Gang Members Come From Unstable Households? There Essay

Gang Members Come From Unstable Households?

There exists a wide range of reasons as to why individuals join gangs. Reasons in this case could include but are not limited to the need for protection, economic gain, peer pressure as well as familial instability. Ritter and Lampkin (2012) note that people enlist as gang members for different reasons "but it is usually because the gang offers something the individual is lacking." According to the authors, young adults could end up enlisting as gang members "because they lack the feeling of belonging to a group or do not feel loved because of their unstable home life" (Ritter and Lampkin, 2012). In that regard, such individuals see the gang as a second home where they can freely interact with other members of the gang. Further, when it comes to broken homes, the authors in this case note that absentia parents (in most cases the father) also contribute towards youth gang membership. In such a case, enlisting for gang membership may in one way or the other "increase access to multiple father figures" perhaps for those who are raised in broken unstable families (Ritter and Lampkin, 2012). Most gang members could also have been raised in an unstable familial setting in which case they were deprived of the attention they deserved. Ritter and Lampkin (2012) are of the opinion that such individuals may not have received the right dose of attention as a result of a variety of reasons including but not limited to a history of substance abuse on the part of the parents, the tendency of parents to work long hours etc. All these can be taken to be indicators of instability within a given household.Hence in such a case, young adults may view gang membership as their only way of obtaining a sense of belonging.

According to Siegel and Welsh (2010), predatory crime is most common in neighborhoods having limited employment opportunities. In the authors' opinion, households tend to be destabilized by unemployment and it is for that reason that "unstable families are more likely to produce children who choose aggression as a means of dealing with limited opportunity" (Siegel and Welsh, 2010). Based on this assertion, there are high chances of young adults from families destabilized by limited employment opportunities joining gangs. Siegel and Welsh (2010) also note that the authority parents have over their children is significantly diminished by limited employment opportunities. Siegel's and Welsh's views are further reinforced by Wiener (1999) who is of the opinion that those neighborhoods which are gang-infested tend to be depressed from an economic perspective. In the author's own words, "because families often reflect these existing economic conditions, they are often weak and fragmented" (Wiener 1999). It is this weakness and fragmentation that in some instances destabilizes families. Hence in that regard, there exists a positive relationship between unstable households (as a result of limited….....