How Gangs and Gang Typologies Influence Criminal Justice as a Whole: Literature & Language Term Paper

How Gangs and Gang Typologies Influence Criminal Justice as a Whole
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Abstract
Gangs and gang typologies have been at the center of the US justice system for decades. However, it is only recently that stakeholders noted the need for new strategies to address the challenge that gangs instilled in American communities. Efforts are currently put to engineer criminals into productive members of their communities. The current changes in the criminal justice system stem from the notable failures of the traditional justice system. The focus is changing from punishing and killing criminals to preventing people from joining gangs and rehabilitating them into important community members. This study focuses on how gangs and gang typologies influence criminal justice as a whole. The study focuses on how gang activities have influenced stakeholders, including the law enforcement agencies, community-based organizations, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and legislators.
How Gangs and Gang Typologies Influence Criminal Justice as a Whole
Gangs keep posing threats to public safety even amidst developments in technology bearing the changing structure of communities. For decades, gangs threaten Americans' safety with few outcomes from the efforts implemented to reverse the statistics. Strained resources have been cited as the primary challenge in addressing gang activities. However, there are debates on prospects such as collective stakeholder participation, the use of the new technologies, and gang typologies' evolution as factors that have kept the outcomes insignificant. One agreeable prospect of this debate understands that gangs and gang typologies influence the criminal justice concept. The influence can be marked with significant changes in understanding the characteristics of the crime, incarceration, and reform efforts and options that the justice system keeps implementing to match gangs and gang typologies' evolution.
Gangs and Gang Typologies
Street gangs have been prevalent throughout the United States, and their numbers keep increasing, thereby posing challenges to law enforcers. Recent data from the law enforcement agencies indicate that there are at least 850,000 gang members and more than 30,000 gangs in the US (Gottschalk & Markovic, 2016). These gangs are known to threaten public safety by participating in crimes including threats and intimidation, robberies, street-level drug trafficking, and assaults. The primary targets of gangs and their members are law-abiding citizens and rival gang groups. Studies indicate that the impacts of gangs in a community extend beyond the confines of committing direct crimes. That is, gangs can instill disruption of the socializing power of communities, schools, religious groups, and families (Decker & Pyrooz, 2011). Also, gangs in communities instill fear that extends to affect the quality of life that individuals experience. By extension, gangs' presence in some communities even affects people's perceptions about policing and the justice system's activities.
The justice department and law enforcement are considered the first defense lines to confront the gangs. Despite the turbulent relationship between law enforcement agencies, the...