Gang Violence in US

Gang violence in the 90’s was a hard thing to be around for any age. Many people did not have a choice of what path they could follow. Most people in that environment dealt with peer pressure, children choosing a life risking path, parents losing their children,and some growing into a bad home.

So many of the children around that kind of environment would look up to bad role models. Many would see their friends join gangs for the status or peer pressured into the gangs.

Many would solemnly just join to have a kind of protection from the dangers of their own streets.Then there was the few that did create their own also for the main reason of safety. Like Hector Becerra said in his article , on la times, “ Starting even something that weakly mimicked a gang – minus the hardcore commissions of crimes getting shot and arrested – didn’t seem like the craziest thing ever.” They had no actual safety and it was the only kind of world they truly understood.

Many of these children joining gangs would be making a life risking choice. So many of the people who join end up having conflict or are pressured to prove things with crimes. Children as young 15 maybe even younger would join and wind up dead just months being in the these gangs. Like a young child who was exactly 15 named Brandon Wingo part of a gang named Only My Brothers in wilmington was shot and killed by a member of the rival gang Shoot to Kill according to court testimony.

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So many of these teens also join gangs thinking it will make life easier and fulfill whatever they want. They feel that a high place in the community they are part of will save them from any bad. Believing being part of these gangs will give them all the riches and wants. The only thing they forget is being part of gangs and getting what they want comes with a price. Like the words from a former gang member “ One thing I used to say: Being part if the gang was like being a broke billionaire. In that I mean you can have anything you want. It’s like another world you can’t see, and you can’t even imagine.” -Drexel Deal. It might be good to have a high position in that environment but the price is much higher.

Parents are also the top people who will get affected. So many children are lost cause they say the wrong thing or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The parents stay wondering where their child might be. They soon end up figuring out they had gotten arrested and charged with something that a parent could never imagine their child doing. Or even worse that child ends up dead for an absurd reason, argument, even a misunderstanding. Some parents who keep a close eye on the gang activities are not as surprised if it comes to a child losing their life on the streets or someone going missing. But the heartbreak of losing their child does not change. A parent tries to keep their child away from that path but when they are raised in that environment there is not much you can hide from them anymore. 

The child goes from having a bright future ahead of them to making one wrong decision or end up in a big mess and end up hurt or dead. A quote that every child should hear before making that decision is “ Life is so fragile and unpredictable , especially when you are in a gang or in a life of crime. It’s like playing poker; you think to yourself that you have a good hand. However , is only when you reveal your hand do you sometime discover to your horror that someone else’s hand is better.” by Drexel Deal. These parents would do anything to get the child they lost to gang violence.