American Street Gangs

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses the street gang problem in the US and what can be done to help curtail gang activity. The paper specifically looks at how Hollywood has helped to glamorize street gangs as well as how the rap music industry glamorizes gangs. The paper then shows how more research is needed to better understand street gangs, since law enforcement on its own is failing to impact the problem.

Outline:
Glamorizing the American Gang Image
Deglamorizing American Street Gangs

From the Paper:

"The American street gang problem is one of a layered problem. The image of the American gangster has been glamorized by Americans, and shown to be one way, perhaps the easier way, of accomplishing the American dream. Unfortunately, as anyone living in a major American city like Chicago, Boston, or LA can tell us, there is nothing glamorous about bullets ripping through the paper thin walls of a housing development or finding your own child lying dead in the street before he or she has even reached puberty as a result of gangland violence. American street gangs have evolved, spreading now beyond the cities, to the suburbs and are now doing battle for the rural areas in order to expand the operations that feed the gangland lifestyle: drug marketing and manufacturing, prostitution, coercion, money laundering, and any other illicit vice that might be sold to Americans for a one hundred percent profit. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Contemporary Gangs: An Organizational Analysis. New York: LFB Scholoarly Publishing, 2002. Questia. 14 May 2008 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=111541620>.
• Coppola, Francis Ford (dir). The Godfather , motion picture. Paramount Pictures (1972), USA.
• Hagedorn, John M. "Race Not Space: A Revisionist History of Gangs in Chicago." The Journal of African American History 91.2 (2006): 194+. Questia. 14 May 2008 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5017029131>.
• Scorsese, Martin (dir). Casino, motion picture. Universal Pictures (1995), USA.
• Scorsese, Martin (dir). The Departed, motion picture. Warner Brothers Pictures (2006), USA.

More papers on American Street Gangs:

• Research Paper # 125112 : "The Globalization of Gangs"
• Research Paper # 4778 : "Youth Street Gangs: A Look Into African-American Male Membership"
• Argumentative Essay # 150226 : "Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs and Organized Crime"

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