Writing the Critical Essay The Descriptive Essay
Gangs
Lauri S. Friedman
Writing the Critical Essay
Gangs Lauri S. Friedman, Book Editor
Christine Nasso, Publisher Elizabeth Des Chenes, Managing Editor © 2010 Greenhaven Press, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning Gale and Greenhaven Press are registered trademarks used herein under license. For more information, contact: Greenhaven Press 27500 Drake Rd. Farmington Hills, MI 48331-3535 Or you can visit our Internet site at gale.cengage.com All Rights Reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For product information and technology assistance, contact us at Gale Customer Support, 1-800-877-4253 For permission to use material from this text or product, submit all requests online at www.cengage.com/permissions Further permissions questions can be e-mailed to
[email protected] Articles in Greenhaven Press anthologies are often edited for length to meet page requirements. In addition, original titles of these works are changed to clearly present the main thesis and to explicitly indicate the author’s opinion. Every effort is made to ensure that Greenhaven Press accurately reflects the original intent of the authors. Every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyrighted material. Cover image © PictureNet/Corbis.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Gangs / Lauri S. Friedman, book editor. p. cm. -- (Writing the critical essay, an opposing viewpoints guide) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7377-4563-4 (hardcover) 1. Gangs--United States--Juvenile literature. 2. Essay--Authorship--Juvenile literature. 3. Critical thinking--Juvenile literature. I. Friedman, Lauri S. HV6439.U5G3578 2009 364.1'0660973--dc22 2009027199
Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 13 12 11 10 09
CONTENTS Foreword Introduction How Can Kids Be Stopped from Joining a Gang?
5 7
Section One: Opposing Viewpoints on Gangs Viewpoint One: Gangs Are a Serious Problem Peter Landesman
13
Viewpoint Two: The Threat from Gangs Is Exaggerated Judith Greene and Kevin Pranis
22
Viewpoint Three: Gangs Are a Growing Problem Among Girls Paul Bracchi
31
Viewpoint Four: Gangs Are a Growing Problem in the Military Matthew A. Roberts
38
Viewpoint Five: Race Motivates Gang Violence Thomas Watkins Viewpoint Six: Race Does Not Motivate Gang Violence Charlie Beck
46
52
Section Two: Model Essays and Writing Exercises Preface A: The Five-Paragraph Essay
59
Preface B: The Descriptive Essay
61
Essay One: A Gang Member Gets Out Exercise 1A: Create an Outline from an Existing Essay Exercise 1B: Create an Outline for Your Own Essay
64 67 68
Essay Two: The Gruesome Path into a Girl Gang Exercise 2A: Conducting an Interview Exercise 2B: Report on an Event
71 74 76
Essay Three: America’s Deadliest Gang—MS-13 Exercise 3A: Examining Introductions and Conclusions Exercise 3B: Using Quotations to Enliven Your Essay
78
Final Writing Challenge: Write Your Own Descriptive Five-Paragraph Essay
84 85 87
Section Three: Supporting Research Material Appendix A: Facts About Gangs
91
Appendix B: Finding and Using Sources of Information
97
Appendix C: Using MLA Style to Create a Works Cited List
101
Appendix D: Sample Essay Topics
104
Organizations to Contact
106
Bibliography
111
Index
116
Picture Credits
119
About the Editor
120
E
xamining the state of writing and how it is taught in the United States was the official purpose of the National Commission on Writing in America’s Schools and Colleges. The commission, made up of teachers, school administrators, business leaders, and college and university presidents, released its first report in 2003. “Despite the best efforts of many educators,” commissioners argued, “writing has not received the full attention it deserves.” Among the findings of the commission was that most fourth-grade students spent less than three hours a week writing, that three-quarters of high school seniors never receive a writing assignment in their history or social studies classes, and that more than 50 percent of first-year students in college have problems writing error-free papers. The commission called for a “cultural sea change” that would increase the emphasis on writing for both elementary and secondary schools. These conclusions have made some educators realize that writing must be emphasized in the curriculum. As colleges are demanding an ever-higher level of writing proficiency from incoming students, schools must respond by making students more competent writers. In response to these concerns, the SAT, an influential standardized test used for college admissions, required an essay for the first time in 2005. Books in the Writing the Critical Essay: An Opposing Viewpoints Guide series use the patented Opposing Viewpoints format to help students learn to organize ideas and arguments and to write essays using common critical writing techniques. Each book in the series focuses on a particular type of essay writing—including expository, persuasive, descriptive, and narrative—that students learn while being taught both the five-paragraph essay as well as longer pieces of writing that have an opinionated focus. These guides include everything necessary to help students research, outline, draft, edit, and ultimately write successful essays across the curriculum, including essays for the SAT.
Using Opposing Viewpoints This series is inspired by and builds upon Greenhaven Press’s acclaimed Opposing Viewpoints series. As in the 5
Foreword
parent series, each book in the Writing the Critical Essay series focuses on a timely and controversial social issue that provides lots of opportunities for creating thoughtprovoking essays. The first section of each volume begins with a brief introductory essay that provides context for the opposing viewpoints that follow. These articles are chosen for their accessibility and clearly stated views. The thesis of each article is made explicit in the article’s title and is accentuated by its pairing with an opposing or alternative view. These essays are both models of persuasive writing techniques and valuable research material that students can mine to write their own informed essays. Guided reading and discussion questions help lead students to key ideas and writing techniques presented in the selections. The second section of each book begins with a preface discussing the format of the essays and examining characteristics of the featured essay type. Model five-paragraph and longer essays then demonstrate that essay type. The essays are annotated so that key writing elements and techniques are pointed out to the student. Sequential, stepby-step exercises help students construct and refine thesis statements; organize material into outlines; analyze and try out writing techniques; write transitions, introductions, and conclusions; and incorporate quotations and other researched material. Ultimately, students construct their own compositions using the designated essay type. The third section of each volume provides additional research material and writing prompts to help the student. Additional facts about the topic of the book serve as a convenient source of supporting material for essays. Other features help students go beyond the book for their research. Like other Greenhaven Press books, each book in the Writing the Critical Essay series includes bibliographic listings of relevant periodical articles, books, Web sites, and organizations to contact. Writing the Critical Essay: An Opposing Viewpoints Guide will help students master essay techniques that can be used in any discipline. 6 GANGS
How Can Kids Be Stopped from Joining a Gang?
T
hough gangs commit the most serious of crimes, they are typically made up of teenagers and young kids. In fact, gang recruitment begins as early as middle school, and there are even reports of kids joining gangs as young as six or eight years old. Sometimes these kids are the younger siblings or children of older gang members, and are “born into” the lifestyle. In other cases, young kids who grow up in gang-ridden neighborhoods are targeted for membership at a very young age. One example of a gang that has attracted very young kids is the Fruit Belt Posse, which is active in Buffalo, New York. This gang calls its youngest members the “Baby Posse.” It is disturbing that America’s youth are behind the robberies, murders, and violence that are the hallmark of gang activity, but their young age sometimes offers a chance to reach them before it is too late. According to the National Youth Gang Survey, a leading source for information about gangs and gang members, kids may join a gang for any one of several reasons. Coming from a low-income family and having early involvement in petty crime and theft makes a kid more likely to join a gang. Because gang members are typically rewarded for their crimes with money, jewelry, stereos, cars, and other high-end equipment, povertystricken kids join up in the hope of making money and acquiring such items. Another risk factor for joining a gang is doing poorly in school. Kids who do poorly in school tend to be bored there, and they seek excitement and a sense of achievement elsewhere. Interestingly, emerging research shows that the majority of gang members have a learning disability—in fact, the National Youth Gang Center estimates that eight out of ten gang members 7
Introduction
Gangs—and the crimes they commit— have become one of America’s most serious social problems.
8 GANGS
have some type of learning disability and that kids with learning disabilities are three times more likely to join a gang than kids who do not. Behavioral problems put a kid at further risk for joining a gang, as does having friends, family members, and peers who are delinquent or directly involved with gangs. Kids also join gangs when they feel the need for protection—the National Youth Gang Survey found that 28 percent of those who joined a gang said it was because they felt afraid at school. Angelique Dawson can attest to this: She first joined her gang in Florida after being intimidated by a rival gang who cruised up and down her street and harassed her near her school. She asked for protection from a well-known neighborhood gang who agreed to help her if she joined up with them. “It’s all about protection, you know,” said Dawson. “You can’t stand up for yourself if you’re alone.”1 Ironically, joining a gang is likely to endanger one’s life far more than it
would protect it: According to a police department in Conroe, Texas, the average life expectancy of an active gang member is just over twenty years. Low self-esteem is another driving factor in a kid’s decision to join a gang. A National Youth Gang Survey that focused on girl gangs found that feeling powerful, feeling a sense of belonging, feeling safe, and identifying with people like them were all among the top reasons girls gave for joining up. Authorities think if they can address some of the factors that cause kids to join gangs, they can reduce overall gang membership. That is why esteem-boosting exercises and efforts to instill a sense of pride and achievement are all regular features of gang prevention and intervention programs. But many think more drastic measures need to be taken to stem the tide of young people who every day join up with one of the nation’s thirty thousand gangs. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute believes raising kids in two-parent families is a critical factor in reducing gang membership. She explains that when boys—who account for 90 percent of gang members— are raised in homes without fathers, they become more likely to get involved in crime and seek out macho gang culture in the absence of their father’s authority. “When the norm of marriage disappears from a community,” warns Mac Donald, “the pressure for young males to become socialized evaporates as well.”2 When young, angry boys hold little regard for social norms like the immorality of stealing, hurting, and killing people, they become more prone to accept and glorify gang activities. Others see gang violence as the result of a cycle in which members continually visit violence upon their enemies. “Street gangs, like all closed societies, hold sacred certain articles of faith that are central to their identity,” explains writer Peter Landesman, who has worked on in-depth exposés of gang life. “One of them appears to be that the violence has to continue no matter what.”3 Expert Susan C. Scrimshaw explains what drives this INTRODUCTION 9
Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, at podium, points to weapons seized in a joint federal and local effort to crack down on gangs.
10 GANGS
cycle: “Urban violence is spread largely by expectations among youths in many gangs: If you insult or harm me, I must harm you. That powerful peer pressure and behavior is transmitted, like a virus, from person to person and gang to gang—until there’s a violent outbreak, and someone is killed.”4 Scrimshaw and others therefore suggest treating gangs like any other contagious disease that poses a public health threat—by quarantining it and conducting a massive public awareness campaign that gets the whole community involved with fighting the problem.
Making gangs seem less attractive to America’s youth is just one of the topics explored in Writing the Critical Essay: An Opposing Viewpoints Guide: Gangs. Who joins gangs, where gangs are a problem, and what motivates gang violence are all explored in emphatically argued essays by reputable sources. Model essays and thoughtprovoking writing exercises help readers write their own five-paragraph descriptive essays on this serious topic that affects communities everywhere.
Notes 1. Angelique Dawson, interview by author, December 4, 2008. 2. Heather Mac Donald, “To Stop Gangs, Call the Scouts,” Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2007. www.manhattaninstitute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=3286. 3. P eter Landesman, “L.A. Gangs: Nine Miles and Spreading,” L.A. Weekly, December 13, 2007. www.la weekly.com/2007-12-13/news/l-a-gangs-nine-milesand-spreading/1. 4. Susan C. Scrimshaw, “The Violence Virus,” Boston Globe, April 22, 2007. www.boston.com/news/globe/ editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/04/22/the_ violence_virus/.
INTRODUCTION 11
Section One: Opposing Viewpoints on Gangs
Gangs Are a Serious Problem
Viewpoint One
Peter Landesman In the following essay Peter Landesman describes how gangs are a serious problem for Los Angeles and the rest of the country. He explains that gang violence and membership has grown in recent years: Authorities now estimate that 800,000 gang members from 30,000 gangs operate in more than 2,500 American communities. He traces conflict between two L.A. gangs—the Grape Street Crips and the Bounty Hunter Bloods—to show that gang violence is ongoing, cyclical, and difficult to break. He concludes that gang violence claims hundreds of lives a year and puts American cities at great risk. Landesman is a writer whose stories have been featured in the New York Times and L.A. Weekly.
Consider the following questions:
1. How many people were wounded and killed by gang violence in the Nickerson Gardens and Jordan Downs housing projects during the six weeks beginning in December 2005? 2. How many more gangs does the author say are now in L.A. compared with twenty-five years ago? How many more gang members? 3. Who is Father Gregory Boyle, and what does he think drives gang activity?
L
ate Christmas Eve 2005, Demond Whiting and a friend left the recreation center at Nickerson Gardens and turned right down Compton Avenue [in Los Angeles, CA].
Peter Landesman, “L.A. Gangs: Nine Miles and Spreading: More Codeless, Arbitrary and Brutal than Ever . . . and Coming to a Neighborhood Near You,” L.A. Weekly, December 13, 2007. Reproduced by permission.
13
Whiting was 32 and an original gangster in the Bounty Hunter Bloods. The Bounty Hunters control and terrorize Nickerson Gardens, the sprawling housing development in Watts, and use it as a base for a nationwide drug-trafficking network. Whiting, who was fresh from a long stretch in prison for armed robbery, was chatting about his new life as a civilian, when someone stuck an AK-47 out the window of a passing car and fired two rounds. One hit Whiting in the back, severing his spine and paralyzing him.
Murder on Christmas Early the next morning—Christmas morning—a Bounty Hunter named Antoine Staffer, a.k.a. Pig, left Nickerson Gardens, walked about a half mile to the edge of the dusty, treeless Jordan Downs housing project, strolled up to a car and shot the driver in the face. The victim was Brandon “B.L.” Bullard, a key player in the Grape Street Crips, the gang that controls Jordan Downs. Ten minutes later, a Bounty Hunter heading into Jordan Downs for a Christmas visit with cousins was ambushed and shot seven times. Two more Bounty Hunters were murdered in quick succession. The cycle of retribution— in the form of drive-bys with AK-47s, Uzis, MAC-10s and 9mm semiautomatic handguns—lasted six weeks, left 26 people wounded, nine dead, the local schools largely empty of students, and a large swath of Watts under siege. What triggered all this depends on whom you talk to. Some say it was an argument at a mall over a young woman, others say it was a yanked necklace. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t have taken much. This was just the latest spasm in a long-running vendetta between the Grape Street Crips and Bounty Hunter Bloods, just one of hundreds of hair-trigger blood feuds that disrupt or terrorize neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles, the most gang-saturated city in the world. No one I spoke to could explain why the Grape Street Crips and Bounty 14 GANGS
Hunter Bloods revile each other so; they only know that they do. Even the gang members were feeling trapped. “I remember us thinking, how long is this going to go, how much is this going to trigger, how bad is this going to get, how many people are going to die?” a former Bounty Hunter named Damien Hartfield told me during the height of the conflict.
Gangbanging at 12
Los Angeles police arrest suspected Crips gang members in an apartment complex raid. Violence between the rival gangs Crips and Bloods claims hundreds of lives per year.
In March, I visited Demond Whiting at a rehabilitation hospital outside Watts. I drove with James (not his real name), a serious, powerfully built 30-something O.G. Bounty Hunter from Nickerson Gardens. James didn’t say much, only that he’d spent his 20s in prison for a variety of things, including armed robbery and OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 15
Gang Membership Is on the Rise
involuntary manslaughter, and now was struggling to keep his gangbanging behind him. . . . Eventually, James started talking. He told me he’d started gangbanging when he was 12. “I got shot when I was 15, and that’s when it got bad,” he said softly. “I got extreme after I got shot.” James started teaching youngsters from Nickerson how to gangbang. Using rival 16 GANGS
gangbangers for practice, he taught his students how to hunt and kill. “You teach a person how not to take losses, how to be gladiators, run them down, gun them down,” he explained. James wasn’t remorseful, but he was far from proud. In truth, he seemed numb; his life of crime and death hung about him in a static haze. There is a personal demilitarized zone in the advanced lives of former hardcore gang members, should they survive their 20s, where they live as neither soldier nor citizen. James said he struggles to keep a gun out of his own hands every day, but that in January [2006] he was tempted to join the battle with the Grape Street Crips after a young Bounty Hunter he knew was killed. . . .
LAPD deputy chief Charles Beck points to guns and money confiscated in gang raids.
Violence Must Continue—No Matter What Street gangs, like all closed societies, hold sacred certain articles of faith that are central to their identity. One of them appears to be that the violence has to continue no matter what. After all, the members of the Grape Street Crips and Bounty Hunter Bloods are all young black men from the same part of the same city, most of them Broken Homes jobless and without education. Most of their families are Christian. A good Encourage Gang number of them are related. There Membership seems no real reason for the feud, The evidence by now is overwhelmexcept the feud itself. One wonders ing: Boys raised in fatherless homes, on average, are disproportionately likely to if the gangs would even exist without get involved in crime and fail in school. the violence between them. . . . Without a strong paternal role model, The Bounty Hunter–Grape Street these boys are vulnerable to the lure of murders over that Christmas season macho gang culture as a surrogate for a were among the 273 gang-related father’s authority. homicides in Los Angeles [in 2006]. Heather Mac Donald, “To Stop Gangs, Call the Scouts,” Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2007. Gang-related killings have dropped www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle .htm?id=3286. to 187 so far [as of December 2007]. While it’s easy to see the ebb and flow in killings as just chapters in L.A.’s infamous gang wars, gang experts, police and even gang members themselves say that the truth is that something ominous is happening. Gang crime in South Los Angeles spiked 24 percent in 2006, 14 percent in the city overall and more than 60 percent in the San Fernando Valley. Nationwide, juvenile gang homicides have spiked 23 percent since 2000. There are six times as many gangs in L.A. as there were a quarter century ago, and twice as many gang members. But as important as the gang activity itself is what’s different about the violence. In America’s urban ganglands, and in L.A. in particular, the ferocity of the thuggery has surged; gang members, their victims and police long on the gang beat tell me the fighting has become more codeless, more arbitrary and more brutal than ever. 18 GANGS
A Gang Epidemic And it is everywhere. According to the Department of Justice, today America has at least 30,000 gangs, with 800,000 members, in 2,500 communities across the United States. (Gang experts at the University of Southern
Gang Members per Capita by State
California claim the number of American jurisdictions with gang problems has reached 4,000.) Federal, state and local law enforcement across the country agree that street gangs connected to or mimicking the L.A. model have become a national epidemic. Last January [2007], a report on gang violence commissioned by the Los Angeles City Council found that the gang epidemic is largely immune to general declines in crime nationwide. In other words, gang crime is surging just as other violent crime is decreasing. And unlike other categories of crime, gangs and gang-related crime are spreading to formerly safe middle-class communities, or, “to a neighborhood near you,” says the report’s author, civil rights attorney Constance Rice.
Looking for Death What this means is that the communities gangs come from are pulling away from mainstream society more than ever, and the gangs that plague them, like storm systems, are growing and feeding on themselves, gathering destructive strength. In Los Angeles, law enforcement officials now warn that they have arrived at the end of their ability to contain gangs to poor minority and immigrant hot zones. “This is the monster, this is what drives people’s fears,” says LAPD Deputy Chief Charles Beck. Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest whose Homeboy Industries has helped willing gangbangers in mostly Hispanic East L.A. escape the life, tells me that gang behavior is changing, and the change is chilling. Everywhere he sees signs of the erosion of known and protected codes of conduct, such as methods of assassination that used to protect the innocent, and territorial respect—which he says reflect an accelerating sense of desolation among poor urban youth. Gangs today are less about neighborhoods and rivalries. They’ve become repositories for hopelessness. 20 GANGS
“Gangs are the places where kids go when they encounter their life as misery without exception,” says Boyle. “When [gangbangers] go out to commit crimes now, they’re not going out seeking to kill—you can’t reason or rationalize this: These are kids who don’t care. They’re going out hoping to die.”
Analyze the essay:
1. In addition to using facts and statistics to argue that gang violence is a serious problem, this essay focuses on the stories of Demond Whiting, “James,” and members of the Grape Street Crips and Bounty Hunter Bloods. How did these stories affect you as you read the essay? Did they help you agree with the author that gang violence is a serious problem? In what way did they humanize the problem for you? Explain your answer thoroughly. 2. Landesman characterizes gang violence as a growing epidemic. How do you think Judith Greene and Kevin Pranis, authors of the following essay, would respond to this characterization? Cite evidence from both texts in your answer.
OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 21
Viewpoint Two
The Threat from Gangs Is Exaggerated Judith Greene and Kevin Pranis In the following essay Judith Greene and Kevin Pranis argue that gang violence has been exaggerated by the media and law enforcement. The authors use statistics to show that gang violence accounts for very few of the murders, violent crimes, and drug trades that take place nationally. Gang members tend to talk tougher than they act, argue Greene and Pranis, and very few of them actually commit murder or other crimes. In addition, when gang violence does occur, Greene and Pranis say it is overreported in the media and by law enforcement officials, giving the impression that such violence occurs more often than it does. Greene and Pranis conclude that in reality, gang violence is a serious problem in just a handful of cities nationwide. Greene and Pranis are associated with Justice Strategies, a nonprofit organization that provides criminal justice research to advocates and policy makers.
Consider the following questions: 1. Name three myths the authors say are commonly held about gangs. 2. What percent of the national homicides do gang murders account for, according to Tom Hayden? What about Malcolm Klein and Cheryl Maxson? 3. According to Greene and Pranis, how many drug sales are gang members involved in? What about homicides and violent offenses?
22
Judith Green and Kevin Pranis, “Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies,” Justice Policy Institute, July 2007, pp. 51–66. Reproduced by permission.
T
he dominant public discourse treats gangs as a particularly virulent subset of the crime problem. . . . The tendency to equate gangs with the most spectacular forms of crime has also generated a set of public myths about the relationship between gangs and crime. These myths hold that: • Most or all gang members are hardened criminals. • Gang members spend most of their time planning or committing crimes. • Gang members are responsible for the bulk of violent crime. • Gangs largely organize and direct the criminal activity of their members.
Gang Violence and Crime Is Exaggerated There may be a handful of gangs and gang members who meet this description. Researchers who study gangs generally find, however, that most “gang crime” is not well planned or centrally directed, but is instead committed by individual members or small groups on an ad hoc basis. Ethnographic and survey research have fairly consistently shown that: • The seriousness and extent of criminal involvement varies greatly among gang members. • Gang members who engage in crime nonetheless spend most of their time in noncriminal pursuits. • Gang members account for a small share of all crime (including violent crime), even within communities and neighborhoods where there are gang problems. • Much of the crime committed by gang members is self-initiated and is meant to serve personal rather than gang interests. . . .
Gang-Related Homicides in the Minority Public concerns about gang crime often focus on wellpublicized incidents of lethal violence. Many lives have been lost to gang violence over the past decades. African OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 23
The author says that most gang members are not hardened criminals but youths looking to belong.
American and Latino parents in high-crime neighborhoods have good reason to fear for the well-being of their sons. Fifteen years ago, for example, the homicide rate for black males between the ages of 20 and 24 in St. Louis—one of the most violent cities in America—reached a shocking 626 per 100,000 residents. Nevertheless, gang members are responsible for a relatively small share of the nation’s homicides. Author and activist Tom Hayden cites a 2001 figure of 1,335 gang-related homicides in 132 cities with populations over 100,000 provided by the staff at the National Youth Gang Center. The gang homicide total amounts to 8.4 percent of the 15,980 homicides reported to the FBI and is a little more than half the 2,387 people known to have been killed by family members or intimates in 2001. Malcolm Klein and Cheryl Maxson cite a slightly
smaller 2002 figure of 1,119 gang homicides—less than 7 percent of all homicides that year—based on the FBI’s Supplemental Homicide Reports, which use criteria that “approximate a gang motive approach to defining gang homicides”. . . . The National Youth Gang center estimates that there are roughly 24,000 youth gangs with 760,000 members in the United States. If just one member of each youth gang committed a single homicide each year, the annual number of gang homicides would reach 24,000—nearly 10,000 more homicides than the nation experienced in 2005 under any circumstances.
Most Gangs Will Never Have a Murderer for a Member The most recent available figure for gang-related homicides is 1,335 killings in 2001—one homicide for every 18 gangs and 570 gang members. At that rate, it would take 18 years for each gang to be responsible for a single killing, assuming that the homicides were divided evenly (they are not) and that the gangs survived that long (many do not). Since a handful of cities and gangs account for a disproportionate share of killings, we can infer that most gangs will never have a murderer in their midst.
Gang-Related Homicides Are Rare Most law enforcement agencies reported zero youth gang homicides between 2002 and 2004. Jurisdictions that experienced no gang homicides over the three-year period included two in five larger cities (50,000 or more residents), a majority of suburban counties, and four in five smaller cities and rural counties. Just one in 10 larger cities—and one in 37 suburban counties—reported 10 or more gang related homicides in at least one of the three survey years. Gang-related homicides happen occasionally in a large number of jurisdictions and are a major problem in a handful of cities, according to the surveys. OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 25
Gang and Crime Statistics
Murders committed by family members and partners are a more serious issue in most jurisdictions. . . .
A Small Role in National Crime All of the available evidence indicates that gang members play a relatively small role in the crime problem despite their propensity toward criminal activity. Gang members appear to be responsible for fewer than one in four drug sales; fewer than one in 10 homicides; fewer than one in 16 violent offenses; and fewer than one in 20 index crimes. Gangs themselves play an even smaller role, since much of the crime committed by gang members is self-directed and not committed for the gang’s benefit. The question, then, is why the problem of gang crime is so commonly overstated by law enforcement and media reports.
Gang Violence Is Overreported There are several possible explanations for why law enforcement and media reports consistently overestimate the role of gangs and gang members in crime and violence. First, gang members often make themselves highly visible, while others who commit crimes try to keep a lower profile in order to avoid arrest. Graffiti, colors, hand signs, and dramatic rivalries ensure that gang activity will be more memorable and more newsworthy than the less spectacular offenses that drive crime statistics. Second, law enforcement and media depictions of gangs fuel gang crime myths by equating all gang activity with criminal activity and by tarring all gangs and members with the worst crimes committed by any gang member. Klein succinctly illustrates the tendency of law enforcement agencies to cram all drug crime in a gang box when he quotes the deputy chief of a large police department on the subject of crack sales: Look, this narcotics stuff is all a matter of gangs and conspiracy. To me, a gang is any two or more guys working on crime together. In a drug sale, you 28 GANGS
got at least the seller and the distributor involved. Now that means it’s a conspiracy. And there’s two guys, right. So all these crack sales are gang crimes . . . . Two or more guys conspiring to make crack sales means it’s a gang affair . . . that’s how we define gang around here.
Not All Gangs Commit All Gang-Related Crimes Law enforcement and media accounts also tend to attribute to the gang any crime for which an alleged gang member stands convicted, charged, or even suspected. This practice implies that every member of a gang has committed, or is at least capable of committing, a laundry list of heinous offenses. Some agencies such as North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) go even further by lumping together the alleged activities of many gangs. The gangs of Charlotte/Mecklenburg County, for example, are said to engage in: homicides, threats against law enforcement, firearm possession, drug possession, assaults, fighting, kidnapping, carjacking, armed robbery, home invasions, vandalism (graffiti), auto theft, breaking into vehicles, restaurant robberies, gun trafficking, extortion, prostitution and gambling. The list of alleged gang activities creates the impression that every Charlotte gang member is a sociopath with a long criminal record, or, at a minimum, that every gang contains murderers, drug traffickers, car-jackers, armed robbers, and their ilk. A quick review of the national gang data dispels any such idea.
Realism on Gang Violence Is Needed The typical gang is not an army of killers or even potential killers. It is a group of youth and young adults who OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 29
are alienated from mainstream society and caught up in a mythical world of excitement and danger. The damage that these young people do to themselves, to each other, and to more than a few bystanders is very real. But as Klein and many other researchers have observed, most gang members are more talk than action. A more realistic assessment of the gang contribution to the crime problem is needed if policy makers are to avoid playing into the gang myth by inflating the dangers to public safety posed by gangs.
Analyze the essay:
1. The authors say that most gang crime is “self-initiated” and meant to serve personal rather than gang interests. What do you think they mean by this? How does this support their argument that gang violence has been exaggerated? 2. Judith Greene and Kevin Pranis argue that law enforcement and the media fuel myths about gangs and crime. What do you think? Is gang violence a serious problem or not? Does it depend on where you live? Use evidence from the texts you have read to back up your answer.
30 GANGS
Gangs Are a Growing Problem Among Girls
Viewpoint Three
Paul Bracchi In the following essay Paul Bracchi argues that gangs are a growing problem among girls. He explores the rise in girl gangs in England, where crimes committed by girl gang members have increased by 25 percent since 2005. Though gang violence is usually associated with males, Bracchi explains that girls are increasingly drawn to gangs to receive protection and earn respect. Girls are initiated into gangs by performing acts of violence, crime, or sex, he explains. After they are initiated, these girls become very violent and will frequently randomly attack people, other gangs, and each other. Bracchi concludes that the rise in girl gangs is creating a dangerous underclass of young women. Bracchi is a journalist whose articles have appeared in the Daily Mail, a British newspaper.
Consider the following questions: 1. Who is Beryl Barber? What happened to her? 2. Name three girl gangs that the author says operate in London. 3. According to Bracchi, how does the destruction of the nuclear family play into the rise in girl gang membership?
T
he girl emerged from her house with a mobile phone glued to her ear and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. . . . Paul Bracchi, “The Feral Sex: The Terrifying Rise of Violent Girl Gangs,” Mail Online, May 16, 2008. Reproduced by permission.
31
Many girls who are drawn to gangs do it for protection and to earn respect.
It doesn’t pay to get on the wrong side of this 14-yearold, who plays for a local girls’ football team and weighs in at around 13 stone [182 lbs.]. Someone who did is retired school teacher Beryl Barber.
A Brutal Beating The pensioner was walking along the pavement near her home in Selby, North Yorkshire, recently when she was confronted by the girl in question and her “mates”. The gang (three girls, two boys) fancied the odds: five of them versus one defenceless 72-year-old woman. They began hurling stones at Mrs Barber. She could have turned away, and many in her position would have done. Instead, however, she picked up one of the stones and threw it back. The retaliation was swift and sadistic. Suddenly, the girl rushed towards Mrs Barber and pushed her into the path of an oncoming car which had 32 GANGS
to brake sharply to avoid a collision. Nevertheless, Mrs Barber fell with such force that, in the words of an eyewitness, “her face literally bounced off the pavement, skidding across the tarmac.” Mrs Barber suffered a broken nose and two black eyes, and was left looking like the girl had played football with her head.
Girls in Gangs Want Respect The girl’s motive, according to the police, was to make her “look good” in front of her group; to gain “respect”. It is a word that features prominently in the street lingo of such youngsters, and never was it more misplaced. The girl, the second of three children who lives with her parents on the outskirts of Selby, was given a 12-month referral order when she appeared before magistrates Why I Joined a in March [2008]; the equivalent, many Girl Gang might think, of a “slap on the wrist”. I was always mad and I took my pain out Under the terms of the order she has to on others. . . . I started acting like this attend a course in anger management. when I was 9 years old and I think it’s That is as much as we are allowed to because my father wasn’t around, my mom didn’t understand me, and I just tell you about her, because in the eyes felt lonely and confused. I was just lookof the law she is still a juvenile. ing for someone to really listen and so Mrs Barber, for her part, was too I turned to gang banging and living the scared to come to the door when we crazy lifestyle. called at her bungalow. Fifteen-year-old Ayan, quoted in Jo SeaveyHultquist, “Keeping Girls Gang-Free,” Girl Scouts of This is the reality behind a [2008] the United States of America, 2008. www.girlscouts .org/for_adults/volunteering/articles/keeping_girls_ Home Office report which revealed gang_free.asp. that crimes committed by girls as young as ten have soared by 25 percent in three years. The statistics mask an even more disturbing trend. Many of these feral females are involved in gangs, be they all-girl gangs, mixed gangs (like the one which targeted Beryl Barber) or male gangs to which they become attached. Sometimes beneath a cap or a “hoodie” it is hard to tell one sex from another any more—girl from boy, or boy from girl. Either way, in this . . . world, pushing a OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 33
pensioner into a road, or mugging an innocent passer-by, earns you respect.
A Growing Problem Two further incidents in the past few weeks alone highlight the frightening escalation of the kind of female gang
Estimates of Female Gang Membership
violence which, until recently, was presented as an intrinsically male problem. One was at Shoreham railway station, near Brighton, when about 20 girls—from two rival gangs—fought a pitched battle on the platform with beer bottles and snooker balls wrapped in socks. Two girls, aged 18 and 20, have been charged with affray. The other occurred in the Midlands, where a woman was mercilessly punched, kicked, and stamped on by a mob of teenage girls who, she says, acted “like a pack of wild animals”. You do not have to grow up on a sink estate, come from a broken home, get excluded from school, be promiscuous, binge drink or play violent computer games to become immersed in this culture. . . .
Girl Members as Young as Ten Among the girl “crews” believed to operating in the capital [London] today are the “Shower Gyals” (Tottenham), PYG (Peckham), identified by black bandanas, and OCS (Brixton), which is said to have members as young as ten. [In 2007], a running feud between the PYG and OCS turned into a mass brawl in Camberwell, South London. Such girls, according to a study to be published by the Centre for Policy Studies next month [June 2008], routinely carry knives and “are prepared to use them”. Initiation rites might require a girl to rob or mug. Casual sex (“linking”) is endemic and videos of girls and boys having sex in the stairwells of housing blocks circulate school playgrounds. London, where the research was conducted, is the norm, not the exception. In Nottingham there is the NG2 Crew, for example, an all-girl gang named after the postcode which includes the notorious Meadows estate, a crime-ridden warren of dimly-lit council houses.
Joining for Protection Becki, 16, lives with her mother—her father has long since gone—in the area. Many of her peers come from the OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 35
London girl gangs have become increasingly violent in recent years and are creating an underclass of young women.
Meadows. Her brother is a drug dealer, selling “skunk” cannabis. Becki is member of the NG2. “I have been part of the crew for six months now,” she said. . . . “It’s like a type of protection. My mum works all the time [in a supermarket] so I hardly ever see her and there is no one at home, so I don’t feel I have anyone looking after me really. “I started hanging out with the girls from school and we just decided to form a crew.” It sounds innocent 36 GANGS
enough until Becki admits: “It gets serious when arguments start. One of our girls had a ‘beef’ with another girl from a different area and when that happened we had to protect her and help her to sort it out. We went round and beat the other girl up. We punched her and we also took off our shoes and hit her with them. It was like a warning really that they should not mess with us. A lot of rows are over boys, or it’s name-calling and girls showing us disrespect. We stand up for one another. It’s like having a big family. You feel safe. You can go anywhere as long as your girls are with you.”
An “Underclass” of Women What’s clear is that there has been a dramatic coarsening in the behaviour of an entire underclass of young women— driven partly by the destruction of the nuclear family and the lack of a strong father figure, but also by a celebrity culture in which female so-called “stars”—famous only for appearing on Big Brother or its equivalents—are photographed blind drunk and fighting in the gutter with other women outside nightclubs.
Analyze the essay:
1. This essay uses narrative elements to show that girl gangs are on the rise. Identify these narrative elements and explain whether they helped convince you of the author’s argument. 2. The author explains that girls are increasingly driven to gangs to earn the respect of their peers. Think about the girls in your school. Do you know anyone who might be drawn into a gang? What reasons might they give for wanting to be in a gang?
OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 37
Viewpoint Four
Gangs Are a Growing Problem in the Military Matthew A. Roberts Gang members are increasingly joining the military, argues Matthew A. Roberts in the following essay. Roberts explains that gang activity in the military is growing, for several reasons. Gangs want their members to be trained like soldiers, so they are sending some of their members into the army where they can gain access to high-tech weaponry and elite training. Roberts explains that, in the face of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has lowered its enlistment standards, enabling more gang members to sign up. Roberts argues that a military infested with gang members cannot serve its nation to the best of its ability. Furthermore, military-trained gang members pose a special threat when they return home. For these reasons, Roberts urges lawmakers and military officials need to fix this growing problem. Roberts is a writer whose work has appeared in the American Spectator and the American Conservative.
Consider the following questions:
1. What percent of the military does the author say are gang members, compared with the rest of the population? 2. What shooting techniques did soldier and gang member Andres Raya use when he opened fire in a California liquor store? Where does the author say he learned this tactic? 3. By how much does the author say the percentage of army recruits with high school diplomas has dropped since 2003?
38
Matthew A. Roberts, “Gang Warfare: Criminals Have Found a New Way to Hone Their Combat Skills: Joining the U.S. Military,” The American Conservative, May 5, 2008. Reproduced by permission.
O
n Jan. 9, 2005, Andres Raya caught police in a calculated ambush outside a liquor store in Ceres, California. He shot two officers, killing one, before the police returned fire and killed him. After the incident, detectives discovered that Raya belonged to the Norteños gang. Video from a break-in at Ceres High School showed him throwing gang signs and flashing gang graffiti, and displayed an American flag cut up to spell “F--- Bush” on the floor of the gymnasium. Lance Corporal Raya was a Marine on leave from a tour in Iraq.
California police officer Sam Ryno was wounded by U.S. Marine veteran and gang member Andres Raya in 2005. Another officer was killed in the shootout. OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 39
Gangs Are a Growing Force in the Military Street gangs—particularly Hispanic gangs, the fastest growing in the U.S.—are making major inroads into America’s Armed Forces. Hunter Glass, a retired police detective and gang expert in Fayetteville, N.C., home to Fort Bragg and the 82nd Airborne, knows of members of Florencia 13, Latin Kings, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Norteños, and Sureños serving in the military. A 2006 report produced by the Los Angeles Joint Drug Intelligence Group also lists the 18th Street Gang, Eastside Longos, and Vagos as having military-trained members. According to the FBI, “Members of nearly every major street gang . . . have been documented on military installations both domestically and internationally.” Glass points out, “The military is merely a reflection of the society it serves. As gangs grow in the U.S., they will grow somewhat comparatively in the military.” But recent figures indicate that gang membership in the Armed Forces significantly surpasses civilian levels. Stars and Stripes reported that 1 to 2 percent of the military are gang members, compared to 0.02 percent of the general population. The proliferation of gang graffiti in Iraq and the prevalence of gang tattoos among soldiers underscores the point. . . .
The Problem of Military-Trained Gang Members So pronounced is the gang problem at Fort Hood that when 23,000 troops and their families were slated to transfer to Fort Carlson, Colorado [in 2007], the Colorado Springs Independent ran a piece warning, “In recent years, the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples have been active at Fort Hood, and alleged members have been linked to slayings, robberies and drug and gun trafficking. Police in Colorado Springs and Killeen, Texas, which is home to Fort Hood, confirm that they are sharing gang information to prepare for this relocation.” 40 GANGS
Gang Members in the Military
Gang-related incidents in the military are isolated now, but law-enforcement officials worry about longterm dangers. The Los Angeles Joint Drug Intelligence Group’s report saw a twofold threat. First, gangs “infect America’s armed forces with the degeneration and violence characteristic of gangs,” and some even recruit while serving in the military. Second, gang members return to their gangs “having acquired new soldiering skills Gangs Have Infiltrated and weapons training and pose an even greater threat to civilians and the U.S. Military law enforcement.” The report goes on According to an FBI published report, to say that over 100 military-trained “gang-related activity in the U.S. military is increasing and poses a threat to lawgang members in the Los Angeles area enforcement officials and national securi“present a latent danger to its resity.” The report . . . noted that members of dents.” If each of these gang members nearly every major street gang—including were to pass on his military training MS-13, Bloods, Crips, 18th Street, Hells to just four others in LA, they would Angels and various white supremacist groups—have been identified on both “overwhelm present law enforcement domestic and international military bases. tactics.” McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, “Gangs The tactics of military-trained gang Increasing in Military, FBI Says,” June 30, 2008. www.military.com/news/article/gangs-increasingmembers already overwhelm police. in-military-fbi-says.html. When Andres Raya opened fire with an SKS assault rifle, he used a military tactic known as “slicing the pie.” He was able to outmaneuver police, wounding one officer. When backup arrived, he defended his position using “suppression fire” before killing a veteran policeman.
Gangs Want Elite Weaponry and Training “[G]angs are joining the military for a reason,” notes William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration. “They have an agenda, and it is to gain access to elite weaponry and training.” In fact, many gangs go out of their way to groom prospects for military enlistment. Others benefit from having their juvenile records sealed, fail to report criminal convictions, or use fake documents. 42 GANGS
FBI agent Andrea Simmons told the New York Sun, “The intelligence that we have thus far indicates that [gangs] may try to recruit young people who have clean records and encourage them to keep their record clean to get into the military. . . . They would get great weapons training and other types of training and access to weapons and arms, and be able to use that knowledge.” Hunter Glass adds that although some of the finest soldiers he has known are Hispanic, “Latino gangs . . . know very well what they can learn from the military and [what] will assist them in their criminal endeavors.”
A Need for Troops Has Made Things Worse Given these threats, why are gang members allowed to infiltrate the Armed Forces? Recruiters are desperate, and the bar has been lowered. “From the perspective of the military command staff, the present need for a large number of troops may outweigh the need for quality troops,” concludes the Los Angeles threat assessment. In 2005, a member of the Latin Kings was recruited by the Army while awaiting trial for attacking a police officer with a razor. Recent Defense Department statistics indicate that the percentage of Army recruits with high-school diplomas has dropped from 94 percent in 2003 to 70.7 percent. According to the New York Times, the number of moral waivers offered for recruits with criminal backgrounds has grown 65 percent, resulting in 11.7 percent with criminal histories in 2006.
Gang Loyalty Runs Deep Acknowledging the growing problem, the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill forbids gang membership. (Current regulations only ban membership in organizations that “espouse supremacist causes.”) Representative Mike Thompson, who introduced the amendment, commented in Stars and Stripes, “I’ve heard from police officers across the country that there are problems with gangs on posts.” He continued, “The FBI suggests there are problems not OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 43
An army recruiter talks to teenagers at a recruiting center. Lower recruiting standards are making it easier for gang members to enlist.
44 GANGS
only in the states but bases abroad.” But such measures will probably come up short: it’s easy for soldiers to keep their gang affiliations secret. Furthermore, most members, even if they had a way to leave their gangs, do not want out. Investigator Scott Barfield interviewed 320 soldiers who admitted gang membership, and only two said they wanted to leave. “They’re not here for the red, white and blue. They’re here for the black and gold [the gang colors of the Latin Kings],” Barfield told the Chicago Sun-Times. The tribal loyalties of gangs go back to ancient times and dwell deeper in the psyche than any abstract allegiance to the state. Hunter Glass has found that “gangbanging is a way of life, and gangs act as a replacement for the natural family, so for many this is the only way they know how to act or interact. . . . The military cannot stop a gang member from being a gang member anymore than it can stop a Christian from being a Christian.”
Jeopardizing the Whole Country And while the government may try to weed out gang members, the problem only intensifies as demand for soldiers increases. Many see increased immigration as the solution. In the Washington Post, Max Boot and Michael O’Hanlon wrote that it is “time to consider a new chapter in the annals of American immigration.” We can increase military recruitment by “inviting foreigners to join the U.S. armed forces in exchange for a promise of citizenship.” A provision in the most recent version of the DREAM [Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors] Act, which failed to gain cloture last October [2007], would have granted legal status to illegal immigrants who served two years. But young illegal alien males are particularly vulnerable to gang culture, and while most would no doubt serve honorably and welcome citizenship, others might come with conflicting loyalties. A 2007 FBI assessment pointed out, “Most gang members have been pre-indoctrinated into the gang lifestyle and maintain an allegiance to their gang. This could ultimately jeopardize the safety of other military members and impede gang-affiliated soldiers’ ability to act in the best interest of the country.”
Analyze the essay:
1. Matthew A. Roberts quotes from several sources to support the points he makes in his essay. Make a list of everyone he quotes, including their credentials and the nature of their comments. Then, analyze his sources. Are they credible? Are they well qualified to speak on this subject? 2. Roberts suggests that military-trained gang members would overwhelm police in cities such as Los Angeles. Clarify what he means by this. Do you think he is right? Explain your answer thoroughly.
OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 45
Viewpoint Five
Race Motivates Gang Violence Thomas Watkins In the following essay Thomas Watkins explains that race motivates gang violence. He describes a group of Hispanic gangs who have declared war on African Americans. In some parts of Los Angeles, for example, Hispanic gangs have been given orders to kill black gang members—others have been ordered to kill any African American they see, whether or not that person is affiliated with a gang. Watkins explains the driving force behind this race-related violence is a rise in gangs tied to the Mexican Mafia who have a particular hatred for African Americans. He warns that gang members influenced by this philosophy will continue on a violent racist rampage that threatens to claim many innocent lives. Watkins is a reporter for the Associated Press.
Consider the following questions: 1. What is Florencia 13, according to the author? What does the “13” stand for? 2. What does the phrase “cheese toast” mean in the context of the viewpoint? 3. What two race-related gang crimes were committed by the Avenues and the 204th Street gang, according to Watkins?
46
Thomas Watkins, “Some of Gang’s Killings Race-Based: In L.A., Latinos Targeted Blacks,” Washington Post, January 6, 2008, p. A02. Reproduced by permission.
Law enforcement officials display weapons taken from Latino gang members in Lakewood, California. Authorities accuse Latino gangs of a racially motivated violence against African Americans.
Territory and Turf Lead to Trouble
Racial Gang Violence Is Like Ethnic Cleansing Racist Mexican gangs are indiscriminately targeting blacks who aren’t even involved in gang culture, as part of an orchestrated ethnic cleansing program that is forcing black people to flee Los Angeles. Paul Joseph Watson, “Racist Mexican Gangs ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Blacks In L.A.,” PrisonPlanet .com, January 22, 2007. www.prisonplanet.com/ articles/january2007/220107mexicangangs.htm.
OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 49
Gang intervention counselors monitor students at a Los Angeles high school in an effort to reduce racial violence between black and Latino students.
50 GANGS
Analyze the essay:
1. Both Watkins and Charlie Beck, author of the following essay, discuss gangs based in Los Angeles. Yet they come to different conclusions about the role race plays in gang violence in that city. How do you account for this difference? Explain your reasoning. 2. Watkins characterizes race-related gang violence as a “cleansing” campaign undertaken by certain gangs. What do you think Beck, author of the following essay, would think of this characterization? Use evidence from both texts to back up your answer.
OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 51
Viewpoint Six
Race Does Not Motivate Gang Violence Charlie Beck Charlie Beck is the chief of detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department. In the following essay he argues that gang violence is not racially motivated. Although race creates tension between gang members (who often join gangs along racial lines), Beck says of all the gang-related murders he sees each year, almost none occur due to race. Furthermore, Beck says that when gang members of different races kill each other, it is wrong to assume they did so for racial reasons—it is more likely, he suggests, that they were fighting over turf, drugs, girls, or other nonracial reasons. Beck warns that overstating racial conflict prevents law enforcement from getting to the bottom of what causes gang violence and thus impedes their efforts to stop it.
Consider the following questions:
1. What does the question “Where are you from?” mean in the context of the essay? 2. Who is Sheriff Lee Baca, and with which of his ideas does Charlie Beck agree? With which does Beck disagree? 3. What percent of Los Angeles’s gang-related murders were cross-racial in 2008, according to Beck? What percent involved victims being targeted due to their race?
are you from?” is the last question many “Where young men in Los Angeles hear. It’s not a ques-
tion about geography but about gang affiliation, and it is
52
Charlie Beck, “‘Where Are You From?’ The Lethal Gang Challenge Issued on L.A.’s Streets Suggests Most of the City’s Violence Is Not About Race,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 2008. Reproduced by permission of the author.
asked in the moment before a shooting. I’ve been around after an awful lot of these shootings, and I must’ve heard the phrase at least a thousand times, reported by those who have been lucky enough to escape death. Thousands more have not escaped.
Understanding Gang Violence It’s very hard to understand what motivates street-level gang violence. I’ve been dealing with gangs for three decades, and I still have plenty of questions. But I think those all-too-frequently-used words—“Where are you from?”—go a long way toward explaining the vast majority of the cases we deal with. And here’s what’s most important about them at the moment: They’re about gang status, not about race. [In June 2008], L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca wrote an Op-Ed article in this paper [the Los Angeles Times] in which he argued that there was a serious interracial violence problem between blacks and Latinos in Los Angeles. He went even further, saying that in many cases gang members were killing people purely because of their race. In the Los Angeles Police Department, where I serve as chief of detectives, we strongly disagree.
Racially Motivated Gang Attacks Are Rare The LAPD handles more street gang crime than any law enforcement agency in the United States—more than 3,000 cases [as of June 2008]. The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department operates the largest county jail in the country. These two facts affect the way both organizations perceive the problem of gang violence. Baca was right in his Op-Ed article to say that racial tensions create violence in the closed confines of his jails and in some of our schools. He was also right when he wrote about demographic shifts causing racial tension in our neighborhoods. But I was taken aback when he wrote that in many cases black and Latino gangs target people for streetlevel violence based only on race. Each year, there are OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 53
a small number of racially motivated attacks by gang members in the city of Los Angeles, but our experience shows, and data support, that these are rare circumstances. Homicides are exhaustively investigated and therefore are the best source of reliable, detailed information on There Is No gang violence. Of the city’s 92 gangrelated homicides [as of June 2008]— “Typical” Gang killings, that is, in which known gang There is no “typical” gang. Some are comprised of just three or four individumembers are either the suspect or als whose sole ambition is to control drug the victim, or killings in which there sales on their corner. Others have hi-tech is a probable nexus to gangs based hierarchies and maintain their own webon the location or circumstance of sites. One gang may be robbing a bank the crime—10, or 10.8%, have been for extra spending money, while five blocks down, another gang may be comcross-racial. Not one of those 10 mitting murder for a criminal enterprise involved victims randomly targeted by being run out of a prison. race; nor, in any of those cases, are Robert S. Mueller, speech, January 18, 2007. www there indications that the motive was .fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/mueller011807.htm. substantially race-based. I guess it’s possible that areas patrolled by the county sheriff have a different experience, but we have not seen widespread or common attacks based on race in the city.
Defining Race-Based Crime To move this discussion forward, we need some definition. What exactly is a race-based crime involving gang members? The sheriff’s spokesperson suggested in Thursday’s Times that any homicide in which the suspect and the victim are of different races should be considered a race-based crime. I do not agree. To meet the definition required for prosecuting hate-crime cases, racial animosity must be a substantial motive in the crime. There must be some reasonable articulation that connects the act to a racial motive, and when there are significant indicators that there is another motive present, that also must be taken into consideration. 54 GANGS
The fact is, a rise in cross-racial incidents may not reflect increasing racial antagonism so much as, say, the increased diversity of a neighborhood, an upsurge of traditional tensions between gangs or a number of other factors.
Gang Violence Is the Result of Many Factors, Rarely Race It is true, of course, that many of L.A.’s gangs are organized along racial lines. Gangs almost always have been. You name the race or ethnic group and, during some time in history, some of their number have resorted to
The essay’s author disagrees with Los Angeles County sheriff Lee Baca’s (pictured)assertion that there is a serious interracial violence problem between Latinos and blacks. OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 55
LAPD Chief of detectives Charlie Beck believes that gang violence has more to do with fighting over turf control, drugs, girls, or other nonracial issues than race.
56 GANGS
forming gangs to leverage their power in society. The Italians and the Irish come to mind in the 20th century. But being made up along racial lines doesn’t mean that every crime is racially motivated. Mostly, the gang violence we see on the streets of Los Angeles is committed for other reasons—over turf control, over traditional gang rivalries, over drug deals, over who disrespected whom, and over women. These are not racially motivated killings. The danger of overstating racial conflict, thereby turning a discussion into a self-fulfilling prophecy, is very real. As our city grows and as demographics shift, cross-racial contacts increase, along with opportunities for conflict. The statements of the sheriff and his department do a disservice to the community by fueling belief in an epi-
demic of cross-racial violence. Separation of races may be a viable strategy in the jails, but it is certainly not an option on our streets or in our schools. We need leadership that is responsible while being empathetic to the stresses in our community. We need to recognize and appropriately address the fears of the people we serve.
Analyze the essay:
1. The author of this essay is chief of detectives for the Los Angeles Police Department. Does knowing his background influence your opinion of his argument? Why or why not? 2. Charlie Beck disagrees with Thomas Watkins, the author of the previous essay, that gang violence is largely race-related. After reading both essays, with which author do you agree? Why? Pinpoint a key piece of evidence that swayed you.
OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS ON GANGS 57
Section Two: Model Essays and Writing Exercises
The Five-Paragraph Essay
A
n essay is a short piece of writing that discusses or analyzes one topic. The five-paragraph essay is a form commonly used in school assignments and tests. Every five-paragraph essay begins with an introduction, ends with a conclusion, and features three supporting paragraphs in the middle. The Thesis Statement. The introduction includes the essay’s thesis statement. The thesis statement presents the argument or point the author is trying to make about the topic. The essays in this book all have different thesis statements because they are making different arguments about gangs. The thesis statement should clearly tell the reader what the essay will be about. A focused thesis statement helps determine what will be in the essay; the subsequent paragraphs are spent developing and supporting its argument. The Introduction. In addition to presenting the thesis statement, a well-written introductory paragraph captures the attention of the reader and explains why the topic being explored is important. It may provide the reader with background information on the subject matter or feature an anecdote that illustrates a point relevant to the topic. It could also present startling information that clarifies the point of the essay or put forth a contradictory position that the essay will refute. Further techniques for writing an introduction are found later in this section. The Supporting Paragraphs. The introduction is then followed by three (or more) supporting paragraphs. These are the main body of the essay. Each paragraph presents and develops a subtopic that supports the essay’s thesis statement. Each subtopic is spearheaded by a topic sentence and supported by its own facts, 59
Preface A
details, and examples. The writer can use various kinds of supporting material and details to back up the topic of each supporting paragraph. These may include statistics, quotations from people with special knowledge or expertise, historic facts, and anecdotes. A rule of writing is that specific and concrete examples are more convincing than vague, general, or unsupported assertions. The Conclusion. The conclusion is the paragraph that closes the essay. Its function is to summarize or reiterate the main idea of the essay. It may recall an idea from the introduction or briefly examine the larger implications of the thesis. Because the conclusion is also the last chance a writer has to make an impression on the reader, it is important that it not simply repeat what has been presented elsewhere in the essay but close it in a clear, final, and memorable way. Although the order of the essay’s component paragraphs is important, they do not have to be written in the order presented here. Some writers like to decide on a thesis and write the introduction paragraph first. Other writers like to focus first on the body of the essay, and write the introduction and conclusion later.
Pitfalls to Avoid When writing essays about controversial issues such as gangs, it is important to remember that disputes over the material are common precisely because there are many different perspectives. Remember to state your arguments in careful and measured terms. Evaluate your topic fairly— avoid overstating negative qualities of one perspective or understating positive qualities of another. Use examples, facts, and details to support any assertions you make.
60 GANGS
The Descriptive Essay
T
he previous section of this book provided you with samples of published persuasive writing on gangs. Many of these essays used description to convey their message. In this section you will focus on developing your own descriptive writing skills. A descriptive essay gives a reader a mental picture of the subject that the writer is exploring. Typically, descriptive writing uses the five senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell—to help the reader experience what the writer has experienced. A descriptive writer carefully selects vivid examples and specific details to reveal people, places, processes, events, and ideas.
Using the Descriptive Essay While an essay can be purely descriptive, descriptive papers written for the classroom are often persuasive or expository essays that use description to explain a memory, discuss an experience, or make a point. For example, in Viewpoint One, Peter Landesman tells the story of how Demond Whiting became paralyzed. He does not just say that Whiting was shot—he gets specific, saying he was shot twice with an AK-47 by someone in a passing car. The specific details he includes—such as how the bullets struck him in the spinal cord and left him paralyzed, and how he ended up in a rehabilitation center—give the reader concrete and vivid images and help the author drive home his point about gang violence. Sometimes, descriptive essays are written in the first person (from the “I” point of view). Descriptive essays are a good format for the first person because details about a particular event or experienced are well delivered through a person’s memories, experiences, or opinions. In these cases, there is usually not one sentence that can be singled out as the thesis statement. Instead, 61
Preface B
the essay has an implied thesis—a point of view made evident through the writer’s careful use of details and examples. An example of first person writing is found in Viewpoint Six by Charlie Beck. Beck recounts his work as chief detective with the Los Angeles Police Department to argue that his experience has shown him that race does not motivate gang violence.
Descriptive Writing Techniques An important element of descriptive writing is the use of images and specific and concrete details. Specific and concrete are the opposites of general and abstract. Descriptive writers should give their readers a fuller understanding of the topic by focusing on tangible details and by appealing to the five senses. See the accompanying box for examples of general nouns and their more specific variations.
General and Specifi c Descriptions General
More specific
Most specific
food plant clothing color American
dessert flower shirt yellow southerner
cupcake dandelion Yankees jersey chartreuse Georgian
The use of metaphors and similes can also enliven descriptive writing. A metaphor is a word or phrase that compares two objects. A simile is a metaphor that includes the prepositions like or as. Some descriptive essays make use of scene and exposition. The scene is an element commonly found in fiction and in creative writing. With scene, a writer describes an event with moment-by-moment detail, often including dialogue if people are involved. With exposition, a writer explains, summarizes, or concisely recounts events that occur between scenes. Scene is comparable to “showing,” while exposition is similar to “telling.” 62 GANGS
Tips to Remember A descriptive essay should give the reader a clear impression of its subject. So, a writer must select the most relevant details. A few well-chosen details are more effective than dozens of random ones. You want the reader to visualize what you are describing but not feel overloaded with information. The room you are sitting in now, for example, is likely full of many concrete and specific items. To describe the room in writing, however, you would want to choose just a few of the most vivid details that would help convey your impression of and attitude about it. A writer should also be aware of the kinds of words he or she uses in descriptive passages. Modifying words such as adjectives and adverbs can enhance descriptive writing, but they should be used sparingly. Generally, verbs and nouns are more powerful than adjectives and adverbs. The overuse of modifying words makes the writing seem “wordy” and unnatural. Compare the phrases in the accompanying box to see the difference between wordy and concise language.
Wordy vs. Concise Language Wordy
Concise
dirty animal with four legs and a tail a joyous, festive occasion that will not be forgotten he yelled out with all the force in his lungs she ate like she hadn’t eaten in a hundred years
mangy mutt a momentous event he screamed she devoured her meal
In the following section, you will read model descriptive essays about gangs and work on exercises that will help you write your own.
MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 63
Essay One
A Gang Member Gets Out Editor’s Notes The first model essay tells the story
of El Cholo, a former gang member who murdered many people during his time in a gang. The essay is structured as a five-paragraph descriptive essay in which each paragraph contributes a supporting idea that develops the story. The author uses descriptive techniques to make El Cholo’s experiences specific and vivid. It is an expository essay, meaning that it is not attempting to make an argument or persuade the reader of a particular point of view. Rather, its purpose is to tell the story of El Cholo with enough detail to make an impression on the reader. The notes in the margin point out key features of the essay and will help you understand how the essay is organized. Also note that all sources are cited using Modern Language Association (MLA) style.* For more information on how to cite your sources see Appendix C. In addition, consider the following: Refers to thesis and topic sentences Refers to supporting details
1. How does the introduction engage the reader’s attention? 2. What descriptive techniques are used in the essay? 3. What purpose do the essay’s quotes serve? 4. Does the essay convince you of its point?
Paragraph 1
This is the essay’s thesis statement. It tells what the essay will focus on.
Street life is all some gang members have ever known. This is the story of El Cholo, a Guatemalan American who has been in more than six gangs and killed ten people. El Cholo’s life and crimes are brutal and horrifying, but he is proof that some gang members do get out—and change for the better. * Editor’s Note: In applying MLA style guidelines in this book, the following simplifications have been made: Parenthetical text citations are confined to direct quotations only; electronic source documentation in the Works Cited list omits date of access, page ranges, and some detailed facts of publication.
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Paragraph 2
El Cholo got involved with gangs when he was just six years old. His parents, one American and one Guatemalan, found it hard to take care of him, so they moved him from the United States to Guatemala, where he was left at an orphanage. Eventually he was adopted by foster parents, but he didn’t like them, so he ran away and started living on the streets. He says his first gang, called Bikingo, taught him how to use weapons, how to fight, and how to take and sell drugs. “I [grew] up in the streets, I slept in the streets—the streets became my home,” he says. “There’s a saying that those who grow up on the streets will only be respected on the streets.” Paragraph 3
Life on the streets led El Cholo to vandalize, steal—and even commit murder. El Cholo has killed ten people—six were other gang members, some of which he was paid to eliminate from the gang because they were causing problems. Four were victims of his other crimes. He says he killed people for money, drugs, or even amusement—and for many years felt no guilt for his actions. He thought it was normal to kill other people and viewed murder as survival of the fittest. “To survive in this world you have to do everything, including even taking the life of another,” he says. “That’s what I did.” Surviving for El Cholo also meant selling drugs and beating people up when it profited him. Paragraph 4
But one day, El Cholo met a Jehovah’s Witness who preached to him about God and the Bible. This man convinced him he was on the wrong path in life. El Cholo experienced an awakening—he started reading the Bible and came to believe in the word of God. Eventually he left his gang and finally took to heart the severity of the crimes he had committed. “I know that I’ve caused much grief to families,” he said. “They’ll celebrate Holy Week and Christmas without their loved ones who I killed.” Now El Cholo realizes it was wrong to kill others, no
This is the topic sentence of Paragraph 2. Note that all of the paragraph’s details fit with or support it.
This type of quote is a primary source because it features the words of the essay’s subject: El Cholo. A primary source enlivens an essay and in this case offers a personal, firsthand account of the subject.
What point in Paragraph 3 does this detail help support?
This is the topic sentence of Paragraph 4. Note that all of the paragraph’s details fit with or support it. The author uses exposition to tell the story of El Cholo’s change of heart. For more on exposition and other descriptive techniques see Preface B.
MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 65
matter the reason. “I start to tremble when I think that I killed someone. I could go to prison or somebody might want to kill me for revenge. Today, I’m afraid.” Paragraph 5
El Cholo was lucky—he was able to get out of his gang without paying with his life. Now he works as a street vendor in Guatemala. Instead of selling drugs and weapons, he sells candies and cookies on the corners and public buses. He says he enjoys earning an honest living and hopes he can spend the rest of his life repenting for the crimes he committed when he was a gang member.
Works Cited El Cholo. Interview, “Former Gang Member ‘El Cholo’ Speaks Out.” By John Burnett. National Public Radio. 22 Dec. 2008 .
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It often helps to create an outline of the five-paragraph essay before you write it. The outline can help you organize the information, arguments, and evidence you have gathered during your research. For this exercise, create an outline that could have been used to write “A Gang Member Gets Out.” This “reverse engineering” exercise is meant to help familiarize you with how outlines can help classify and arrange information. To do this you will need to 1. 2. 3. 4.
articulate the essay’s thesis, pinpoint important pieces of evidence, flag quotes that supported the essay’s ideas, and identify key points that supported the argument.
Essay One Exercises
Exercise 1A: Create an Outline from an Existing Essay
Part of the outline has already been started to give you an idea of the assignment.
Outline I. Paragraph One Write the essay’s thesis: Former gang member El Cholo committed terrible crimes but managed to escape the violence of gang life. II. Paragraph Two Topic: El Cholo’s early start in gangs. Supporting Detail i.
Supporting Detail ii.
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III. Paragraph Three Topic: The murders committed by El Cholo. Supporting Detail i. He killed 10 people—6 other gang members and 4 innocent people.
Supporting Detail ii.
IV. Paragraph Four Topic:
Supporting Detail i.
upporting Detail ii. Quote from El Cholo expressing S his regret over killing people.
V. Paragraph Five Write the essay’s conclusion:
Exercise 1B: Create an Outline for Your Own Essay The first model essay tells a particular story about gangs. For this exercise, your assignment is to find supporting ideas, choose specific and concrete details, create an outline, and ultimately write your own five-paragraph essay about gangs. Your goal is to use descriptive techniques to convince your reader. 68 GANGS
Part I: Write a thesis statement. The following thesis statement would be appropriate for an essay on why young people join gangs: Gangs are most attractive to kids who grow up in poor, abusive, broken homes. Or see the sample paper topics suggested in Appendix D for more ideas.
Part II: Brainstorm pieces of supporting evidence. Using information found in this book and from your own research, write down three arguments or pieces of evidence that support the thesis statement you selected. Then, for each of these three arguments, write down supportive facts, examples, and details that support it. These could be: • statistical information; • personal memories and anecdotes; • quotes from experts, peers, or family members; • observations of people’s actions and behaviors; • specific and concrete details. Supporting pieces of evidence for the above sample thesis statement include: • Quote from Viewpoint One by Father Gregory Boyle: “Gangs are the places where kids go when they encounter their life as misery without exception. . . . These are kids who don’t care. They’re going out hoping to die.” • Quote accompanying Viewpoint One by Heather Mac Donald: “The evidence by now is overwhelming: Boys raised in fatherless homes, on average, are disproportionately likely to get involved in crime and fail in school. Without a strong paternal role model, these boys are vulnerable to the lure of macho gang culture as a surrogate for a father’s authority.” MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 69
Part III: Place the information from Part I in outline form. Part IV: Write the arguments or supporting statements in paragraph form. By now you have three arguments that support the essay’s thesis statement, as well as supporting material. Use the outline to write out your three supporting arguments in paragraph form. Make sure each paragraph has a topic sentence that states the paragraph’s thesis clearly and broadly. Then, add supporting sentences that express the facts, quotes, details, and examples that support the paragraph’s argument. The paragraph may also have a concluding or summary sentence.
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The Gruesome Path into a Girl Gang
Essay Two
Editor’s Notes The second model essay uses a
different aspect of the descriptive essay to discuss gangs. It reports on the experience of a girl who was in a female gang. It uses descriptive techniques to capture the details of the girl’s experience, helping the world of girl gangs come alive for the reader. To do this, the author conducted an interview with a girl named Angelique Dawson.* The information gleaned during the course of the interview allowed the author to get inside information, details, and opinions on the inner workings of a girl gang. Because they yield these types of details, interviews can be a useful tool when writing a descriptive essay. More information about conducting an interview is found in Exercises 2A and 2B that follow the essay. As you did for the first model essay, take note of the essay’s components and how they are organized (the sidebars in the margins will help you identify the essay’s pieces and their purpose).
Refers to thesis and topic sentences Refers to supporting details
Paragraph 1
Many people are familiar with the hallmarks of gang life—drive-by shootings, devastating acts of crime and violence, and wearing gang colors and clothing, for example. But just getting into a gang itself is a shocking, violent process, especially for girls. Angelique Dawson, a former gang member from Florida, explains the way in which she was initiated into a girl gang. Her gruesome, painful experience is one she will never forget.
* Name has been modified to protect the subject’s identity.
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The essay begins with specific, descriptive details meant to grab your attention.
Paragraph 2
These comments lend the essay an up-close and personal feel. Make sure to feature in your reports unique and personal quotes from those you interview.
Angelique explains there are three main ways a girl gets initiated into her gang: she can be “beat in,” “sexed in,” or “born in.” In addition to having to commit a crime or fight someone to prove themselves, most of the girls in Angelique’s gang were sexed in, or made to have sex with members of a brother gang. Angelique was forced to have sex with a member of the Crips for her initiation. “It was messed up,” she says. “But I just did what I had to do, you know. At the time I remember just feeling glad I didn’t get gangbanged [forced to have sex with several men at once] like some girls do.” Although Angelique says she doesn’t consider getting sexed in to count as rape, most social workers and health practitioners would classify it as such. Paragraph 3
This is the topic sentence of Paragraph 3. It looks at a new, yet related, idea.
What point in Paragraph 3 does this quote directly support?
When a girl is sexed into a gang, the male gang member rarely wears protection, so contracting a sexually transmitted disease (STD) is another common consequence of girl gang initiation. Angelique contracted chlamydia after she was sexed into her gang. Luckily, this disease is treatable with antibiotics and does not cause permanent physical damage if caught early, but Angelique was embarrassed and physically uncomfortable from the disease. However, Angelique considers herself lucky, because she has heard stories of girls being forced to have sex with HIV-positive gang members. “They do that to girls they don’t like,” she explains. “It’s jacked up, to go and make somebody get AIDS just because you don’t like ‘em. But I guess it’s even more jacked up that the girls do it ’cause they want into the gang so badly.” Paragraph 4
What is the topic sentence of Paragraph 4? How did you recognize it?
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While some girls come away from their sexual initiation with an STD, others come away with something else: a baby. Indeed, girls in gangs often end up getting pregnant, also because protection is rarely used at the time
of initiation. One report that created a profile of girl gang members found that 92 percent of juvenile female offenders (who also tended to have some level of gang affiliation) were likely to become sexually active at age thirteen and were likely to deliver their first child at age fourteen. (Archer and Grascia 38) Angelique did not get pregnant as a result of her initiation, but she knows of several girls who did. “Now they got a baby on their arm, and most don’t even know who the daddy is. It’s real sad.”
Note how this fact supports the idea discussed in the paragraph. It also comes from a reputable source. This makes it a strong supporting detail.
Paragraph 5
Getting raped, contracting an STD, and getting pregnant are just a few of the consequences of being initiated into a female gang. Once in, members must continually commit crime, graffiti, violence, even murder to prove themselves to other gang members. Many of these lives end in incarceration or death. Angelique was luckier than most—she got out of her gang when her family relocated her from Florida to California. Her message to other girls: “Stay away from gangs. I wish I had.”
Note how the essay’s conclusion wraps up the topic in a final, memorable way—without repeating the points made in the essay.
Works Cited Angelique Dawson. Personal interview. 4 Dec. 2008. Archer, Lianne, and Andrew M. Grascia. “Girls, Gangs, & Crime—Profile of the Young Female Offender.” Social Work Today Mar.–Apr. 2005:38 .
MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 73
Essay Two Exercises
Exercise 2A: Conducting an Interview Model Essay Two, “The Gruesome Path into a Girl Gang,” was written after conducting an interview with Angelique Dawson. When reporting on events that occur in your community or drafting a story of a personal experience, you will probably need to interview people to get insider information and opinions. Interviews allow you to get the story behind a participant’s experiences, enabling you to provide a fuller picture of it for your readers. The key to a successful interview is asking the right questions. You want the respondent to answer in as much detail as possible so you can write an accurate, colorful, and interesting piece. Therefore, you should have a clear idea of what general pieces of information you want to find out from the respondent before you begin interviewing. The six classic journalist questions— who, what, when, where, why, and how—are an excellent place to begin. If you get answers to each of these questions, you will end up with a pretty good picture of the event or experience that took place. There are many ways to conduct an interview, but the following suggestions will help you get started:
Step One: Choose a setting with little distraction. Avoid bright lights or loud noises, and make sure the person you are interviewing feels comfortable speaking to you. Professional settings such as offices, places of business, and homes are always appropriate settings for an interview. If it is a phone interview, be sure you can clearly hear what the person is saying (so do not conduct the interview on a cell phone while walking on a busy city block, for example).
Step Two: Explain who you are and what you intend to learn from the interview. Identify yourself. For what publication are you writing? If you are writing for a school paper, identify the paper. If you are conducting research for an ongoing project, 74
explain the project’s goals and in what way you expect the interviewee can help you reach them. Indicate how long you expect the interview to take, and get all contact information upfront.
Step Three: Ask specific questions, and start at the beginning. Make sure you ask at least two questions that address each of the following ideas: who, what, where, when, why, and how. Who was involved in the event? What happened during the course of the event? Where did it take place? Specific questions will change depending on what type of event you are covering. Follow your instincts; if you do not know something or if you have a question, ask. The answer will likely yield good information that will enhance your report.
Step Four: Take notes. Never rely on your memory when conducting an interview. Either type or jot down notes, or ask permission to tape or otherwise record the interview.
Step Five: Verify quotes and information. Before you write your report, it is important to go back to your source to double-check key points of information. Also, you must run by the source any quotes you intend to use before you put them in your report. This is to make sure you heard the person accurately and are not misrepresenting their position.
Types of Questions to Ask During an Interview Questions you will ask your interviewee tend to fall into a few basic categories: Knowledge—What they know about the topic or event. This can include historical background, logistics, and outcomes of an event. MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 75
Sensory—Ask questions about what people have seen, touched, heard, tasted, or smelled. These details will help your readers vividly imagine the event you are reporting on. Behavior—What motivated the person to become involved in this project or movement? What do they hope to gain by having their story publicized? Opinions, values, and feelings—What the person thinks about the topic or event. These questions result in opinionated or personal statements that you, as an objective reporter, most likely will not make in your report. For example, in model Essay Two, the author quotes Angelique Dawson to express firsthand knowledge and opinions in a way that would be inappropriate for an objective reporter to do.
Exercise 2B: Report on an Event Reports show up in many publications—newspapers, magazines, journals, and Web logs (blogs) are just some of the places people read about events and activities under way in their community. Think about the type of event you would like to report on. It could be a trip summary; the happenings of a local or school event, such as a parade, speech, assembly, or rally; a sports game; a party; or another experience in which people are coming together to get something done. Think next about the type of publication in which your report would best appear. Trip summaries, or travelogues, make great fodder for blogs; reports on school events such as sports games or performances are best featured in the school paper. Before you report on an event, make sure you have done thorough research. Look over all notes from your interviews. Outline a road map for your essay to follow (see exercises in this book on how to outline an essay prior to writing it). Examine where quotations, information, and other details will fit best. After you absorb and 76 GANGS
organize all the information you have collected, you are ready to write. News reports tend to be objective, so make sure your writing style is impartial and matter-of-fact. Also, be sure to provide the reader with enough information to visualize the event but not so much that you bombard them with unnecessary or unrelated details. Use the other writing exercises found in this book—on using quotations, writing introductions and conclusions, and creating an outline—to help you write the report. Then submit it for publication.
MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 77
Essay Three
America’s Deadliest Gang—MS-13 Editor’s Notes The third model essay profiles the
Refers to thesis and topic sentences Refers to supporting details
gang Mara Salvatrucha, one of the deadliest gangs currently active in the United States. Unlike the previous model essays, the following essay is more than five paragraphs. Sometimes five paragraphs are simply not enough to adequately develop an idea. Extending the length of an essay can allow the reader to explore a topic in more depth or present multiple pieces of evidence that together provide a complete picture of a topic. Longer essays can also help readers discover the complexity of a subject by examining a topic beyond its superficial exterior. Moreover, the ability to write a sustained research or position paper is a valuable skill you will need as you advance academically. As you read, consider the questions posed in the margins. Continue to identify thesis statements, supporting details, transitions, and quotations. Examine the introductory and concluding paragraphs to understand how they give shape to the essay. Finally, evaluate the essay’s general structure and assess its overall effectiveness.
Paragraph 1
The essay begins with specific, descriptive details meant to grab your attention. Did it?
Victims found with their heads chopped off. Innocent people slaughtered on their way to work, or as they return from a party. Brutal beatings in which someone loses an eye or a finger. Such atrocities sound like the deeds of a cruel army or a mass murderer, but in fact they are the work of a transnational organization called Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), a gang that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has identified as one of the most dangerous criminal elements operating in America today. 78
Paragraph 2
MS-13 was started in Los Angeles in the 1980s by immigrants from El Salvador. At first, the gang’s primary mission was to defend their community from being victimized by other gangs that were primarily Mexican or African American. Soon, its ranks grew to include not just Salvadorians but descendants of other Central American countries, such as Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and Nicaragua. The name Mara Salvatrucha comes from La Mara, the name of a violent street gang in El Salvador, and the Salvatruchas, a term that refers to Salvadorian peasants who were trained as guerrilla fighters. The “13” was added to the name to represent M, the thirteenth letter of the alphabet. Paragraph 3
The FBI has identified MS-13 as the most dangerous gang in America. As of 2009, the FBI believed MS-13 to have between 6,000 and 10,000 members who are active in 42 states, up from 33 in 2005. Warned Michael Sullivan, the former director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives: “MS-13’s foothold in the U.S. is expanding.” (qtd. in Johnson) It operates highly organized cells in urban, suburban, and rural areas and is regarded as being particularly dangerous because it attracts immigrant children as young as eleven who are looking to find power and prestige in a society that often ignores them.
What point in Paragraph 3 does this quote support?
Paragraph 4
Like other gangs, MS-13 members are often distinguishable by their body art. It is common for members to sport intricate tattoos on their body or face that depict devil horns or say “Salvatrucha,” the specific name of their MS-13 cell, or even just “MS.” Members also tend to represent the number 13 somewhere in the tattoo, using either Arabic or roman numerals: tattoos of “MSXIII” are common. Sometimes MS-13 tattoos are large enough to cover a person’s whole back, while others are very small
What is the topic sentence of Paragraph 4? How did you recognize it?
MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 79
and concealed in the palm of a hand. Experts with the Maryland State Police gang intelligence unit think the size of the tattoo indicates a gang member’s level of involvement in the gang, with older or more active members wearing larger, more prominent tattoos. Without reading the rest of the paragraph, take a guess at what it will be about based on the topic sentence highlighted here.
Specific details help your reader picture the subject about which you are writing. Note how these details help you imagine what MS-13 members dress like.
Paragraph 5
Clothing is another way MS-13 members can be identified. Members of this gang often favor blue and white clothing, the colors of El Salvador’s national flag. Gang members might wear a blue bandana around their wrist, neck, or forehead or keep it in their pocket. MS-13 members also like to wear sports jerseys of teams that have the same colors as the gang and of players that have a 3 in their number. For example, the Maryland State Police gang intelligence unit has learned that MS-13 gang members often wear the jerseys of Allen Iverson (whose number for the Denver Nuggets was 3) and Kurt Warner (whose number for the Arizona Cardinals is 13). New York Yankees clothing is another favorite among MS-13 members because of the team’s blue and white colors. Paragraph 6
Make a list of everyone quoted in this essay. What types of people have been quoted? What makes them qualified to speak on this topic?
MS-13 is famous for its brutality and cruelty. While all gangs use violence, MS-13 is known for not only killing its victims but for using machete axes to dismember and even behead them. Indeed, victims are sometimes found missing heads or other body parts. Sometimes a person’s fingers are chopped off as a warning or a punishment. “What makes MS-13 so deadly is their skill with the machete, and most have had extensive military training in El Salvador, making them a double threat. The machete, typically used for cutting crops in El Salvador, is now the weapon of choice for this fearless gang.” (Cosby) Paragraph 7
MS-13 members are often accused of killing for “the fun of it,” and as such tend to murder innocent people with 80 GANGS
little thought or regret. One example of MS-13’s ruthlessness comes from San Francisco, California, where on June 22, 2008, MS-13 gang member Edwin Ramos gunned down a local father and his sons as they drove down a narrow San Francisco street. The driver, Tony Bologna, had accidentally prevented Ramos from making a left turn, so Ramos opened fire on Bologna’s car, killing the 48-year-old and his 20- and 16-year-old sons who were on their way home from a barbecue. “There was no altercation between this maniac man and my husband,” said Danielle Bologna, wife and mother of the deceased. “This animal, I just feel that I can’t even give him a name—who can just drive around looking for victims to take out? He has no conscience. Just to kill people when you feel like it?” (qtd. in Van Derbeken) Innocent life was also lost on December 23, 2004, in Honduras, when MS-13 members sprayed automatic gunfire at an intercity bus, randomly killing twenty-eight passengers.
Analyze this quote. What do you think made the author want to select it for inclusion in the essay?
Paragraph 8
MS-13 also doles out its bloody brand of justice to former gang members who break rank. This is what happened to Ernesto “Smokey” Miranda, one of the founders of Mara Salvatrucha. After dedicating his life to the gang, Miranda experienced a change of heart. He began to study law and became interested in keeping kids out of gangs through gang intervention and prevention work. As part of his efforts to break ties with MS-13, he decided not to attend a prison release party for a fellow gang member on May 13, 2006. Just a few hours later, Miranda was gunned down at his home in El Salvador. Miranda’s death was a message—so were the deaths of two people found murdered near each other in suburban New York, thousands of miles from Miranda’s home. The two former gang members were brutally murdered in what experts say was a message from the gang: “If you are not loyal, you are dead.” (Domash)
Note how the author supports the essay’s ideas with specific examples and descriptive stories. These details provide a full picture of MS-13.
MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 81
Paragraph 9
MS-13’s reputation for doling out harsh violence has been noticed by even the most hardened members of other gangs, such as the Crips, the Bloods, and the Latin Kings. It is MS-13’s use of untraditional forms of violence—such as machete and even grenade attacks—that has secured them the reputation of being the most violent gang in North and Central America. Frank Flores, a member of an antigang unit of the L.A. Police Department, thinks violence comes naturally to MS-13 members because of their Central American background. “Most of these members com[e] from the war-torn countries where, you know, killing was a regular occurrence—violence, beating people up, stabbing people, seeing people die,” he says. “So, when it came time for them to deal with rival gang members, I mean, their readiness to commit a violent act was nothing; it was second nature.” (qtd. in Werner 2) Paragraph 10
Make a list of all the transitions that appear in the essay and how they keep the ideas flowing.
Unlike some gangs, which are focused on one type of criminal activity such as drug trafficking, MS-13 members engage in many criminal activities. Human smuggling, immigration violations, prostitution, robbery, extortion, kidnapping, home invasions, vandalism, fraud, car theft, and illegal firearms sales are among MS-13’s regular money-making activities. Authorities attribute MS-13’s strength and fast growth to its members’ willingness to participate in all kinds of crimes because it makes the gang very flexible and difficult to fight. Paragraph 11
When writing a report or an informative profile, it is nice to conclude by letting your readers know where they can find more information on the subject.
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MS-13’s threat to public safety is considered to be so high, the FBI in 2004 created a special task force to bring them down. So far it has arrested thousands of MS-13 members, but efforts are thwarted by new recruits that join the ranks of MS-13 every year. For more information on the FBI’s efforts to bring down this violent social men-
ace, see http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/ngic/violent_gangs .htm, where the FBI updates its milestones, achievements, and challenges in fighting gang warfare.
Works Cited Domash, Shelly Feuer. “America’s Most Dangerous Gang.” Police Magazine Feb. 2005. May 30, 2009. . Johnson, Kevin. “FBI: Burgeoning Gangs Behind Up to 80% of U.S. Crime.” USA Today 29 Jan. 2009 . Van Derbeken, Jaxon. “Widow Pleads for Death Penalty.” San Francisco Chronicle 27 June 2008. Werner, Zach. “FBI Targets MS-13 Street Gang.” PBS NewsHour Extra 5 Oct. 2005: 1–3. 30 May 2009 . Cosby, Rita. “‘MS-13’ Is One of Nation’s Most Dangerous Gangs: In-Depth Look at Its Members, Enemies and Its Threat to Our National Security.” MSNBC.com 13 Feb. 2006. 1 June 2009 .
MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 83
Essay Three Exercises
Exercise 3A: Examining Introductions and Conclusions Whether an essay is a first-person account, an objective profile, or a formal persuasive paper, all pieces of writing feature introductory and concluding paragraphs that are used to frame the main ideas being presented. Along with presenting the essay’s thesis statement, well-written introductions should grab the attention of the reader and make clear why the topic being explored is important. The conclusion reiterates the essay’s thesis and is also the last chance for the writer to make an impression on the reader. Strong introductions and conclusions can greatly enhance an essay’s effect on an audience. The Introduction There are several techniques that can be used to craft an introductory paragraph. An essay can start with: • an anecdote: a brief story that illustrates a point relevant to the topic; • startling information: facts or statistics that elucidate the point of the essay; • setting up and knocking down a position: a position or claim believed by proponents of one side of a controversy, followed by statements that challenge that claim; • historical perspective: an example of the way things used to be that leads into a discussion of how or why things work differently now; • summary information: general introductory information about the topic that feeds into the essay’s thesis statement. Problem One Reread the introductory paragraphs of the model essays and of the viewpoints in Section One. Identify which of the techniques described above are used in the example essays. How do they grab the attention of the reader? Are their thesis statements clearly presented?
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Problem Two Write an introduction for the essay you have outlined and partially written in Exercise 1B using one of the techniques described above. The Conclusion The conclusion brings the essay to a close by summarizing or returning to its main ideas. Good conclusions, however, go beyond simply repeating these ideas. Strong conclusions explore a topic’s broader implications and reiterate why it is important to consider. They may frame the essay by returning to an anecdote featured in the opening paragraph. Or they may close with a quotation or refer back to an event in the essay. In opinionated essays, the conclusion can reiterate which side the essay is taking or ask the reader to reconsider a previously held position on the subject. Problem Three Reread the concluding paragraphs of the model essays and of the viewpoints in Section One. Which were most effective in driving their arguments home to the reader? What sorts of techniques did they use to do this? Did they appeal emotionally to the reader, or bookend an idea or event referenced elsewhere in the essay? Problem Four Write a conclusion for the essay you have outlined and partially written in Exercise 1B using one of the techniques described above.
Exercise 3B: Using Quotations to Enliven Your Essay No essay is complete without quotations. Get in the habit of using quotes to support at least some of the ideas in your essays. Quotes do not need to appear in every paragraph, but often enough so that the essay contains voices MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 85
aside from your own. When you write, use quotations to accomplish the following: • Provide expert advice that you are not necessarily in a position to know about • Cite lively or passionate passages • Include a particularly well-written point that gets to the heart of the matter • Supply statistics or facts that have been derived from someone’s research • Deliver anecdotes that illustrate the point you are trying to make • Express first-person testimony Problem One Reread the essays presented in all sections of this book and find at least one example of each of the above quotation types. There are a couple of important things to remember when using quotations. • Note your sources’ qualifications and biases. This way your reader can identify the person you have quoted and can put their words in a context. • Put any quoted material within proper quotation marks. Failing to attribute quotes to their authors constitutes plagiarism, which is when an author takes someone else’s words or ideas and presents them as his or her own. Plagiarism is a very serious infraction and must be avoided at all costs.
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Using the information from this book, write your own five-paragraph descriptive essay on the topic of gangs. You can use the resources in this book for information about issues relating to this subject and how to structure this type of essay. The following steps are suggestions on how to get started. Step One: Choose your topic. The first step is to decide what topic to write your descriptive essay on. Is there any subject that particularly fascinates you about gangs? Is there an issue you strongly support, or strongly oppose? Is there a topic you feel personally connected to or one that you would like to learn more about? Ask yourself such questions before selecting your essay topic. Refer to Appendix D: Sample Essay Topics if you need help selecting a topic.
Final Writing Challenge
Write Your Own Descriptive Five-Paragraph Essay
Step Two: Write down questions and answers about the topic. Before you begin writing, you will need to think carefully about what ideas your essay will contain. This is a process known as brainstorming. Brainstorming involves asking yourself questions and coming up with ideas to discuss in your essay. Possible questions that will help you with the brainstorming process include: • Why is this topic important? • Why should people be interested in this topic? • How can I make this essay interesting to the reader? • What question am I going to address in this paragraph or essay? • What facts, ideas, or quotes can I use to support the answer to my question? Questions especially for descriptive essays include: • Have I chosen a compelling story to examine? • Have I used vivid details? • Have I made scenes come alive for my reader? 87
• What qualities do my characters have? Are they interesting? • Does my descriptive essay have a clear beginning, middle, and end? • D oes my essay evoke a particular emotion or response from the reader? Step Three: Gather facts, ideas, and anecdotes related to your topic. This book contains several places to find information about issues relating to gangs, including the viewpoints and the appendices. In addition, you may want to research the books, articles, and Web sites listed in Section Three, or do additional research in your local library. You can also conduct interviews if you know someone who has a compelling story that would fit well in your essay. Step Four: Develop a workable thesis statement. Use what you have written down in steps two and three to help you articulate the main point or argument you want to make in your essay. It should be expressed in a clear sentence and make an arguable or supportable point. Example: All public schools should feature gang intervention and prevention programs. This could be the thesis statement of a descriptive essay that argues that gang prevention programs should be more widespread. Supporting paragraphs would explore reasons why the author thinks this and would include specific details of the benefits such programs could have on student life and the surrounding community. Step Five: Write an outline or diagram. 1. W rite the thesis statement at the top of the outline. 2. W rite roman numerals I, II, and III on the left side of the page with A, B, and C under each numeral. 3. Next to each roman numeral, write down the best ideas you came up with in step three. These should all directly relate to and support the thesis statement. 88 GANGS
4. Next to each letter write down information that supports that particular idea. Step Six: Write the three supporting paragraphs. Use your outline to write the three supporting paragraphs. Write down the main idea of each paragraph in sentence form. Do the same thing for the supporting points of information. Each sentence should support the paragraph of the topic. Be sure you have relevant and interesting details, facts, and quotes. Use transitions when you move from idea to idea to keep the text fluid and smooth. Sometimes, although not always, paragraphs can include a concluding or summary sentence that restates the paragraph’s argument. Step Seven: Write the introduction and conclusion. See Exercise 3A for information on writing introductions and conclusions. Step Eight: Read and rewrite. As you read, check your essay for the following: 4D oes the essay maintain a consistent tone? 4 Do all paragraphs reinforce your general thesis? 4 Do all paragraphs flow from one to the other? Do you need to add transition words or phrases? 4 Have you quoted from reliable, authoritative, and interesting sources? 4 Is there a sense of progression throughout the essay? 4 Does the essay get bogged down in too much detail or irrelevant material? 4 Does your introduction grab the reader’s attention? 4 Does your conclusion reflect back on any previously discussed material, or give the essay a sense of closure? 4 Are there any spelling or grammatical errors?
MODEL ESSAYS AND WRITING EXERCISES 89
Section Three: Supporting Research Material
Facts About Gangs Editor’s Note: These facts can be used in reports to reinforce or add credibility when making important points.
Gangs in the United States According to the Department of Justice: • As of 2009 at least thirty thousand gangs were in the United States. • As of 2009 at least 1 million gang members were in the United States. • Gang members residing within local communities across the country number 900,000. • More than 147,000 documented gang members are incarcerated in federal, state, and local correctional facilities. • T hese gangs are active in twenty-five hundred American communities. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention: • 100 percent of cities with population greater than or equal to 250,000 report gang activity. • 8 5 percent of cities with population between 100,000 and 229,999 report gang activity. • 65 percent of cities with population between 50,000 and 99,999 report gang activity. • 44 percent of cities with population between 25,000 and 49,999 report gang activity. • 20 percent of cities with population between 2,500 and 24,999 report gang activity. • 35 percent of suburban counties report gang activity. • 11 percent of rural counties report gang activity.
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Appendix A
According to the National Youth Gang Survey Analysis conducted by the National Youth Gang Center (NYGC): • Gang problem prevalence rates in suburban and rural counties and smaller cities declined yearly from the mid-1990s through the early 2000s. • Approximately half as many rural counties reported gang problems in 2005 compared with 1996. • The defining characteristics of a gang are: - Commits crimes together - Has a name - Displays colors or other symbols - Hangs out together - Claims turf or territory - Has a leader According to the U.S. Department of Justice: • The largest and most dangerous street gangs are: - 18th Street Gang - Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation - Asian Boyz - Black Peace Stone Nation - Bloods - Crips - Florencia 13 - Fresno Bulldogs - Gangster Disciples - Latin Counts - Latin Disciples - Latin Kings - Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) - Tiny Rascal Gangsters - United Blood Nation - Vice Lord Nation • The largest and most dangerous prison gangs are: - Aryan Brotherhood - Barrio Azteca - Black Guerrilla Family - Hermanos de Pistoleros Latinos 92 GANGS
- Mexikanemi - Mexican Mafia - Nazi Low Riders - Ñeta - Nuestra Familia - Public Enemy Number One - Sureños and Norteños - Texas Syndicate - Four Horsemen, Tangos, and Tango Blast • The largest and most dangerous outlaw motorcycle gangs are: - Bandidos Motorcycle Club - Black Pistons Motorcycle Club - Hells Angels Motorcycle Club - Mongols Motorcycle Club - Outlaws Motorcycle Club - Pagan’s Motorcycle Club - Vagos Motorcycle Club According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation: • Gangs are responsible for up to 80 percent of crimes committed in America. • Some gangs are believed to have ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. • Gangs conduct criminal activity in all fifty states and U.S. territories. According to the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Association (NAGIA), approximately 45 percent of gang members surveyed said that gangs use technology, such as cell phones, computers, and the Internet in their criminal activities. According to the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), street gangs, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs are the primary distributors of illegal drugs on the streets of the United States. SUPPORTING RESEARCH MATERIAL 93
Facts About Gang Members According to the Department of Justice: • About 90 percent of all gang members are male. • Approximately 47 percent of gang members are Hispanic. • 31 percent are African American. • 13 percent are white. • 7 percent are Asian. • 2 percent are of another race or ethnicity. According to the Conroe ISD Police Department in Texas: • 90 percent of male gang members are arrested by age 18. • 75 percent of male gang members are arrested twice by age 18. • 95 percent of male gang members do not finish high school. • 60 percent of male gang members are dead or in prison by age 20. • The average life expectancy of an active gang member is 20 years, 5 months. According to the Saint Paul Public Schools in Minnesota: • Gang members are sixty times more likely to be killed than non–gang members. • Gang violence has become increasingly deadly in the last several decades as a result of the introduction of automatic weapons and drive-by shootings. • About 95 percent of hard-core gang members are high school dropouts. • In 1975 about fifty-five thousand gang members were in the United States. By 2009 the number had ballooned to close to 1 million.
Facts About Female Gangs According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention: 94 GANGS
• The percent of girls who report gang affiliation is as high as 22 percent in communities with high gang activity. • Of all gang members, females make up between 6 percent and 11 percent. • The total number of female gang members in the United States is between 50,000 and 80,000. • Only 2 percent of all gangs are composed entirely of women. • Female gang members are far less delinquent, use fewer drugs, and commit fewer crimes than male gang members. • Female gang members leave the gang at an earlier age than males. • Female gang members are incarcerated less frequently than males.
A History of Gang Activity in the United States 1700s (pre– Civil War)
Irish immigrant gangs identified.
1865 (post– Civil War)
First Ku Klux Klan founded in Tennessee.
1900 Thousands of street gangs exist by this point, largely as a result of the influx of immigrants during the Industrial Revolution. 1912 Irish gangs decline and are replaced with Italian, Jewish, and Chinese gangs. 1914–1918 Gang activity declines during World War I. 1919 The prohibition of alcohol leads to a “golden age” of gangs in the United States. SUPPORTING RESEARCH MATERIAL 95
1920 The first African American gangs are noticed. 1934 During the Depression, the Klan enlists 5 million members. 1950 The introduction of new drugs by pharmaceutical companies causes gangs to become more formalized units in order to sell drugs on the black market. 1954 Desegregation encourages the formation of new white supremacist gangs. 1958 The first neo-Nazi movement in the United States is formed. 1960 Texas prison gangs begin developing. 1970 The Crips are founded in Los Angeles. 1975 The FBI estimates there are about fiftyfive thousand gang members active in the United States. 1980s Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) was founded by Salvadoran immigrants in Los Angeles. 1981 The Ku Klux Klan declines. 2004 The FBI forms a special task force to deal with the threat from MS-13. 2008 The percentage of law enforcement agencies in the United States reporting gang activity in their jurisdictions increases from 45 percent in 2004 to 58 percent. 2009 The FBI estimates about 1 million gang members are active in the United States and are responsible for 80 percent of all crime. Source: Conroe ISD Police Department, Texas. 96 GANGS
Finding and Using Sources of Information No matter what type of essay you are writing, it is necessary to find information to support your point of view. You can use sources such as books, magazine articles, newspaper articles, and online articles.
Using Books and Articles You can find books and articles in a library by using the library’s computer or cataloging system. If you are not sure how to use these resources, ask a librarian to help you. You can also use a computer to find many magazine articles and other articles written specifically for the Internet. You are likely to find a lot more information than you can possibly use in your essay, so your first task is to narrow it down to what is likely to be most usable. Look at book and article titles. Look at book chapter titles, and examine the book’s index to see if it contains information on the specific topic you want to write about. (For example, if you want to write about the MS-13 gang and you find a book about gangs in the United States, check the chapter titles and index to be sure it contains information about MS-13 before you bother to check out the book.) For a five-paragraph essay, you do not need a great deal of supporting information, so quickly try to narrow down your materials to a few good books and magazine or Internet articles. You do not need dozens. You might even find that one or two good books or articles contain all the information you need. You probably do not have time to read an entire book, so find the chapters or sections that relate to your topic, and skim these. When you find useful information, copy it onto a note card or into a notebook. You should look for supporting facts, statistics, quotations, and examples. 97
Appendix B
Using the Internet When you select your supporting information, it is important that you evaluate its source. This is especially important with information you find on the Internet. Because nearly anyone can put information on the Internet, there is as much bad information as good information. Before using Internet information—or any information—try to determine if the source seems to be reliable. Is the author or Internet site sponsored by a legitimate organization? Is it from a government source? Does the author have any special knowledge or training relating to the topic you are looking up? Does the article give any indication of where its information comes from?
Using Your Supporting Information When you use supporting information from a book, article, interview or other source, there are three important things to remember: 1. Make it clear whether you are using a direct quotation or a paraphrase. If you copy information directly from your source, you are quoting it. You must put quotation marks around the information and tell where the information comes from. If you put the information in your own words, you are paraphrasing it. Here is an example of a using a quotation: Many girls join gangs to escape being abused by their families. But as one reporter explains, “It is abuse in their home lives that often propels them into the gangs in the first place, and those gangs often continue the abuse under the veil of protection.” (Lacey) Here is an example of a brief paraphrase of the same passage: Even though many girls join gangs to escape being abused by their families, they usually continue to play the role of the victim—this time, at the hands of their gang. In fact, even though girls flee violence 98 GANGS
in their homes by joining a gang, the gang often continues to abuse them but characterizes such abuse as being for the gang member’s benefit or protection. 2. Use the information fairly. Be careful to use supporting information in the way the author intended it. For example, it is unfair to quote an author as saying, “Statistically, gangs appear to cause less crime today,” when he or she intended to say, “Statistically, gangs appear to cause less crime today but that’s because record keeping in decades past was not as accurate.” This is called taking information out of context. This is using supporting evidence unfairly. 3. Give credit where credit is due. Giving credit is known as citing. You must use citations when you use someone else’s information, but not every piece of supporting information needs a citation. • If the supporting information is general knowledge— that is, it can be found in many sources—you do not have to cite your source. • If you directly quote a source, you must cite it. • If you paraphrase information from a specific source, you must cite it. If you do not use citations where you should, you are plagiarizing—or stealing—someone else’s work.
Citing Your Sources There are a number of ways to cite your sources. Your teacher will probably want you to do it in one of three ways: • Informal: As in the example in number 1 above, tell where you got the information as you present it in the text of your essay. • Informal list: At the end of your essay, place an unnumbered list of all the sources you used. This SUPPORTING RESEARCH MATERIAL 99
tells the reader where, in general, your information came from. • F ormal: Use numbered footnotes or endnotes. Footnotes or endnotes are generally placed at the end of an article or essay, although they may be placed elsewhere depending on your teacher’s requirements.
Works Cited Lacey, Marc. “Abuse Trails Central American Girls into Gangs.” New York Times 11 Apr. 2008. 28 May 2009 .
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Using MLA Style to Create a Works Cited List You will probably need to create a list of works cited for your paper. These include materials that you quoted from, relied heavily on, or consulted to write your paper. There are several different ways to structure these references. The following examples are based on Modern Language Association (MLA) style, one of the major citation styles used by writers.
Book Entries For most book entries you will need the author’s name, the book’s title, where it was published, what company published it, and the year it was published. This information is usually found on the inside of the book. Variations on book entries include the following: A book by a single author: Axworthy, Michael. A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind. New York: Basic Books, 2008. Two or more books by the same author: Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. New York: Penguin, 2009. ————. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. New York: Penguin, 2006. A book by two or more authors: Ronald, Pamela C., and R.W. Adamchak. Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. A book with an editor: Friedman, Lauri S., ed. Introducing Issues with Opposing Viewpoints: War. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2009. 101
Appendix C
Periodical and Newspaper Entries Entries for sources found in periodicals and newspapers are cited a bit differently from books. For one, these sources usually have a title and a publication name. They also may have specific dates and page numbers. Unlike book entries, you do not need to list where newspapers or periodicals are published or what company publishes them. An article from a periodical: Hannum, William H., Gerald E. Marsh, and George S. Stanford. “Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste,” Scientific American Dec. 2005: 84–91. An unsigned article from a periodical: “Chinese Disease? The Rapid Spread of Syphilis in China.” Global Agenda 14 Jan. 2007. An article from a newspaper: Weiss, Rick. “Can Food from Cloned Animals Be Called Organic?” Washington Post 29 Jan. 2008: A06.
Internet Sources To document a source you found online, try to provide as much information on it as possible, including the author’s name, the title of the document, the date of publication or of last revision, the URL, and your date of access. A Web source: De Seno, Tommy. “Roe vs. Wade and the Rights of the Father.” Fox Forum.com (22 Jan. 2009) 20 May 2009 . Your teacher will tell you exactly how information should be cited in your essay. Generally, the minimum 102 GANGS
information needed is the original author’s name and the name of the article or other publication. Be sure you know exactly what information your teacher requires before you start looking for your supporting information so that you know what information to include with your notes.
SUPPORTING RESEARCH MATERIAL 103
Appendix D
Sample Essay Topics Gangs Pose a Threat to American Communities The Threat Posed from Gangs Has Been Exaggerated Girls Are Prone to Joining a Gang Boys Are Prone to Joining a Gang Gang Violence Is Racially Motivated Gang Violence Is Not Usually Racially Motivated Gangs Are a Problem in Rural Areas Gangs Are a Problem in Urban Areas Strong Families Can Reduce Teens’ Urge to Join a Gang Reduced Domestic Violence Can Reduce Teens’ Desire to Join a Gang Dwindling Social Values Causes Gang Violence A Desire for Power Causes Gang Violence Poverty Causes Gang Violence Zero Tolerance Polices Can Reduce Gang Violence Zero Tolerance Policies Cannot Reduce Gang Violence The Death Penalty Can Reduce Gang Violence The Death Penalty Cannot Reduce Gang Violence The Federal Government Should Treat Gang Violence Like an Epidemic Local Communities Should Take On the Job of Fighting Gang Violence
Topics for Descriptive Essays An Interview with an Ex-Gang Member An Interview with a Gangs Outreach Activist How Gangs Have Infiltrated Our Schools What Girl Gangs Are Like What Boy Gangs Are Like 104
Why People Join Gangs A Typical Day in the Life of a Gang Member A Portrait of a Community Devastated by Gang Violence America’s Five Most Dangerous Gangs How to Successfully Leave a Gang How Gang Violence Can Be Reduced How the Military Became a Hot Spot for Gangs Why Girl Gangs Are on the Rise The Meaning of Gang Signs and Symbols
SUPPORTING RESEARCH MATERIAL 105
Organizations to Contact The editors have compiled the following list of organizations concerned with the issues debated in this book. The descriptions are derived from materials provided by the organizations. All have publications or information available for interested readers. The list was compiled on the date of publication of the present volume; names, addresses, and phone numbers may change. Be aware that many organizations take several weeks or longer to respond to inquiries, so allow as much time as possible. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 125 Broad St., 18th Flr., New York, NY 10004-2400 (212) 549-2500 • e-mail:
[email protected] Web site: www.aclu.org The ACLU is a national organization that works to defend Americans’ civil rights as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. It opposes curfew laws for juveniles and others and seeks to protect the public-assembly rights of gang members or people associated with gangs. Bajito Onda Foundation (BOF) PO Box 270246, Dallas, TX 75227 • (214) 275-6632 Web site: www.bajitoonda.org This nonprofit group is run by former gang members who help teenagers find alternatives to gang life. BOF offers job training and support to young adults who want to cut their gang ties. Boys and Girls Club of America 1275 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta, GA 30309-3506 (404) 487-5700 • Web site: www.bgca.org 106
Boys and Girls Clubs of America are located in nearly every city in the United States. Their programs strive to keep kids off the street and away from the lure of gangs. To this end, many clubs provide gang intervention and prevention programs. Gang Outreach Unit 270 S. Stone Ave., Tucson, AZ 85701 • (520) 351-4441 Web site: www.councilforunity.org This organization is part of the Tucson, Arizona, police department. It works with the community to identify teens at risk for joining a gang and help prevent them from doing so by offering realistic alternatives to gang life. Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR) PO Box 12729, Tallahassee, FL 32317-2729 (850) 385-0600 • Web site: www.iir.com This nonprofit research and training organization specializes in law enforcement, juvenile justice, criminal justice, and homeland security issues. IIR provides local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies with assistance needed to implement changes that promote greater governmental effectiveness. Its Web site offers several reports on gangs and gang activity. Join Together 580 Harrison Ave., 3rd Flr., Boston, MA 02118 (617) 437-1500 • e-mail:
[email protected] Web site: www.jointogether.org Join Together is a project of the Boston University School of Public Health. The organization serves as a national resource for communities working to reduce substance abuse, gun violence, and gang-related violent activities. ORGANIZATIONS TO CONTACT 107
Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation 1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, Ste. 410, Washington, DC 20009 (202) 234-8104 • e-mail:
[email protected] Web site: www.eisenhowerfoundation.org The foundation is dedicated to reducing crime in innercity neighborhoods through community programs. It believes that more federally funded programs such as Head Start and Job Corps would improve education and job opportunities for youths, thus reducing juvenile crime, gang activity, and violence. National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) 1970 Broadway, Ste. 500, Oakland, CA 94612 (510) 208-0500 • Web site: www.nccd-crc.org The NCCD is composed of corrections specialists and others interested in the juvenile justice system and the prevention of crime and delinquency. It advocates communitybased treatment programs rather than imprisonment for delinquent youths. It opposes placing minors in adult jails and executing those who commit capital offenses before the age of eighteen. National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) 2345 Crystal Dr., Ste. 500, Arlington, VA 22202 (202) 466-6272 NCPC provides training and technical assistance to groups and individuals interested in crime prevention. It advocates job training and recreation programs as means to reduce youth crime and violence. The council also sponsors the Take a Bite Out of Crime campaign. National Institute of Justice (NIJ) 810 Seventh St. NW, Washington, DC 20531 (202) 307-2942 • Web site: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij NIJ is the primary federal sponsor of research on crime and its control. It sponsors research efforts through 108 GANGS
grants and contracts that are carried out by universities, private institutions, and state and local agencies. Gang violence and activities (such as drug trafficking) are among the many topics covered by the NIJ. National School Safety Center (NSSC) 141 Duesenberg Dr., Ste. 11, Westlake Village, CA 91362 (805) 373-9977 • Web site: www.schoolsafety.us Part of Pepperdine University, the center is a research organization that studies school crime and violence, including gang and hate crimes, and that provides technical assistance to local school systems. NSSC believes that teacher training is an effective way of reducing juvenile crime and gang violence. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) 810 Seventh St. NW, Washington, DC 20531 (202) 307-5911 • Web site: http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org As the primary federal agency charged with monitoring and improving the juvenile justice system, the OJJDP develops and funds programs on juvenile justice. Among its goals are the prevention and control of illegal drug use and serious crime by juveniles and gangs. Teens Against Gang Violence (T.A.G.V.) 2 Moody St., Dorchester, MA 02124 • (617) 282-9659 e-mail:
[email protected] • Web site: http://tagv.org Teens Against Gang Violence is a volunteer, communitybased, teen peer leadership program. T.A.G.V. distinguishes between gangs that are nonviolent and those that participate in violence. Through presentations and workshops, the organization educates teens, parents, schools, and community groups on violence, guns, and drug prevention. ORGANIZATIONS TO CONTACT 109
Youth Crime Watch of America (YCWA) 9200 S. Dadeland Blvd., Ste. 417, Miami, FL 33156 (305) 670-2409 • e-mail:
[email protected] Web site: www.ycwa.org YCWA is a nonprofit, student-led organization that promotes crime and drug prevention programs in communities and schools throughout the United States. Memberstudents at the elementary and secondary level help raise others’ awareness concerning alcohol and drug abuse, crime, gangs, guns, and the importance of staying in school. Strategies include organizing student assemblies and patrols, conducting workshops, and challenging students to become personally involved in preventing crime and violence.
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Bibliography Books Hagedorn, John M., A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Rivera, Louis Reyes, and Bruce George, eds., The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates. New York: Soft Skull Press, 2008. Savelli, Lou, Gangs Across America and Their Symbols. New York: Looseleaf Law, 2005. Shakur, Sanyika, Monster: The Autobiography of an LA Gang Member. New York: Grove Atlantic, 2004. Simpson, Colton, and Ann Pearlman, Inside the Crips: Life Inside L.A.’s Most Notorious Gang. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2006.
Periodicals Archer, Lianne, and Andrew M. Grascia, “Girls, Gangs, & Crime—Profile of the Young Female Offender,” Social Work Today, vol. 5, no. 2, March/April 2005. www .socialworktoday.com/archive/swt_0305p38.shtml. Atkinson, Jay, “Police Setting Up Database on Gangs,” Boston Globe, November 30, 2008. www.boston.com/ news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/11/30/ police_setting_up_database_on_gangs/?page=1. Bermudez, Esmeralda, “Police Say Rosaries Are Newest Gang Symbol,” USA Today, March 16, 2008. www .usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-03-16-rosariesgangs_N.htm. Chaney, Kathy, “Chicago Gangs Pressure Young Boys,” Chicago Defender, July 11, 2008. Dohrmann, George, “How Dreams Die,” Sports Illustrated, June 30, 2008. http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/ vault/article/magazine/MAG1141120/1/index.htm. 111
Domash, Shelly Feuer, “America’s Most Dangerous Gang,” Police Magazine, February 2005. www.policemag.com/ Articles/2005/02/America-s-Most-Dangerous-Gang .aspx. Dubner, Stephen J., “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Street Gangs (but Didn’t Know Whom to Ask),” New York Times, August 6, 2007. Economist, “Going Global: Gangs,” February 26, 2005, p. 29. Hammond, Sarah, “Gang Busters: States Respond to Rising Gang Violence,” State Legislatures, June 2008. www.ncsl .org/magazine/articles/2008/08SLJune08_Gang.htm. Hollandsworth, Skip, “You Don’t Want to Know What We Do After Dark,” Texas Monthly, December 1, 2006. www.texasmonthly.com/2006-12-01/feature4-1.php. Honey, Peter, “Could Inspirational Learning Be the Answer to the Problem of Street Gangs?” Training Journal, October 2008. Hylton, Hilary, “The Gangs of New Orleans,” Time, May 14, 2006. www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,1194016-1,00.html. Johnson, Ben, “Terminating Gang Violence,” Front PageMagazine.com, December 13, 2005. www.front pagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=D5FEEB9784FC-4D0F-A954-6EA3B0F1FD00. Kingsbury, Alex, “The War on Gangs: Inside the Feds’ Strategy to Get Hit Men and Enforcers Off the Streets,” U.S. News & World Report, vol. 145, no. 13. Koch, Jacqueline, “Chattanooga: Hanging with Gangs,” Chattanooga Times Free Press, September 14, 2008. www .timesfreepress.com/news/2008/sep/14/chattanoogahanging-gangs/. Kuz, Martin, “The War on Gangs,” San Francisco Weekly, August 21, 2007. www.sfweekly.com/2007-08-22/ news/the-war-on-gangs/. 112 GANGS
Lacey, Marc, “Abuse Trails Central American Girls into Gangs.” New York Times, April 11, 2008. www.nytimes .com/2008/04/11/world/americas/11guatemala.html. Lawrence-Turner, Jody, “Gang Sweep Exaggerated: ATF Greatly Overstated Number of Arrests,” Spokane (WA) Spokesman Review, October 12, 2007. www.spokesman review.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=11922. Mueller, Robert S., speech, January 18, 2007. www.fbi .gov/pressrel/speeches/mueller011807.htm. Murr, Andrew, “Racial ‘Cleansing’ in L.A.” Newsweek, October 24, 2007. www.newsweek.com/id/61950. Naqvi, Shahid, “The ‘Three Rs’ of Gang Violence,” Birmingham Post (UK), July 7, 2008. www.birmingham post.net/news/west-midlands-news/2008/07/07/thethree-rs-of-gang-violence-65233-21272382/. Pappa, Lauren Todd, “Gangs: Keep Out! Three Teens Tell Why Gangs Are on the Rise and What You Can Do to Stay Safe,” Junior Scholastic, November 26, 2007. Quinones, Sam, “L.A. Gang Members Go Union,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 2007. http://articles.latimes .com/2007/may/21/local/me-union21. Quirk, Matthew, “How to Grow a Gang: By Deporting Record Numbers of Latino Criminals, the U.S. May Make Its Gang Problem Worse,” Atlantic, May 2008. Rowe, Claudia, “Young Guns: A New Brand of Gangster Grows Up in a Killing Culture—String of Recent Deaths Reawakens Decades-Old Problem,” Seattle PostIntelligencer, August 13, 2008. http://seattlepi.nwsource .com/local/374766_gangkids13.html?source=rss. Scrimshaw, Susan C., “The Violence Virus,” Boston Globe, April 22, 2007. www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_ opinion/oped/articles/2007/04/22/the_violence_ virus/. Seavey-Hultquist, Jo, “Keeping Girls Gang-free,” Girl Scouts of the United States of America, 2008. www BIBLIOGRAPHY 113
.girlscouts.org/for_adults/volunteering/articles/keep ing_girls_gang_free.asp. Sergeant, Harriet, “Gangs, Alas, Are Offering What Boys Need,” Sunday Times (London), August 19, 2007. www .timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_ contributors/article2284163.ece. Southern Poverty Law Center, “Race-Based Gangs: More ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Violence Hits Los Angeles,” Spring 2007. www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article .jsp?aid=747. Venkatesh, Sudhir, “Dispelling the Myths About Gangs,” U.S. News & World Report, January 21, 2008.
Web Sites Coalition for Safe and Effective Schools (www.safe andeffectiveschools.com/html/schoolResGangs.asp). Offers information on bullying, hazing, school violence, and gangs. Also contains links to resources for parents and teachers. The Coroner’s Report (www.gangwar.com). This site offers information and resources on gang intervention and prevention. Links to a parent resource guide and numerous police resources. Federal Bureau of Investigation: Violent Gangs (www .fbi.gov/hq/cid/ngic/violent_gangs.htm). Offers authoritative information on the twenty thousand violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs criminally active in the United States today. Gangs OR Us (www.gangsorus.com). Contains more than twelve hundred gang videos and article links about street gangs and prison gangs that discuss gang identification of clothing, colors, graffiti, marks, and tattoos, investigations, prosecutions, rivalries, and alliances. Gangs Reduction Through Intervention, Prevention, and Education (GRIPE) (www.gripe4rkids.org). Contains links about gang history, myths, statistics, graffiti, school violence, and more. 114 GANGS
Know Gangs (www.knowgangs.com). Site founded by a former police officer that serves as a training provider for law enforcement, educators, and social service workers seeking to enhance their knowledge about gangs, drugs, and school violence. Street Gangs Resource Center (www.streetgangs.com). Contains abundant gang-related information, including a “book club” section that recommends books that discuss urban culture and gangs.
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Index B Baca, Lee, 47, 53, 55 Barber, Beryl, 32–33 Barfield, Scott, 44 Beck, Charlie, 17, 20, 52–57, 56 Boot, Max, 45 Bounty Hunter Bloods, 14–15, 18 Boyle, Gregory, 20, 21 Boys, 9, 18 Bracchi, Paul, 31–37 Bullard, Brandon “B.L.”, 14
F Feuds, 14–15, 18, 35 Florencia 13, 47, 49–51 Fort Bragg, 40 Fort Hood, 40 Fruit Belt Posse, 7
C Castellanos, Arturo, 49 Crime gangs and, 20, 23–29 by girls, 33–35 homicides, 14, 18, 23–25, 47, 50, 54 myths about gangs and, 23 race-based, 54–55 Crips and Bloods rivalry, 14–15, 18, 49 D Dawson, Angelique, 8 DREAM Act, 45 Drive-by shootings, 14 E East Coast Crips, 49–50 Ethnic cleansing, 49
G Gang members by state, 19 crimes committed by, 23–29 female, 34 with learning disabilities, 7–8 life expectancy of, 9 loyalty between, 44 military-trained, 40–42 number of, 25 rewards for, 7 typical, 29–30 Gang violence girls and, 31–37 is exaggerated, 23, 28–30 is not racially motivated, 52–57 nature of, 18 race as motivation for, 46–51 reasons for, 9–10 retribution cycle and, 14–15 Gang wars, 14–18 Gangs
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are serious problem, 13–21 crime statistics and, 26–27 girl, 31–37 in military, 38–45 motivations for joining, 7–9, 33, 35–37 preventing kids from joining, 9–11 threat from, is exaggerated, 22–30 Gheen, William, 42 Glass, Hunter, 40, 43, 44 Grape Street Crips, 14–15, 18 Greene, Judith, 22–30 H Hartfield, Damien, 15 Hate crime, 50 Hayden, Tom, 24 Homeboy Industries, 20 Homicides, 14, 18, 23–25, 47, 50, 54 Hopelessness, 20–21
military-trained gang members and, 42 portrayal of gangs by, 28–29 Learning disabilities, 7–8 Life expectancy, 9 Los Angeles gang violence in, 13–21, 46–47, 49–54 military-trained gang members in, 42 M MacDonald, Heather, 9 Marriage, 9 Maxson, Cheryl, 24 Media, 28–29 Mexican Mafia, 49 Military, gangs in, 38–45 Military recruitment, 43, 45 N National Youth Gang Center, 24, 25 National Youth Gang Survey, 7, 8
I Immigration, 45
O O’Hanlon, Michael, 45
K Klein, Malcolm, 24
P Pranis, Kevin, 22–30
L Landesman, Peter, 9, 13–21 Latino gangs, 40, 43, 46–47, 49–51 Law enforcement
R Race does not motivate gang violence, 52–57 as motivation for gang violence, 46–51 INDEX 117
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Raya, Andres, 39, 42 Recruitment gang, 7 military, 43, 45 Respect, 33 Retribution, 14–15 Rice, Constance, 20 Roberts, Matthew A., 38–45 Rosenberg, Kevin S., 50 Ryno, Sam, 39
T Territories, 48 Thompson, Mike, 43–44 Torres, Adam, 51 Training, military, 42–43 Turf wars, 48 Two-parent families, 9
S Schools gang activity in, 16 unsafe, 8 Scrimshaw, Susan C., 9–10 Self-esteem, 9 Sexual activity, 35 Simmons, Andrea, 43 St. Louis, 24 Staffer, Antoine, 14 Street gangs. See Gangs
V Villaraigosa, Antonio, 10 Violence cycle of, 9–10, 18 increase in, 18 See also Gang violence
U Urban violence, 9–10 U.S. Armed Forces, gang members in, 38–45
W Watkins, Thomas, 46 Weapons, 42–43 Whiting, Demond, 13–14, 15
Picture Credits AP Images, 10, 17, 32, 39, 44, 47, 50, 55, 56 © Leila Cutler/Alamy, 36 Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images, 15 Andre Padilla, 16, 19, 26–27, 34, 41, 48 © Photofusion Picture Library/Alamy, 24 JESSICA RINALDI/Reuters/Landov, 8
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About the Editor Lauri S. Friedman earned her bachelor’s degree in religion and political science from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Her studies there focused on political Islam. Friedman has worked as a nonfiction writer, a newspaper journalist, and an editor for more than ten years. She has extensive experience in both academic and professional settings. Friedman is the founder of LSF Editorial, a writing and editing business in San Diego. She has edited and authored numerous publications for Greenhaven Press on controversial social issues such as Islam, genetically modified food, women’s rights, school shootings, gay marriage, and Iraq. Every book in the Writing the Critical Essay series has been under her direction or editorship, and she has personally written more than twenty titles in the series. She was instrumental in the creation of the series, and played a critical role in its conception and development.
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