Teens_And_Gang_Mentality

Teens And Gang Mentality Teenagers involved in criminal and gang-orientated violence and activity is greatly on the rise. Stemming from major cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, the spread of gang mentality is seeping its way into the cracks of small cities and towns and is infecting youth throughout North America. Gang subculture is influencing teens and even children as early as the age of ten. The psychological and social factors that are fueling the increase in numbers of teenagers in gangs are readily identifiable. Ethnicity, social class, economic reasons and gender are strong contributing factors to the demographics and social structure of teens and gangs. Ethnicity and social class do play a role in criminal activity. For instance, the majority of gangs in the United States are primarily made up of poorer Hispanics (44%) and African Americans (35%) with Caucasians contributing only 14 percent of gang members. There are historical reasons for this noticeable population of ethnics in gangs. Most researchers believe that Hispanic street gangs can be traced back to the early 1900’s. Those gangs originally developed as a result of incidents that occurred more than fifty years before that. Hispanic gang origins date back to 1835 with the revolt of gangs, gang, teens, join, money, members, social, even, teenagers, teen, mentality, look, don’t, class, cities, believe, back, way, very, turn, that’s, reasons, protection, power, own, one, often, offer, lot, life, involved, hispanics, hispanic, factors, ethnicity