Today, when I looked through the stories about self-defense, violence prevention, etc., I saw so much about gangs and gang violence.
In my opinion, many of these reports and articles incorrectly view gangs as a cause of social problems. In contrast, I see gangs and gang violence as a symptom.
Don’t get me wrong; I in no way excuse the violent actions of gangsters. I believe gangster, thugs, and anyone who offensively hurts innocent belongs in jail. I say, let’s put as many of them as we can in jail, so that they can no longer hurt people.
Nonetheless, we need to realize the causes of gang violence, and we need to fight the underlying problems. Namely, poverty and poor education cause gangs and gang violence.
For one, children who live in ghettos and go to crappy schools grow up around violence, and they copy what they observe. The crappy inner-city schools lack the resources to teach the kids any better.
Even more importantly, poverty and poor education mean the children lack opportunity. That lack of opportunity causes the children to turn to gangs, drug dealing, and other desperate & short-sighted vices. As people often say, there’s nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose. Poor children from gang-ridden neighborhoods do not have much to lose.
The best way to reduce gang violence and steer children away from gangs consists of eliminating the aforementioned causes. If society gives all children quality education and opportunities, then the children will invest in that rather than turning to gangs.
