Families Affected by Gangs

Families Affected by Gangs

 

How are families affected by gangs, youth that are involved in gangs are more likely to dropout of school and sell drugs. What are gangs? According to Dictionary.com, a gang is,  “A group of persons associated for some criminal or other antisocial purpose” (Dictionary.com). Sometimes gangs can be really different because it can be one race in a gang or multiple races in one. Sometimes gangs can be located anywhere in the world. Gangs can also make young people  join at a very young age and they can possibly die because of gang violence. Through research and interviews, it is clear that gangs can have an effect on families because loved ones are lost and often children join gangs at a young age, which changes their lives. To help this problem in Oakland, there should be clubs for young children to help get them off the street.

 

First, gangs hurt young people and families because they lose people they love:

 

The article “The psychological impact of gang violence” written by Emmylou Rahtz talks about how families that have gone through traumatic events such as deaths of family members. It states that, “People that are injured in gang violence are six times more likely to suffer from (PTSD) and they will get the mindset to get revenge, hurt themselves or hurt their family” (Rahtz). Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is when you see a terrifying event happens and you  experiencing it or witness it and could possibly get nightmares. This is important because youth can get PTSD and the clubs can keep them off the streets and stop them from being in gangs.

When losing a young one, what happens is  stress and trauma. Also, that kid probably has not finished school yet and lost their lives. It will make other people feel like they have to get revenge and take someone else lives and that cause them to enter a gang at a young age.That sometimes the person who lost their loved you can have depression and really hurt them self or someone.

 

Secondly, when gangs are in families, really young kids join the gang because it is what they know.

I read an article and it was talking about how kids join gangs because. “Others are motivated by peer pressure, a need to protect themselves and their family, because a family member also is in a gang, or to make money” (American Academy of children). What this quote is talking about is that there are a lot of kids that join gangs because they know that they have a family member involved in gangs and then the kid thinks that it’s okay because his family members are in that gang and they start to get peer pressured by people to join.

Lastly, I Interviewed my know cousin because I have know him for a while and that when I had interviewed him he had told when he used to live in the 80’s in Oakland when he was about 14 or 15.  He had a lot of friends and that almost every single one of their family members where in a gang. And, that when they got 17 that one of friends had joined a gang because he knew that his uncle had been in one that his friend had been in some trouble and he said that his friend is doing life in prison for being and gangs and so he had stop hanging around those friend because they were not right  for him.

 

Because of the gang problem in Oakland and how it affects families, Oakland needs to make more programs for young people.

 

The boys and girls clubs talk about how they can keep youth off the streets one staff said. “We must keep are young ones off these crazy streets and keep them in these safe communities and let’s all get together and help the young ones out of gangs and bad choices”(Main Staff). What this staff is saying that we to rise and help these youth make good decisions and help them off streets and keep them in there clubs because they can help them out and prevent them from joining gangs help them get a good education and help them get a good job.

 

Some may say that gangs have calmed down in Oakland because the gang rate in Oakland has gone down  there has been less young people joining gang and less gang activated and that some parts Oakland had stop and now is a little better place for their kids to go outside and not worry about anything horrible happening to them or get involved in anything that has to do with gangs or violence

 

In Conclusion, I know that gangs affected families and young kids and make them hurt himself and her family.



Annotated Bibliography

 

Torres, Aaron. “Families affected by gangs .” 8 Jan. 2018.

 

Aaron Torres because he has been my friend for awhile. When I was interview him he had said that one of his dads friend died because where he lived there was gangs and she had got shot. Right now me him live really close together and we used to have a bad neighborhood and but now its clam down with the gangs.

 

Hernandez, Fernando. “Family’’s affected by gangs .” 24 Dec.

 

I picked this person because he is someone that i know. For all my life and I know one of his family member was in a gang. Fernando is a good source because i knew that he had a lot information about my title and know that his family’s ha been around gangs and had been in gangs.

 

Emmylou Rahtz Associate Research Fellow, European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter. “The psychological impact of gang violence.” The Conversation, 15 Jan. 2018, theconversation.com/the-psychological-impact-of-gang-violence-77267. This website gave me good information because it talks about how youth kids get PTSD and what is PTSD.

 

Aacap. “Home.” Home, www.aacap.org/. THis website was really helpful because it was basically talking about how gangs everywhere are the same as in Oakland

“Dictionary.com.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/. This website was helpfully to help me find the right definition for gangs because I don’t want the definition.