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Read “Islands in the Street: Urban Gangs in the United States” (p.166) in Essentials of Sociology to obtain background information. What are the functions that gangs fulfill (the needs they meet)?
Suppose you have been hired as an urban planner for the city of Los Angeles. How could you arrange to meet the needs that gangs fulfill in ways that minimize violence and encourage youth to follow mainstream norms?
Using your textbook and additional resources, write a two-three page paper addressing the issues of Gangs in America.
Be certain to use all three major sociological theories – functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism – in your analysis. Explain deviance such as street gangs from all three of the main sociological perspectives.
You will find some additional resources to help with the homework in the APA Style tab in the Course Home navigation bar. This information can help you in writing a research paper, links for researching your topic, and additional help on the theoretical perspectives. You may want to use these resources, but do not restrict yourself to these resources.
Please note your grade will be based on the content of your work as well as on the spelling, grammar, and presentation. The paper should be double-spaced and in a regular font and size. The recommended fonts and sizes are Times New Roman, Arial, or Courier, size 12.
Down- to- Earth Sociology Islands in the Street: Urban Gangs in the United States
For more than ten years, sociologist Martín Sánchez- Jankowski ( 1991) did participant observation of thirty- seven African American, Chicano, Dominican, Irish, Jamaican, and Puerto Rican gangs in Boston, Los Angeles, and New York City. The gangs earned money through gambling, arson, mugging, armed robbery, and selling moonshine, drugs, guns, stolen car parts, and protection. Sánchez- Jankowski ate, slept, and fought with the gangs, but by mutual agreement he did not participate in drug dealing or other illegal activities. He was seriously injured twice during the study. Contrary to stereotypes, Sánchez- Jankowski did not find that the motive for join-ing was to escape a broken home ( there were as many members from intact families as from broken homes) or to seek a substitute family ( the same number of boys said they were close to their families as those who said they were not). Rather, the boys joined to gain access to money, to have recreation (including girls and drugs), to maintain anonymity in committing crimes, to get protection, and to help the community. This last reason may seem surprising, but in some neighborhoods, gangs protect residents from outsiders and spearhead political change ( Kontos et al. 2003). The boys also saw the gang as an alternative to the dead- end— and deadening— jobs held by their parents. Neighborhood residents are ambivalent about gangs. On the one hand, they fear the violence. On the other hand, many of the adults once be-longed to gangs, some gangs provide better protection than the police, and gang members are the children of people who live in the neighborhood. Particular gangs will come and go, but gangs will likely always remain part of the city. As function-alists point out, gangs fulfill needs of poor youth who live on the margins of society.
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