Abstract
This paper contends that youth gangs can be considered small businesses that serve larger lucrative operations. It shows how an exploration of increased youth gang activity in non-metropolitan areas of North America allows a glimpse of a broader criminal industry centered on front-line drug commodities but also on real estate speculation, fraud, mobility, branch plants, franchises and territories claimed by networks of which youth gangs are a visible symptom.

Outline:
Introduction
Gang Networks
Enforcement Approaches
Discussion

From the Paper
" A Royal Canadian Mounted Police summary noted the need to examine organized crime and gang trends, as opposed to incidents of youth crime in North America and also Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala as a 20-year phenomenon. (2006) Gangs surface in hinterland, non-metropolitan areas for logical reasons. In Canada, the shift to crystal methamphetamine marketing features demand for rural laboratory sites and preparing Crystal Meth requires supplies of anhydrous ammonia, a common farm fertilizer, so that Manitoba farmers are now told how to guard fertilizer supplies in the presence of dozens of small 'invisible labs'. Motorcycle gangs or other organized criminal networks, as far away as Eastern Europe, need to be understood as the foundation of gangs in all parts of North America. "

Tags:criminal, industry, franchises, fraud, drugs

Abstract
This paper describes the proliferation of youth gangs into rural areas, policing approaches, and the often missing context of youth gangs serving the interests of organized crime as make rural migration less surprising. Ironically, the paper explains, rural police can be more alert to connections to organized crime and more effective in direct approaches taken to early gang activity. The paper calls for researchers to address youth gangs in full context of business, cocaine supplies, organized crime, in which youth are used as distributors.

From the Paper
"North Americans may see youth gangs as an urban phenomenon, part of a tendency to see violence, substance abuse and criminality as urban, not rural phenomena, when in fact no part of the United States or Canada is immune to gang activity. Weisheit & Wells interviewed 216 non-metropolitan police agencies across the U.S. on matters of gangs, most informants noting youth gang activity in non-metropolitan areas in drug sales, assaults, theft and burglary, vandalism and shootings whose imprint could be more dramatic than in larger cities. (2001:180) Also, some rural ..."

Tags:urban, country, arrest, violence, young

From the Paper
"Adolescent Boys, Family Life & Gangs
Introduction
Youth gangs are usually defined as groups of young people who frequently engage in illegal activity on a group basis (Rogers, 1991, p. 20). Generally, 90 to 95 percent of gang members are males, many of them adolescent males (Curry & Decker, 1998, p. 97). Gangs are usually territorial in nature, identifying with a particular neighborhood and protecting their "turf" from encroachment by other gangs. Better organized gangs often control economically motivated crime such as burglary, extortion or drug-trafficking at the neighborhood level. They may also sell "protection" from criminal activity to legitimate merchants (Rogers, 1991, p. 20). Generally, youth gangs exploded in the 1980s in what one researcher called "an historic American urban social problem" (Rogers, 1991, p. 20). "

Tags:JUVENILE, DELINQUENCY

Abstract
This paper discusses research into North American youth gangs and suggests a basic intervention for senior public school girls involved in girl gangs. The paper focuses on explaining the vulnerabilities of girls when they're involved in gangs or associating with gang members and paper discusses urban youth gangs according to a systems approach borrowed from the study of North American families. In particular, the paper examines how the school has proven to be a place where parents or other adults can commence volunteer service towards protecting girls and their communities from gang influences. The paper also looks at how school-based interventions for young people tend to attract concerned adults who can make strong everyday contributions to 'reclaiming' their areas while aiding youths involved in gangs.

Outline:
Introduction
The Problem
Significance
Review of Literature
A School or Community Centre Intervention
Presenting Materials
Responding to Questions on Girl Gangs
Including Adults
Discussion
Concluding Remarks

From the Paper
"Alarm at the crack cocaine culture of often violent youth gangs began in the mid-1980s, at first, failing to address the reality of girls as opposed to gang-involved boys, but by the time of the 1990s national assessment of the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program, it was known that girls should be addressed as a distinct entity, that one could not refer to generic young people. (Ramsey Et Al: 2003, Williams Et Al: 2002, Esbensen & Osgood: 1999) Girls are threatened by gang membership because their experiences of gang life differ from those of most boys in the presence of a very sexist subculture. "

Tags:crack, cocaine, culture, violence, drugs

Abstract
This paper looks at how criminal street gangs have created social disorder in various parts of the United States, prompting policymakers and politicians alike to face an unpleasant truth; they must realize the tremendous task ahead of them in preventing and suppressing gangs and their illegal and violent activities. It discusses how gangs are often of the majority of "urban minority underclass" and how they are often a result of dismal socioeconomic and social conditions. It concludes that social disorganization plays a major part in why youth of today (and even yesteryear) have and will continue to join gangs.

Outline
Abstract
Etiology
Prediction and Prevention
Recommended Criminal Justice Responses
Conclusion

From the Paper
"Establishing public social control in schools to help bridge the gap between police and children and help them promote a collective efficacy in their community could be the first step. The other might be that churches, schools, and afternoon programs establish specially designed programs that help keep children away from trouble. The third policy might be that peers, families or relatives help to be involved. Promoting self-awareness and trust within the community will help keep collective efficacy down. Neighbors who look out for one another have a better chance of keeping out crime. Having trust in their public servant, (i.e. the police) will establish cohesiveness between the community and police. Community-watch programs can thus be established and lower the crimes within the community because there is trust amongst the community as well as with the police and vise versa."

Tags:youth, poverty, police, community

Abstract
This paper examines A. Blumstein's article, "Youth, Guns, and Violent Crime", and relates that this article addresses the particular vulnerability and over-representation of youth in crimes involving violence. The paper discusses Blumstein's correlation between youth involved violent crime trends during the 1980s and 1990s, and trends in gun access and drug marketing peaks during these years. Also discussed are the three factors Blumstein sees as the reason for the eventual decline in youth violence since 2000. In addition, the paper looks at the belief held by many criminologists that early exposure to guns and other forms of violence produces violent criminal behaviour throughout life. Lastly, the paper notes that a consistent theme applied in intercepting urban violence is to fortify both the justice system and social development programs.

From the Paper
"Blumstein (2002) explains the decisions to engage in violence in terms of the form and level of previous exposure an individual has to surrounding violent conditions. He discusses the particular vulnerability and over-representation of youth in crimes involving violence, and attributes current trends of violent crimes to drug addiction, drug market involvement, and increased access and utilization of lethal weapons. He further challenges the concept of "superpredators", a presumed breed of ruthless youth, destined for reckless, violent lifestyles. This breed of predators is argued to be helplessly predisposed to violent acts without hope of intervention (Blumstein, 2002)."

Tags:guns, drugs, street, gangs, upbringing

Abstract
This paper explains that the phenomena of minority gangs are linked strongly to patterns of immigrations within specific urban hubs for particular ethnic groups, such as the recent influx of immigrants from Asian and Latin American countries. Next, the author relate how Asian and Latino gangs differ and yet are similar in the ways they affect the community and the criminal system that is attempting to hold back the rising tide of gang violence. The paper concludes that, without control, the community ultimately suffers from its own plague of gang violence; however, many of these communities are working along side promising existing state and city resources aimed at preventing youth from entering into a gang lifestyle.

From the Paper
"This type of robbery is very intimate; the robber enters into the confines of the home--a sacred place for the home owner and the family which lives there. Another factor of such crimes as they are seen committed by Asian gang members, they are directed specifically at members of their own community. Their neighbors, friends, and local business owners are all targets. This is further fueled by the Asian community's tendency to not involve police in such crimes caused mainly by the failure of police both here in the U.S. and abroad in Asian nations. ... By knowing the traditions of their own community, many Asian gang members take full advantage of it."

Tags:disenfranchisement, racial identity, protection territory programs

Abstract
This paper summarizes Durkheim's concept of anomie often used to explain crime, and refers to the youth gang phenomenon in central Canada that can be explained by referring to anomie. The paper addresses the benefits of the model and its defects and discusses how anomie does not always promote criminality as a period of normlessness or a society seeming to have no rules or predictability; it also produces new religious activities.

From the Paper
"Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) first expressed his concept of anomie appeared in his 1893 study, "The Division of Labour in Society", and again in 1897, in a chapter `Anomic Suicide' in "Suicide". Durkheim argued that in a period of sharp social change, as in one of sudden prosperity or depression, individuals cannot find their usual places or occupations, do not know what to expect of one another and cannot follow conventional courses of action they believed would arrange their economic or other lives. As a feature of deregulation and dislocation, criminality is a possible..."

Tags:durkheim, anomie, youth gangs

Abstract
This paper reviews and analyzes the literature regarding at-risk students, their need to have a quality continuation and alternative education and the need for high quality teachers to make these programs successful. The author points out that the drop-out rate in America, especially in big urban areas, remains a serious problem. These at-risk young people are in need of leadership and alternatives to gangs, drugs, idleness and stagnation. The paper stresses that the logical way to attack this problem is through great, not merely "good", continuation programs.

Table of Contents:
What are Continuation Schools?
Definition of an At-Risk Student
History of Continuation Schools
How Do Continuation Schools Operate?
Conclusion

From the Paper
"An article in the journal "Preventing School Failure" has a somewhat different thrust than previous articles mentioned in this review of the literature. Indeed, this scholarly article asserts that while there has been "a tremendous growth" in the availability of alternative educational programs for at-risk young people, there is "little empirical evidence" available today to actually identify the various components that are required to build effective continuation programs. And so the authors present studies of alternative school programs in order to offer some data and information that can be used by educators in building better continuation programs."

Tags:summerhill, dangerous neighborhood, independent study format, credit accrual, cynical

From the Paper
"CRIME AND URBANIZATION
Introduction
This research examines the issue of the potential relationship between the rate of criminal behavior and the process of urbanization. Urbanization has increased steadily and approximately equally in North American societies - Canada and the United States. Increases in the level of criminal behavior in the two countries have been disparate - much higher in the United States than in Canada. In fact, the rate of property crime in Canada has been declining (Stephens, 1994, p. 25). Violent crime rates in Canada overall have declined slightly, however, violent criminal behavior by adolescents in Canada has increased sharply, although not to the levels prevalent in the United States (Farnsworth, 1995, p. A5). Urbanization, thus, may not be the major.."