Gang members are getting older and the majority of them are now legal adults. Explain why gang members are aging and how this affects gang activity

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

• Relatively high-paid, low-skilled factory jobs that would entice older gang members to leave the gang have been lost to overseas competition; a transformed U.S. economy now prioritizes information and services over heavy industry.
• This shift in emphasis undermines labor unions that might have attracted former gang members.
• Equally damaging has been the embrace of social policies that stress security and the needs of the wealthy while weakening the economic safety net for the poor (e.g., reducing welfare eligibility).
• William Julius Wilson found that the inability of inner-city males to obtain adequate jobs means that they cannot afford to marry and raise families.
• Criminal records acquired at an early age quickly lock these youths out of the job market so that remaining in a gang becomes an economic necessity.
• In the wake of reduced opportunity for unskilled labor, gangs have become an important ghetto employer that offers low-level drug-dealing opportunities that are certainly not available in the non-gang world.