Gang Violence - List of Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

Gang violence is a persistent issue that affects communities worldwide, stemming from a complex interplay of socio-economic factors. Essays could delve into the root causes of gang violence, including poverty, lack of education and job opportunities, and systemic inequalities. They might also explore the impacts of gang violence on individuals and communities, from the loss of life and trauma to the perpetuation of poverty and fear. Discussions could extend to various strategies to combat gang violence, including community-based interventions, criminal justice reforms, and social programs aimed at addressing underlying socio-economic disparities. The discourse may also touch on global variations in gang violence and the role of national and international policies in mitigating or exacerbating the problem. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Gang Violence you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Fighting against Gang Violence

A gang is known as a group of individuals with define leadership and internal organizations that identify or claim control over territory. Also known as an organized group of criminals, gangs engage in illegal and in some occasions violent behavior. Gangs vary from prison gangs, motorcycle clubs, ethnic and organized crime gangs to local and national street gangs. In the academic journal History of Street Gangs in the United States they state that "Three main immigrant groups entered the Northeast […]

Unraveling Gang Violence: Broken Windows and Collective Efficacy

The United States legal definition of gang violence is "criminal and non-political acts of violence committed by a group of people who regularly engage in criminal activity against innocent people." The term also includes, "physical hostile interactions between two or more gangs. The term gang refers to two or more people organized to achieve a common objective and who share a common identity." (US Legal, Inc., n.d.). In this paper, I will discuss the topic of gang violence and how […]

Violence in Prisons Related to Gangs

One of the key guarantee threats in American correctional facilities is gang related violence. Prison facilities are brought up with emerging difficulties connected to gang related violence for examples such as drugs, murder, extortion, gambling, abuse of religious freedom by plastering hate in the title of religion, “racial enmity” and “racial extremism which is the highest factor of this problem of racial conflict in the facilities. Some of the guarantee threat groups/gangs providing to the horrific matters are: The Aryan […]

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Gang Violence in Society

Gang violence is a very serious matter that I feel nobody talks about anymore because the stories haven't gotten on the news or gotten big off of the internet. Gang violence is defined as a group of people by repetitive socializing individuals or close friends with recognizable influence and inner coordination. These gangs will claim full control over a region in a community, town, or specific area which will lead to the involvement of violent crimes and unlawful behavior as […]

Overview of Gang Violence

This overview of gang violence includes definitions, psycholohy of gang members, and effects of gang behavior. Definitions of terms for purposes of this overview: (1) general dictionaries typically define a gang as an organized group of criminals. (2) The United States Departmnent of Justice defines gangs as organized groups of three of more people with a collective identity surrounding criminal activity. (3) Violence is behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something per most dictionaries. […]

School’s Role in Preventing Youth Gang Membership

Gang membership can provide a sense of safety in the form of security and protection. Youth who join gangs may benefit from the structure, protection, and support the gang provides, especially when this safety is not provided within their family. Gang life provides a clear family structure and clear expectations of how to achieve the success that many members may gravitate towards. One study sought to understand the relationship between maltreatment and gang involvement and found that youth may join […]

Gang Violence in Schools

Violence in schools, particularly gang violence, has increased in the past XX years (citation). Gang membership was once considered an issue only facing urban inner-city schools, however, gangs are now spread throughout suburban neighborhoods (Sharkey, 2011). Research has found that gang membership among students can significantly impact educational, social and emotional attainment (citation). In schools, minority children are the primary perpetrators of violence (Soriano & Soriano, 1994), including gang violence; however, this does not indicate that a student's ethnic and […]

About Problem of the Gang Violence

It can be said that most communities throughout the country perceive or encounter gang violence. Gang activity has increased in Monterey County, causing homicide rates to climb at a very high scale. Salinas is located 10 miles east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River in the greater part of the bay area where gang retaliation has infested the streets with more deaths per year killing innocent bystanders, or other gang members. The community has been affected by tragic deaths […]

Gang Movies: Windows into Urban Landscapes and Human Nature

Cinema, as an art form, often mirrors the most profound, gritty, and real aspects of society. This reflective quality is especially apparent in movies that tackle the underworld of gangs. Gang movies, spanning various cultures and decades, offer audiences a glimpse into the intricate dynamics of power, loyalty, betrayal, and survival. While sometimes criticized for glamorizing violence, these films can also serve as poignant commentaries on societal issues and the human condition. At the very heart of gang movies lies […]

Environmental Pressure of Adolescent Gang Violence in Inter-City’s

Introduction Poverty is the worlds biggest social problem. Within it there are lasting consequences for families forced to dwell in not so family friendly neighboring communities due to lack of income. There’s a stem that leads to every problem, and at the bottom of poverty lies gang affiliation in adolescent teens in poverty that of which are at an all-time high. I trust you have heard the phrase “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time […]

The Evolution of the Hoover Crips: from Street Beginnings to Cultural Impact

In the intricate web of urban life, various entities spring forth that wield substantial influence on the socio-cultural fabric of the environment. One such entity, emanating from the streets of Los Angeles in the late 1960s, is the Hoover Crips. To the uninitiated, the immediate connotations might be linked with violence and criminal activities, largely due to media portrayals. However, when one delves deeper into the formation, evolution, and significance of the Hoover Crips, a multi-faceted picture emerges. The Hoover […]

Prison Gangs Violence

Introduction Gang violence within the prison system is not only an issue in the United States, but all around the world. Issues revolving around prison gangs often relate to racially based problems that occur in and out of prison. This paper will explore the well-known prison gangs which are racially divided, found in America and how race drives a large part of the violence occurring. I will touch base on how these gangs have taken over the prison system. They […]

Exploring the Depths of Gang Violence: Insights from ‘Gang Leader for a Day’

In the realm of social science, few experiments are as bold or as controversial as Sudhir Venkatesh's foray into the world of a Chicago gang, detailed in his book, "Gang Leader for a Day." This narrative is not just an academic study; it's a gripping, firsthand account of life inside one of America's most notorious housing projects. Venkatesh, then a naive sociology graduate student at the University of Chicago, initially ventured into the Robert Taylor Homes with a clipboard and […]

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Essay: VIOLENCE IN AMERICA

M an and society are born out of both: violence and gentle cooperation.” That is how Psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim defines a paradoxical but inescapable fact touching the whole history of “the children of Cain.” How the two forces are balanced in an individual helps determine his behavior, even his sanity. How they are balanced in society helps determine its political organization, the degree and condition of its civilization. In the U.S. today, it seems to many that violence is in the ascendant over cooperation, disruption over order, and anger over reason.

The greatest single source of this fear lies in the Negro riots that keep tearing at American cities. What is alarming about them is not merely the frustration and bitterness they proclaim, not merely the physical and psychological damage they cause, but also the fact that a few Negro leaders are deliberately trying to justify the riots with a violent and vengeful ideology. This in turn can all too easily be seen as just one aspect of a whole American panorama of violence.

The crime rate keeps rising, or seems to, especially in senseless killings and wanton attacks. Fear of the darkened city streets has become a fact of urban life. The memories of bizarre multiple murders linger in the mind—13 people dead in Austin from a sniper’s rifle, eight nurses in Chicago killed by a demented drifter. The recollection of the Kennedy assassination remains part of the scene. A burgeoning, largely uncontrolled traffic in guns has put firearms into some 50 million American homes, many of their owners insisting that the weapons are needed for self-defense. In the movies and on television, murder and torture seem to be turning Americans into parlor sadists. A recent trend on the stage is the “theater of cruelty,” and a growing number of books delve into the pornography of violence.

The rest of the world is ready to adjudge America as an excessively violent country in which brutal, irrational force can erupt any minute on a massive scale. This view is reinforced by the sheer driving energy of the U.S. It seems confirmed by the American folklore of violence—the Western and the gangster saga—which audiences all over the world worship as epic entertainment and as a safe refuge for dreams of lawless freedom. In a very different way, the view of America the Violent is also reinforced by the Vietnamese war, in which critics both at home and abroad profess to see a growing strain of American brutality.

Comparative Mayhem

Violence is so universal and elusive that sociology and psychology can only approximate a complex truth. Comparisons with other countries are illuminating but hardly conclusive. The U.S. has certainly experienced nothing like the massacre of 400,000 Communists in Indonesia; nor have Watts or Newark approached the lethal fury of an Indian or an Arab mob. But these are countries at vastly different levels of civilization. In the industrialized world, the U.S. undeniably ranks high in violence. The U.S. homicide rate stands at around five deaths for 100,000 people. This compares with .7 in England, 1.4 in Canada, 1.5 in France, 1.5 in Japan (but 32 in Mexico). Within the U.S., the rate varies widely, from about 11 per 100,000 in Georgia and Alabama to 6.1 in New York and .5 in Vermont. Not that homicide or any other statistics can tell the complete story.

The U.S. is in the grip of a semipermanent revolution, constantly undergoing social and economic changes that in Europe might send people to the barricades. Occasionally, Americans may still try to re-enact the two-fisted frontiersman, but the real source of much American violence is the swift pace of social change, which can be deeply disturbing to the less stable personalities in a society. Europe has usually experienced its revolutions spasmodically, at fairly long intervals, while in between it tends to defer to official authority far more than do Americans.

Measuring itself not against others but against its own past, the U.S. has good reason to believe that the country as a whole is growing less violent. The roots of violence in the American past are obvious: the Revolution, the Indian wars, slavery, the Civil War, that crucial and necessary test between two societies (when Fort Sumter was fired on, Emerson said: “Now we have a country again. Sometimes gunpowder smells good”). Race riots erupted almost as soon as the Negroes were emancipated, the worst being the New York draft riots of 1863. The Ku Klux Klan relied on raw violence to keep the Negroes from exercising the rights they had gained. In its way, frontier violence was also the result of social change: new, transplanted populations, new sources of wealth, new elites struggling for power. The wonder, perhaps, was not that the frontier was violent, but that its people tried so quickly to establish some sort of law.

Changing Pattern

In the cities, each wave of new immigration evoked violent reactions, many of which were instigated in the mid-1800s by the original Know-Nothings and their many later imitators. Immigrant groups themselves battled with one another, caught up in ethnic feuds. Above all, the American labor movement was the most violent in the world. From the 1870s to the 1930s, bloody battles between strikers and company cops or state militia were frequent. Labor leaders often deliberately used violence to dramatize the workers’ plight—and, in time, they succeeded. On the fringes of the movement were some odd secret organizations, including the Molly Maguires, a band of Pennsylvania miners who assassinated fellow workers and bosses alike in an attempt to win better pay and working conditions. The Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World) sang the praises of violence and provided numerous labor saints and martyrs. The great gangs that appeared in Chicago, New York and elsewhere in the 1920s were also social symptoms: not merely the fiefdoms of “little Caesars” bent on money and power, but the expression of a moral vacuum in the U.S.

Against this background, violence on the American scene today is still alarming, but it scarcely suggests a disastrous deterioration. Public tolerance of violence seems lower than ever before in U.S. life, and public respect for law far higher. Above all, there is evidence to show that—some statistics to the contrary—violent crime in the U.S. is not really growing relative to the population. After massive researches, the President’s Crime Commission admits that crime trends cannot be conclusively proven out by available figures. According to FBI reckoning, crimes of violence have risen about 35% so far in the 1960s. But these figures fail to consider two important factors: population growth and changes in crime reporting. Experts believe that part of the apparent increase is caused by the fact that each year the police grow more thorough—and the poor are less reluctant—about reporting crime that previously went unrecorded. Says Sociologist Marvin Wolfgang, president of the American Society of Criminology: “Contrary to the rise in public fear, crimes of violence are not significantly increasing.”

But their pattern is changing. The incidence of murder and robbery relative to population has decreased by 30% in the past three decades. On the other hand, rape has tripled. Males are seven times more likely to commit violent crimes than women, but the women are catching up: in five years, arrests of women for crimes of violence rose 62% above 1960 v. 18% for men. From the newest figures, certain other patterns emerge. Despite widespread fear of strangers, most crimes of violence are committed by a member of the family or an acquaintance. The arrest rate for murder among Negroes is ten times that among whites, but most of the violent crimes committed by Negroes are against other Negroes. Violence is increasingly an urban phenomenon: 26 large cities containing less than one-fifth of the U.S. population account for more than half of all major crimes against the person. Poets sometimes have sociological insights, and Robert Lowell knew what he was talking about in his lines:

When Cain beat out his brother Abel’s brains

The Maker laid great cities in his soul.

Innate or Learned

Violence is not only an urban but overwhelmingly a lower-class phenomenon. In Atlanta, for example, neighborhoods with family incomes below $3,000 show a violent-crime rate eight times higher than among $9,000 families. In the middle class, violence is perhaps sublimated increasingly in sport or other pursuits. Says Sociologist Wolfgang: “The gun and fist have been substantially replaced by financial ability, by the capacity to manipulate others in complex organizations, and by intellectual talent. The thoughtful wit, the easy verbalizer, even the striving musician and artist are equivalents of male assertiveness, where broad shoulders and fighting fists were once the major symbols.”

What are the seeds of violence? Freud found “a powerful measure of desire for aggression” in human instincts. He added: “The very emphasis of the commandment ‘Thou shall not kill’ makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood, as it is perhaps also in ours.” Further, Freud held that man possesses a death instinct which, since it cannot be satisfied except in suicide, is instead turned outward as aggression against others. Dr. Fredric Wertham, noted crusader against violence, disagrees sharply and argues that violence is learned behavior, not a product of nature but of society: “The violent man is not the natural but the socially alienated man.”

The fact is that if violence is not innate, it is a basic component of human behavior. The German naturalist Konrad Lorenz believes that, unlike other carnivores, man did not at an early stage develop inhibitions against killing members of his own species—because he was too weak. As he developed weapons, he learned to kill, and he also learned moral restraints, but these never penetrated far enough. Writes Lorenz: “The deep emotional layers of our personality simply do not register the fact that the cocking of a forefinger to release a shot tears the entrails of another man.”

The yearning for nonviolence is as real as the yearning for love but, East or West, no religion has succeeded in establishing a society based on it. When trying to point to a really nonviolent community, anthropologists are usually forced to resort to the Arapesh of New Guinea or the Pygmies of the Ituri rain forest in the Congo. The human impulse to violence cannot be completely denied or suppressed. When that is tried, the result is often an inner violence in man that can burst out all the more fiercely later. At times the U.S. displays a kind of false prudery about violence to the point where, in the words of Psychiatrist Robert Coles, “almost anything related to forcefulness and the tensions between people is called violent.” While this attitude (including Dr. Wertham’s frequent blasts at anything from military toys to Batman) is plainly unrealistic, there is no denying that a gruesome violence on screens and in print is threatening to get out of hand. According to one theory, such vicarious experience of violence is healthy because it relieves the viewer’s own aggressions. But recent tests suggest the opposite.

Violence can be a simple, rational reaching for a goal, in its legal form of war or its illegal form of crime. It can often be irrational, as in a seemingly senseless killing or quarrel. But the distinction between irrational and rational violence is not easily drawn. Even the insane murderer kills to satisfy a need entirely real to him. Violence is often caused by “displaced aggression,” when anger is forced to aim at a substitute target. Every psychologist knows that a man might beat his child because he cannot beat his boss. And a man may even murder because he feels rejected or “alienated.” But what leads one man in such a situation to kill and another merely to get drunk is a question psychologists have never really answered. There is no doubt that violence has a cathartic effect, and the pressures that cause it must find an outlet of one kind or another. (Japan’s Matsushita Electric Co. has set up a dummy of the foreman that workers can beat up on a given day once a week, thereby presumably releasing their aggressions.)

But the aims of violence are usually mixed. Several violent codes combine a functional purpose with an emotional mystique. This was true of the aristocratic dueling code, which served to maintain a social hierarchy that became enshrouded in trappings of honor and death. It is true of the city gang, which functions as a rough and ready community but also includes a mystique in which violence is equated with courage and crime with merit. It is, finally, true of revolutionary ideology, which combines the brutal but often practical belief that only violence can pull down the existing order through a crude poetry about the purifying properties of blood and fire. “I believe in the cutting off of heads,” proclaimed Marat during the French Revolution, and his contemporary, the Marquis de Sade, preached, in the duller pages of his books, the virtue of murder as policy. Explains Brandeis University Sociologist Lewis Coser: “The act of violence commits a man symbolically to the revolutionary movement and breaks his ties with his previous life. He is, so to speak, reborn.” The late Frantz Fanon, a polemicist for anticolonial revolution, wrote: “Violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex.”

Cutting Edge

It is something resembling this revolutionary mystique that Stokely Carmichael and a few others are trying to impose on the Amerian Negro movement. Mixed with the anarchical slogans of “Burn, baby, burn!” and “Tear down the courthouses,” there is a calculated conviction that violence is above all else a language, and that this language, through fear, will persuade white society to give things to the Negro that it would not otherwise give. Says Lester Mc-Kinney, Washington head of S.N.C.C.: “In the minds of the people, history has proved that any meaningful social change has come through a bloody revolution.” Many Negro leaders point to the violent tactics of the labor movement in gaining its ends. Even Negro Sociologist Kenneth Clark, no advocate of black power, calls violence “the cutting edge of justice.” Social change for Negroes is moving faster than at any time in 100 years; for that very reason, Negroes were able to decide that things were still moving too slowly. The riots, as the President’s Crime Commission report puts it, are a way to “let America know.”

But the language of violence is crude and dangerous for those who use it. As Hannah Arendt notes, the Western tradition is full of violence and its legend seems to say, “whatever brotherhood human beings may be capable of has grown out of fratricide”; yet she also points out that neither wars nor revolutions are “ever completely determined by violence. Where violence rules absolutely, everything and everybody must fall silent.” Violence is not power. In the last analysis it is an admission of failure, a desire for a magical shortcut, an act of despair. Shameful though conditions in the Negro ghettos are, violence is not really the only language left in which to appeal for improvement.

Dealing with violence, the U.S. faces several tasks, none easy. One is to provide more intelligent, effective law enforcement and, through legislation, to do away with the dangerous unfettered sale of firearms. Another is nothing less than the elimination of the ghetto and what it stands for: an increasingly disaffected population. Though probably there will always be violence—out of anger or greed, love or madness—large-scale, socially significant violence is usually caused by authentic grievances, and the U.S. should be able to narrow if not eliminate these. But that leaves, finally, the individual flash or explosion of violence; and to deal with this, man must learn more about man—the mystery that can turn creative energy into brute force, a peaceful crowd into a mob, and an ineffectual weakling into a mass murderer.

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Essay Samples on Gang Violence

The effects of youth gang membership.

Following recent studies, as of 2015 there are over one million adolescent gang members in the United States. Adolescent gang members can be between the ages of 5 and 17. There is an average of 2 percent of youth who are in a gang in...

  • Community Violence
  • Gang Violence
  • Youth Violence

Gang Violence In 'Freedom Writers'

2 years after the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, racial tensions still remain high. And for the poorer communities in Long Beach California, gang life thrived. It was no different for Woodrow Wilson High School. Once one of the best in the country, now...

  • Freedom Writers

Gang Violence Is An Issue Of National Worry

It must be recalled that the greater part of the posse viciousness are significantly determined by the pack codes, which drives or pushes the individuals not to seem frail whenever they are wronged i.e. they should show up turf and consequently have a tendency to...

Problem Of Gang Violence in Arizona

I lived in Arizona for most of my life and I have seen a lot with the time I have been living here. I have seen many gangs from bloods, crips, MS-13, etc. We have a task force to try to prevent gangs from causing...

Gang Violence: Goals And Reasons

A gang is defined as an association of three or more individuals whose members collectively identify them by adopting a group identity, which they use to create an atmosphere of fear or intimidation, frequently by employing one or more of the following: a common name,...

  • Criminal Behavior

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Best topics on Gang Violence

1. The Effects Of Youth Gang Membership

2. Gang Violence In ‘Freedom Writers’

3. Gang Violence Is An Issue Of National Worry

4. Problem Of Gang Violence in Arizona

5. Gang Violence: Goals And Reasons

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Gangs, Guns, Drugs, and Violence: an Investigation Essay

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Introduction

The relationship between guns, street gangs, and drug trafficking organizations, what makes guns a significant part of the gang culture, why is a gun valuable to a gang member, the effects of violence on a victim, a witness, and a perpetrator, works cited.

The problem of gangs is of crucial importance for the system of justice nowadays. The presence of gangs significantly increases the amount of violence in the area. Gang members commit a wide range of crimes that vary from petty thefts to heavy drug dealing, pimping, and homicide, and pose a great danger to society. In our paper, we will look into the issues of correlation between gangs, drug trafficking organizations, and illegal firearms; we will also consider the role of weapons in gang culture, and investigate the effects that violence can have on people.

There exists a strong relationship between gangs and drug dealing. It is known that various gangs are the main distributors of narcotics in the USA. Illegal drugs have always been an extremely lucrative type of business, and today’s gangs are involved in dealing in various types of this illegal merchandise, such as marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin.

Drug dealing and redistribution are often associated with illegal possession and usage of firearms. This association is justified. Illegal drugs are extremely expensive, and persons who carry and sell them have to be able to protect themselves from members of rivals who might want to rob them of these drugs.

The fact that violence is extremely widespread in gang members’ everyday life and the need to protect themselves from rivals result in the prevalence of firearms among gangsters. They not only own weapons but also become distributors, for this business is also extremely profitable. According to some estimations, millions of dollars can be made by gangs monthly as the result of drug and weapon dealing and other criminal activities.

It is, on the other hand, noted that, despite gangs’ weapon trafficking and dealing activities, there is no significant evidence to suggest serious connections between street gangs and international terrorist organizations (who are large distributors of illegal firearms), although such connections are possible (“Transnational Gangs: Unit Four, Lesson 4a” 05:39).

Firearms are an important part of gang culture not only due to the fact that gang members have to protect themselves from their rivals while selling narcotics but also because they are tools of violence, which is an important part of the life of gangsters. Brutality is usually common among gangsters’ family members and in their neighborhoods. This means that (future) gang members grow up in an environment which simply does not allow them to know that violence is not the sole method for solving problems, but is, in fact, among the worst methods for doing that.

The very notion of gang implies a large amount of violence; gang members are, as a rule, expected to be able to practice it at any moment. Even more, the practice of rampage, brutality and bloodshed is encouraged, as it brings respect of the peers to the perpetrator. Violence becomes an integral part of a gangster’s life and is often perceived as something indispensable. We believe that the example of a gang member talking about the necessity of violence in the video shown in Lesson 4b is typical (“Transnational Gangs: Unit Four, Lesson 4b” 00:54). Another gangster in the video excitedly shouts about how bloodshed is vital for him; he says that his gang’s mission is killing their enemies (“Transnational Gangs: Unit Four, Lesson 4b” 04:19). Therefore, as we already have mentioned, firearms are an essential part of gangs’ culture because they are instruments for committing violence.

It should be noted that the internal life of a gang is full of struggle and brutality, as well. Gang members often compete with one another for power, each of them striving to get to the top of their clique (“Transnational Gangs: Unit Four, Lesson 4d” 07:47). Here, a gangster’s weapon has an important use, as well.

As we have just seen, a gun is an indispensable part of many a gangster’s life. It is no wonder that the weapon is often endowed with special value by its owner, for, apart from being an instrument of violence, it becomes a tool of getting and maintaining power and influence. It brings its owner the respect of their peers, which is usually based on fear in the gang environment. Therefore, it is common for gangsters to admire their weapons very much.

There is no doubt that violence is harmful not only to victims but also to those who witness it or commit it. Let us look into each of these cases in turn.

Apart from bodily harm, violence can have a severe negative impact on the victim’s psychological condition and mental health. Having suffered from physical consequences of violence, the victim can suffer from the feeling of defenselessness, which results in constant fear and anxiety. When violence is repetitive and is combined with psychological pressure, it can result in an inferiority complex (for example, pimps who beat up their prostitutes often tell them that they are good for nothing, will never find another job, etc., which successfully helps exploit the girls and women for long years). The feeling of inferiority and other psychological problems often need to be balanced somehow; thus, people who constantly suffer from e.g. home violence are likely to practice violence against defenseless people, as well. Brutality can also lead to various psychiatric disorders in its victims.

The effect of violence on a witness is also, undoubtedly, harmful. If a person feels defenseless against perpetrators, witnessing violence can result in similar feelings of fear and anxiety. If the violence is extreme, it can also cause some psychiatric disorders even in this case; this is especially likely to occur in children. On the other hand, if a person does not feel defenseless against the opponent, they also might become “infected” and respond with violence; a phenomenon of an angry mob where one simply copies the behavior of the others is well-known.

And, finally, the effect of committing violence changes the perpetrator for the worse. To practice violence, one generally needs to have a certain inclination towards it, and the act of practicing it exacerbates this inclination. The usage of violence accustoms the offender to it and diminishes possible moral obstacles to brutality. Once the offender stops having any qualms about violence, they can experience the feeling of satisfaction and superiority over their victim, which may be quite addictive. It is also worth pointing out that extreme acts of violence (such as homicide) are often accompanied by the dehumanization of the victim, which makes the violence or the process of murder easier. Dehumanization is, for instance, very common among racist groups, during wars, and in other similar situations where violence is encouraged.

Therefore, violence is not only physically harmful to its victim; it is also mentally damaging to anyone who becomes involved in it in any way.

As we have seen, gangs are the main suppliers of narcotics in the USA. Violence is a native environment for gangs; weapons have become an important part of their culture. Having also considered the effects that violence can have on people, we can confirm our statement that gangs, illegal organizations which bask in violence, pose a great danger to society.

“Review: Week 4.” Online video clip. UCI Replay . The University of California, Irvine, n.d. Web. 2015.

“Transnational Gangs: Unit Four, Lesson 4a.” Online video clip. UCI Replay . The University of California, Irvine, n.d. Web. 2015.

“Transnational Gangs: Unit Four, Lesson 4b.” Online video clip. UCI Replay . The University of California, Irvine, n.d. Web. 2015.

“Transnational Gangs: Unit Four, Lesson 4d.” Online video clip. UCI Replay . The University of California, Irvine, n.d. Web. 2015.

“Transnational Gangs: Unit Four, Lesson 4e.” Online video clip. UCI Replay . The University of California, Irvine, n.d. Web. 2015.

“Transnational Gangs: Unit One, Lesson 16.” Online video clip. UCI Replay . The University of California, Irvine, n.d. Web. 2015.

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  • Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, April 16). Gangs, Guns, Drugs, and Violence: an Investigation. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gangs-guns-drugs-and-violence-an-investigation/

"Gangs, Guns, Drugs, and Violence: an Investigation." IvyPanda , 16 Apr. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/gangs-guns-drugs-and-violence-an-investigation/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Gangs, Guns, Drugs, and Violence: an Investigation'. 16 April.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Gangs, Guns, Drugs, and Violence: an Investigation." April 16, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gangs-guns-drugs-and-violence-an-investigation/.

1. IvyPanda . "Gangs, Guns, Drugs, and Violence: an Investigation." April 16, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gangs-guns-drugs-and-violence-an-investigation/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Gangs, Guns, Drugs, and Violence: an Investigation." April 16, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gangs-guns-drugs-and-violence-an-investigation/.

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Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Gang Violence — Gang Violence In The Outsiders

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Gang Violence in The Outsiders

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Published: Mar 25, 2024

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Home / Essay Samples / Social Issues / Gang Violence / The Effects of Gangs Culture and Violence on Society

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