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Submitted by BethanyM on March 18, 2008
Category: Social Issues
Words: 2946 | Pages: 12
Views: 127
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Gangs have been around for a long time. Most people think that gangs are the result of a broken home or even a substitute family. In order to fully understand gangs you must first know there heritage, that is where they started from. Throughout time the reason for a person choosing to join a gang may be a personal choice, but the overall objective is the same. Let's first look through history and see where gangs got started.
In America most gangs can be traced back to the dawn of our country. A lot of immigrants were migrating to America for a better life. After arriving in the country, many of their life savings were depleted leaving them no choice, but to take loans from local merchants who charged very high interest rates. The American dream didn't seem so grand after all. Poverty and disease ran wild causing many deaths and as a result there were many children without parents. Because most of these families were immigrants they didn't have any relatives in America to take care of these children so they were stuck with no family and not much hope for a brighter future.
In the mid 1700s most local churches ran orphanages. Orphanages then were much different than they are now. In today's society it is a waiting ground to be adopted out, but back then since times were so rough, there was never even a chance of being adopted. The orphanage's policy was just to keep the orphans separate from society and not really to take care of them. Orphans were very well known for wandering the streets together.
One day an apprentice program was created (which closely represents our foster care program). The purpose of this program was to teach young boys a trade and give them food and shelter. Although this concept seemed a good idea community leader's found that there was little guidance going on. Juvenile delinquency became very prominent as homeless children were wandering the streets of very large cities. The...
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