Title: Poverty, Broken Homes, Violence: The Making of a Gang Member | Psychology Today
Headings: Poverty, Broken Homes, Violence: The Making of a Gang Member
Robert T Muller Ph.D.
Poverty, Broken Homes, Violence: The Making of a Gang Member
How the need for community leads some teens to find it in gangs.

Content: Some of these teens were members of gangs, others were innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Approximately 5,750 people were killed in Los Angeles County alone in the past 10 years in gang-related violence, many of them children and teenagers. With gangs reportedly recruiting members as young as 11, this is a social problem that mustn’t be ignored. There are many risks associated with gang membership, including exposure to violent crime, and possible incarceration. Why are so many adolescents willing to join? Several risk factors have been identified that increase the likelihood that a teen will join a gang including the presence of gangs in the neighborhood, having gang members in the family already, histories of sexual or physical abuse, growing up in poverty, having access to weapons and drugs, and a lack of success in other areas of life, such as school. Having identified these risk factors, experts propose that young adults join gangs because they both act as a surrogate family, as well as provide a sense of belonging, power, control and prestige; all things that are commonly identified as absent in childhood among gang initiates. The idea of a gang acting as a substitute family is supported in interviews conducted by Joe Killian, a writer for the News and Record; Killian spoke with 40 gang members from Greensboro, North Carolina.