Juvenile Crime & Attitudes Toward Minorities

This increase in gangs has alter the new-fashioned system, both in its changing attitudes towards jejune offenders and in its strengthened attempts to control the juvenile gang problem. This mind toughened is summed up in the words of San Diego Prosecutor Deborah Einhorn: "Being in a gang is not like being a member of the Boy Scouts. Gangs commit crimes. And gang social rank is a good gauge of character. It goes to the very heart of the matter, which is whether a close toone would do well on probation or whether they should go to prison house" (Lahey, et al, 271-74).

In California, a recently-passed initiative allows prosecutors to determine whether to charge offenders everyplace the age of 14 as adults in particular crimes; this is instantly being attacked by defense attorneys, most prominently in the recent San Diego school shooting, as an unconstitutional restriction on judicial authority - previously such a occasion or whether to deal with a juvenile in the juvenile or adult referee system was made by a judge - but the new law has been invoked to a fault in such cases as the gang murders at Glendale mellowed School.

Determining who is and who is not a gang member, and the level of an individual's elaborateness in gang activity, has a great deal to do with how that individual will be treated in the justice system.

Research indicates that at that place is no easy definition for a juvenile gang and that there ar few conclusive indications that a juvenile is convolute in a gang. Gangs have been around since before the Montagues and Capulets and some definitions of gangs are so inclusive that the Girl Scouts and the bridge federation could be classified as gangs. Gangs have been defined in a variety of ways (Lahey, et al, 262).

In an effort to incur us feel safer, and in an effort to win votes, actors in the juvenile justice system make bold statements around their ability to combat the problem and get the offenders off the streets. At the other end is the understanding that punishing a juvenile for mere membership in a gang, or

"A gang sometimes is defined as a group, bigger or small, that has a name, common symbols, a territory, a contact place or pattern and an organization towards criminality. Gang members are products of the community. They range in age, and members may be male or female. Gangs organize themselves in various ways - sometimes under the guise of social or religious groups, ostensibly gear toward cultural improvement, yet often applying illegitimate or misbranded tactics-such as violence, extortion and fear- to enhance gang power, prestige and profits" (Riley, 1997, 132).

Often, membership in a neighborhood gang can put in the place of both a strong male role model and a feeling of belonging to a "family." This is additionally true for girls, who will have a mother disappear at work, and who may be subject to child abu
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