keep in mind, that doesn't represent what "poverty" is like across the country.

There, how's that?

[Al B. Sure!]

Pekka:

thats the strategy that philly has been using for at least 10 years now and it seems to be working alright... after school programs, basketball, tennis and fencing (i'm not making this up... there are seriously programs where inner city youth play tennis and fencing) etc. nevertheless, you still got boys who fall through the cracks and when summer rolls around, a lot of these programs temporarily shut down or if they're still running (like summer league, inter-mural bball), they don't keep kids occupied everyday of the summer

[Al B. Sure!]

Sava:

i know very little about rural poverty and though i'm sure biker gangs are a problem, i don't imagine huge gang problems in the country... maybe Flint Michagin or Gary Indiana got problems though... LA apparently still does. as for the inner city on the east coast... gangs as popularily pictured are dead.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Pekka
So you say it isn't that big of a problem, but more youngs kids acting tough these days? But young kids who have guns and no brains?

Sounds like lack of interest of other things. How about forcing them to school, and then lots of after school activities like sports and what ever they find fun to do, so they don't have too much time to hang out in the corners and all that?

Despite what Speer says, these programs have very limited effect. btw, I used to teach in an inner-city school.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Pekka
Oerdin, we don't have them either. Few wannabes, watching too many movies.

Yeah, that's what we have here; wannabes who've watched to many movies. Growing up there were a few small (mostly vietnamese) gangs which harassed there own people and were involved in the drug trade (again mostly to their own people). Back in the early 1990's though the police cracked down hard on these guys and they ended up with very long prision sentences.