Gang Problems – Federal Efforts To Help Combat The Gang Problem

Gang Problems – Federal Efforts to Combat the Gang Problem Your name Your Institution of Affiliation March 11, 2018 Introduction Gang-related problems have always been a serious issue for the United States government. In most cases, gangs and their illegal activities are almost always correlated with a multitude of violent crimes, making this issue one of the government’s top priorities. Nevertheless, despite the intensive efforts and resources dedicated by the government to mitigate the increase in their numbers, recent estimates show that there are about 1,150,000 total gang members in the country, with the number of these groups amounting to 24,250 (StatisticBrain.com, 2017). This represents a significant increase in parallel with the 2011 trend that showed a 40% increase that led to the many critiques questioning the billions of dollars being allocated each year to these efforts. In the defense of these efforts, it must be noted that one of the reasons for the difficulty in mitigating the rise of these numbers is the complexity of the whole situation. On one hand, scholars state that gang-memberships are due to domestic socio-political issues such as poverty, adolescent delinquency, education, and insufficient and ineffective gun-laws (which also leads to violence), among others. On the other hand, external factors (e.g. drug trafficking, smuggling, and cartel formation) which are rooted in international issues further complicate the whole scenario. In line with the issues discussed above, this article would focus on the analysis of the current efforts being done by the government for the past 20 years. This includes litigation efforts, policy making, task forces, and educational/rehabilitation mechanisms that aims to reduce the number of gang activities both inside and outside the country. In the succeeding sections, the author of this study would also try to discuss possible alternatives and/or complementary efforts done by other countries, which might be applicable to the United States. All in all, he believes that the reason as to why the number of gang-related violence continues to increase, is the “static policymaking” that fails to shift in time with the very dynamic characteristic of the issue. National and International Efforts of Mitigation As of the year 2008, the United States Government has given the Department of Justice a budget of $2 dollars to mitigate gun-related crime. This does not yet include the respective budgets of the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security, which is its “sister institutions” that help each other in each and every sector of the cause (United States - Department of Justice, 2008). As for the Department of Justice, their recent referendum pointed out two important aspects of their “multi-faceted approach”, which includes (1) prioritizing “prevention programs to provide America's youth, as well as offenders returning to the community, with opportunities that help them resist gang involvement” and (2) the development and enforcement of “robust enforcement policies when gang-related violence does occur” (DOJ, 2008). Particularly speaking, these budgets were allocated for different programs, however, it is the “Project Safe Neighborhood” (PSN) i...