Gangs

Gangs

By: Eric Mrdjenovich

Although once thought to be an inner-city problem, gang violence has spread to communities throughout the United States. At last count, there were more than 24,500 different youth gangs around the country, and more than 772,500 teens and young adults were members of gangs. Youth gangs are responsible for much of the serious violence in the United States. In schools and neighborhoods where they are active, they create a climate of fear and increase the amount of violence and criminal behavior. Teens that are gang members are much more likely than other teens to commit serious and violent crimes. For example, a survey in Denver found that while only 14% of teens were gang members, they were responsible for committing 89% of the serious violent crimes. Joining a gang is dangerous. Violent conflict between gangs is common, and gang members are at least 60 times more likely to be killed than the rest of the population. Teens today are becoming more deprived of knowledge, more violent, and are getting involved in many violent gangs.

One extreme solution to this problem is to have one final huge battle royal between all the gangs and see who comes out victorious and then we throw the winners in jail for murder. This solution would work because it would simply get rid of the gangs. If all the gangs fought and killed each other there wouldn't be any left. And then people would see what happens when you join a gang and they wouldn't join or create another. Another reason this works is because it would save us the money of repairing the damage that gangs cause. Gangs vandalize property, kill people, and steal merchandise from companies. All of that has to get replaced which means we have to pay for it. And now we could if we followed this solution. But there are also some drawbacks to this solution. For example; way too many people would get killed, it would cost too much money to pay for the event and buy weapons and ammo, it would result in a huge economic loss,