Gangs and the Sociological Perspective
Street gangs and the violence and crime typically associated with them are a
serious concern for the city of Chicago. To deal with this issue, legislators have
proposed harsh new laws involving mandatory jail terms and longer sentences for
gang related offenses. However, do harsher punishments actually deter crime?
And regardless, is the sixteen year old gang member soley resposible for his
actions? Or is society at large partially responsible for creating the types of
environments in which gangs thrive? The promise of Sociology by C. Wright Mills
introduces two key concepts that may help answer some of these questions: (1)
sociological imagination and (2) indifference.
The concept of sociological imagination refers to the idea that every member of a
society is a small piece of a very large puzzle, and that broader societal factors, few
of which are subject to individual control, exert a powerful influence of most people's
everyday lives. According to Mills, the quicker one comes to recognize this outside
influence, the better one will be able to cope with it. Sociological imagination may
help explain gangs, more specifically, why people join gangs in the first place. What
do I mean? The neighborhoods in which gangs thrive tend to lack certain elements
which young people need for a stable upbringing, including acceptance, community,
support, and a sense of wellbeing. When they find themselves unable to
experience these elements through societal institutions like the family, school, and
church, many young people turn to gangs to fill this void. For example, gang
members frequently grow up in fatherless homes, leaving them searching for adult
male role models. Is it surprising then, that younger gang members often model
their behavior after older gang members? What makes it worse is that those older
gang members probaly also grew up without fathers, and therefore modeled their
own behavior after even older gang members, resulting in a vicious circle. Another
important factor to keep in mind is that most areas in which gangs thrive are poverty
stricken, which leads many youths to join gangs simply to make money. In a study
in which I involved, the Northwestern Project, one of the sixteen year old
participants who was recently released from a juvenile detention center told me he
sold drugs because, "I got to eat Joe." Analyzing Mill's sociological imagination
makes it resonable to assume that society is just as, if not more, responsible for
than the individual for creating the conditions in which gangs thrive.
A second key concept discussed by Mills that is relevant to the study of gangs is
indifference. Indifference refers to the phenomenon in which," a person is neither
aware of any cherished values nor experiences any threat." Essintially ,
indifference involves a situation in which a person has nothing invested in a
situation and does not care about the situation's outcome, one way or the other.
The majority of people in society do not care the plight of resdients of gang-infested
neighborhoods. More often than not, if it is not happening directly to them or in their
immediate community, people are indifferent. For example, when I was growing up,
a young gang member was shot in front of a local hospital and none of the hospital
workers helped him, instead insisting that the gang member call 9-1-1 and wait for
an ambulance to assist him. In the end, this unfortunate young man literally bled to
death a couple hundred feet from the emergency room door. Although I could site
more examples of societal indifference with respect to gangs, I will not belabor the
issue given the time and the word limit restrictions placed on this assignment.
Mills's concepts of the sociological imagination and indifference shed light on the
various ways through which society often creates the environments in which gangs
thrive. When applied to gangs, the sociological imagination seems to indicate that in
order to combat the social problems that gangs produce, one should look at the
broader context, namely society, rather than the context's smaller components,
such as individual gang members. Maybe stiffer laws are not the answer. Of
course, I am in no way saying that gang members who commit gang-related crimes
should get a slap on the wrist. Rather, I am proposing that we as a society should
look at the larger environmental context, much like the context of the sociological imagination does.
Street gangs and the violence and crime typically associated with them are a
serious concern for the city of Chicago. To deal with this issue, legislators have
proposed harsh new laws involving mandatory jail terms and longer sentences for
gang related offenses. However, do harsher punishments actually deter crime?
And regardless, is the sixteen year old gang member soley resposible for his
actions? Or is society at large partially responsible for creating the types of
environments in which gangs thrive? The promise of Sociology by C. Wright Mills
introduces two key concepts that may help answer some of these questions: (1)
sociological imagination and (2) indifference.
The concept of sociological imagination refers to the idea that every member of a
society is a small piece of a very large puzzle, and that broader societal factors, few
of which are subject to individual control, exert a powerful influence of most people's
everyday lives. According to Mills, the quicker one comes to recognize this outside
influence, the better one will be able to cope with it. Sociological imagination may
help explain gangs, more specifically, why people join gangs in the first place. What
do I mean? The neighborhoods in which gangs thrive tend to lack certain elements
which young people need for a stable upbringing, including acceptance, community,
support, and a sense of wellbeing. When they find themselves unable to
experience these elements through societal institutions like the family, school, and
church, many young people turn to gangs to fill this void. For example, gang
members frequently grow up in fatherless homes, leaving them searching for adult
male role models. Is it surprising then, that younger gang members often model
their behavior after older gang members? What makes it worse is that those older
gang members probaly also grew up without fathers, and therefore modeled their
own behavior after even older gang members, resulting in a vicious circle. Another
important factor to keep in mind is that most areas in which gangs thrive are poverty
stricken, which leads many youths to join gangs simply to make money. In a study
in which I involved, the Northwestern Project, one of the sixteen year old
participants who was recently released from a juvenile detention center told me he
sold drugs because, "I got to eat Joe." Analyzing Mill's sociological imagination
makes it resonable to assume that society is just as, if not more, responsible for
than the individual for creating the conditions in which gangs thrive.
A second key concept discussed by Mills that is relevant to the study of gangs is
indifference. Indifference refers to the phenomenon in which," a person is neither
aware of any cherished values nor experiences any threat." Essintially ,
indifference involves a situation in which a person has nothing invested in a
situation and does not care about the situation's outcome, one way or the other.
The majority of people in society do not care the plight of resdients of gang-infested
neighborhoods. More often than not, if it is not happening directly to them or in their
immediate community, people are indifferent. For example, when I was growing up,
a young gang member was shot in front of a local hospital and none of the hospital
workers helped him, instead insisting that the gang member call 9-1-1 and wait for
an ambulance to assist him. In the end, this unfortunate young man literally bled to
death a couple hundred feet from the emergency room door. Although I could site
more examples of societal indifference with respect to gangs, I will not belabor the
issue given the time and the word limit restrictions placed on this assignment.
Mills's concepts of the sociological imagination and indifference shed light on the
various ways through which society often creates the environments in which gangs
thrive. When applied to gangs, the sociological imagination seems to indicate that in
order to combat the social problems that gangs produce, one should look at the
broader context, namely society, rather than the context's smaller components,
such as individual gang members. Maybe stiffer laws are not the answer. Of
course, I am in no way saying that gang members who commit gang-related crimes
should get a slap on the wrist. Rather, I am proposing that we as a society should
look at the larger environmental context, much like the context of the sociological imagination does.