We met with many different representatives from Strong Youth on December 2, 2014. Strong Youth is an organization that sends guidance counselors into schools to help prevent the risk of violence. During our visit, we learned that children don’t want to join gangs, they are forced to. With no extracurricular activities, nobody telling you violence is wrong, these children who live around gangs are forced to carry on the ‘legacy’ of their ‘hood.’ Strong Youth also told us about these adjacent two streets, one was clean, pretty, and nice, the other was dirty, violent, and horrible. As we passed by the street I could’t believe what I saw. It seemed to me as if violence was spreading and the wealthy were only cleaning their property. I had known that gang violence was in big cities but when I found out that even in small, suburban, towns their were children joining gangs, I realized how much of an impact gangs had on America. Our group is planning on meeting with more organizations who plan to stop the cycle of gang violence. Children in Gangs; a Brighter Future is planning on looking into youth incarceration in hopes of getting children out of jail, and into school. Strong Youth believes that if children who are sixteen are treated as adults and go to jail for a long time, they will come back out even worse. Without any school and growing up with gangs, these kids obtain a ‘gang mentality.’ A gang mentality is what gang members have and it forces them to act tougher, kill more, never cry, and beat someone bloody on the mark. If children commit a crime they should be sentenced to a number of meetings with Strong Youth, Council for Unity, etcetera, similar to alcoholics who are sentenced to AA meetings. I will never forget seeing the difference between the two roads. It was as if I was staring into heaven and hell.
