Gangs no longer have same allure to youths
It was about 1989 when police started noticing street gangs emerging in large numbers around Iowa, said Clemons Bartollas, a University of Northern Iowa professor of criminology who has authored dozens of books on gangs, juvenile delinquency and prisons.
Flourishing with the rise in cocaine addiction, gangs were spreading west from Chicago. At the peak in about 1993, there were roughly 2,000 gang members in Des Moines. There were nearly as many in Davenport and hundreds more in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Iowa City.
“In the late ’80s and early ’90s throughout the country, where there had been no gangs before, suddenly gangs were appearing,” Bartollas said.
Two decades later, gangs present a much smaller problem.
Bartollas credits police and school officials for creating deterrents. The risks of being kicked out of school, arrested or killed pushed many young people away from gangs.
“Being part of a gang was becoming too costly,” he said. “Most of the kids who were marginally involved dropped off the wayside.”
Before spreading into Iowa, gangs had been evolving for decades, Bartollas said.
In the 1920s through the 1940s, street gangs were generally small, neighborhood-based groups of teenagers who, unlike the organized crime groups of the era, focused more on protecting turf than profiting from crime. Gang participation served as a rite of passage, and most members left upon reaching adulthood.
In the 1950s, gangs in cities like New York, Philadelphia and Boston started becoming more organized and more dangerous, Bartollas said.
The 1960s saw the emergence of some of the street gangs that still exist today: the Bloods and the Crips in Los Angeles, the Latin Kings in New York, and Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples in Chicago.
These gangs grew more organized and more dependent on the drug trade. By the late ’60s, gang members were staying involved into adulthood, and some gangs, particularly in Chicago, began venturing into local politics.
In the 1970s and 1980s drugs began playing a larger role in gang operations, and violence followed, Bartollas said. Amid rising joblessness and blighted urban cores, gangs provided youths validation and a chance to make money. The late 1980s brought the crack cocaine epidemic and the expansion of street gangs.
While gangs in Iowa have shrunk in the decades since, Bartollas said he doesn’t see the problem ever disappearing.
“There is a percentage of our juveniles who feel they have never had an accepted place in our society, and it’s those kids who are joining gangs,” he said.
Source: Desmoines Register
Flourishing with the rise in cocaine addiction, gangs were spreading west from Chicago. At the peak in about 1993, there were roughly 2,000 gang members in Des Moines. There were nearly as many in Davenport and hundreds more in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Iowa City.
“In the late ’80s and early ’90s throughout the country, where there had been no gangs before, suddenly gangs were appearing,” Bartollas said.
Two decades later, gangs present a much smaller problem.
Bartollas credits police and school officials for creating deterrents. The risks of being kicked out of school, arrested or killed pushed many young people away from gangs.
“Being part of a gang was becoming too costly,” he said. “Most of the kids who were marginally involved dropped off the wayside.”
Before spreading into Iowa, gangs had been evolving for decades, Bartollas said.
In the 1920s through the 1940s, street gangs were generally small, neighborhood-based groups of teenagers who, unlike the organized crime groups of the era, focused more on protecting turf than profiting from crime. Gang participation served as a rite of passage, and most members left upon reaching adulthood.
In the 1950s, gangs in cities like New York, Philadelphia and Boston started becoming more organized and more dangerous, Bartollas said.
The 1960s saw the emergence of some of the street gangs that still exist today: the Bloods and the Crips in Los Angeles, the Latin Kings in New York, and Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples in Chicago.
These gangs grew more organized and more dependent on the drug trade. By the late ’60s, gang members were staying involved into adulthood, and some gangs, particularly in Chicago, began venturing into local politics.
In the 1970s and 1980s drugs began playing a larger role in gang operations, and violence followed, Bartollas said. Amid rising joblessness and blighted urban cores, gangs provided youths validation and a chance to make money. The late 1980s brought the crack cocaine epidemic and the expansion of street gangs.
While gangs in Iowa have shrunk in the decades since, Bartollas said he doesn’t see the problem ever disappearing.
“There is a percentage of our juveniles who feel they have never had an accepted place in our society, and it’s those kids who are joining gangs,” he said.
Source: Desmoines Register
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