One of the most vicious and inescapable cycles in the United States is that of poverty. Once individuals succumb to the grasp of an impoverished life, breaking back out to being financially sound, well nourished, or well educated is a daunting and incredibly difficult task. Through the desperation of this cycle, many children and adolescents choose to enter gangs to help them belong and get through the difficult lives they are forced to live. These children, while feeling like they belong and are protected by the bonds they establish within the gangs, are doing more harm to their lives (and the lives of those around them) than they are preventing.
This web site will serve multiple purposes. First, information pertaining to current adolescent gang statistics will be presented. Hopefully, these statistics will help those reading to realize the epidemic that is gang-life and interest them enough to get them involved in the intervention process. Also, this section will function as a source of statistics to help open the eyes of many as to how widespread the problem truly is. Many individuals will be shocked to realize just how close to home a great deal of the numbers will hit and the dangers that these numbers truly represent.
Secondly, a profile on adolescent gang-members will be provided. The best way to stop gangs from thriving is to cut off their supply of fresh new members. By giving a profile of at-risk adolescents and listing ways to identify adolescents currently involved in gangs the reader will be better informed as to how to better recognize children who need to partake in interventions in order to be pulled away from the hazardous life they are gravitating towards. Parents and individuals working in child related fields (teaching, child-care, mentoring programs, etc…) should be able to recognize if their child or a child in their care may be at risk and intervene before the child is at risk.
Next, methods to prevent the adolescent from becoming involved in a gang will be presented. Through these methods, parents and other adult individuals in the teenager’s life will have methods of making sure the individual never gets involved in gangs in the first place. This is much safer and effective than an intervention, so recognizing the problem and preventing it from ever occurring are of utmost importance.
As it is not always possible to stop the problem before it starts, the next section will cover possible intervention techniques. If the preventions did not help or the problem was not caught in time, interventions are the last option to saving the adolescent from gang involvement. Mentoring and intervention programs, at-home methods, and other scientifically studied strategies will be discussed to cover the topic as thoroughly as possible.
Finally, a section of outside resources will be provided. These resources (both web and print based) will share with the reader other web sites and articles that may help them with prevention and intervention. As this site will only outline a certain amount of the entirety of material on the matter, providing individuals with a broader range of information will undoubtedly be vital to their success at saving at least one teenager from the grasp of gang life.
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