Violence and Gangs

An estimated 650,000 to one million American youths are members of gangs, a number of great significance since "membership in antisocial youth gangs represents a significant public health problem in the United States" (Lahey, Gordon, Loeber, Stouthamer-Loeber, and Farrington, 1999, 104). This statistic is at the beginning of the report of the authors' longitudinal study of gang membership in an urban school.

As the authors explain "In a representative sample of boys who were in the 7th grade of an urban public school system at the start of a 6-year longitudinal study, more African American boys (23.8%) than non-Hispanic White boys (3.9%) had entered an antisocial gang by age 19" (Lahey et. al., 1999, 104).

The authors established baseline conduct disorder (CD) behaviors that showed that among "African American boys, first gang entry was predicted prospectively by both baseline conduct disorder (CD) behaviors and increasing levels of CD behaviors prior to gang entry. This suggests that gang entry may be a further developmental step for some boys who are already on a trajectory of worsening antisocial behavior" (Lahey, et. al, 1999, 105). The implications of this research are yet to be comprehended, since it is one of many attempts to answer the critical question of why boys (and, more increasingly, girls) are joining gangs.

Schwab-Stone, reporting on violence among adolescents (ages 11 to 19 in most studies) points out that between 1970 t

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s of gang entry can be identified, it may be possible to reduce rates of gang membership through focused prevention efforts. If such prevention efforts were successful, it might be possible to decrease both juvenile crime rates and risk of harm to gang members (Leahy , et. al., 1999, 106). Dorfman, in her penetrating analysis of violence and the media, departs from the natural reporting that claims the media causes violent behavior and suggests that the greater harm comes from the way that the "news" side of the media reports gang and youth violence: Nearly half (48 percent) of television news reports concerning children involve violence, usually news of specific crimes and their subsequent investigation and prosecution. Dale Kunkel contends that the emphasis on crime and violence, coupled with a lack of stories on public policy issues pertinent to children, "seems to skew the information the press provides to the public, which may in turn diminish the public's perception of the relative importance of other child-related concerns. (Dorfman, 1998, 32). It is her contention, and well evidenced, that by "misrepresenting the factors surrounding issues such as teen pregnancy and violence, in particular by not reporting the relati

Category: Government - V