Child Abuse and Neglect/Violent Youth and Gangs

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Child Abuse and Neglect/Violent Youth and Gangs

Since official statistics show that abuse and neglect can lead to future delinquency, this unit will examine their effects and how the juvenile court system attempts to prevent and deter them through treatment programs, adjudication, and intervention processes. In addition, violent youth and gangs will be discussed.
Official statistics on abuse and neglect indicate that violence against juveniles has increased over the past few years. While this may be due to improved reporting, there is little doubt that much violence against children continues to go unreported.
Due to the rising number of cases, states have implemented policies that specifically define abuse and how such cases should be handled, and that mandate requirements for foster parents and for those who work with abused and neglected children. Although these rules are followed when a case of violence against a child is reported, many individuals are still hesitant to become involved in matters of the family. This hesitation is perpetuated by the belief that families are sacred units with the right to privacy and the right to parent children as they see fit. Unfortunately, judges, juvenile court personnel, and social service workers may also buy into this philosophy and use methods that circumvent the protective measures put into place by legislators.
Regardless of the type of abuse or neglect, children may learn behaviors that they carry over into their relationships with others, increasing the chances that they will engage in violent or abusive behavior. Therefore, those who are victims of violent acts require our immediate attention, since evidence indicates that only early, direct intervention is likely to prevent recidivism. There appears to be little doubt that violence against and by juveniles is interrelated.
Violent Youth and Gangs
Gang activity is not a recent phenomenon. Gangs emerged from interstitial areas as the result of poor economic and social conditions, became integrated through conflict, and were territorial in nature. As they evolved, the "turf" gangs of yesteryear were replaced by more sophisticated organizations involved in drug trafficking and gun running as well as other forms of organized crime. Gangs became increasingly diverse in terms of age, with the older, more experienced members occupying leadership positions and, in some cases, continuing to control gangs even while imprisoned.
Characteristics of gangs include wearing certain colors, spraying graffiti, and recurrent congregating. Among gang activities today are extortion, murder, prostitution, drug trafficking, burglary, and intimidation. Expanded use of sophisticated weapons has contributed to the violence associated with gang activities, especially in battles over drug territories. Gang activities have become increasingly common in suburban and rural areas as gangs become more mobile and seek out new territories unprepared to deal with them.
Gangs continue to thrive because they provide support and status for adolescents denied these things at home and in the educational system, and because they make it possible, through illegal means, to attain material wealth and goods that are perceived as unattainable through legal means. In many neighborhoods, youth must join gangs in order to survive.
Governmental response to gang activity has come in several forms: imposing harsher penalties for some gang related crimes, establishing multi jurisdictional task forces, developing gang crimes units, attempting to make it illegal to join a gang involved in criminal activity, and directing public attention to the consequences of ignoring gang activity. The underlying conditions related to the development of gangs -- poverty, discrimination, and lack of educational alternatives -- have received far less attention.