Gang: A Factor Contribute to the Overcrowding Prisons

Overpopulated prisons are a huge concern among many taxpaying Americans. Since the United States declared the war on drug forty something years ago, the numbers of inmates increased rapidly. That increasing numbers has causes Americans taxpayers millions of dollars each year to maintain their prisons. As mentions by the Associate Press, there are more than 1.5 million inmates in the states and federal prisons and by the end of 2011, that numbers of inmates is expected to rise to 1.7 millions, a 13 percent increased (Chlemacher, 2007). So why are our prisons populations keep raising? And what are the reasons to it?  

According to law enforcement officers, one reasons for the rising in our prison populations is due to the growing numbers of gangs members within the community. USATODAY mentions that the recent increases in violent offenses is causes by a rise in gang memberships, the spread of highly addictive methamphetamine and the numbers of crimes committed by young people ages eighteen to twenty-four ( Johnson, 2006). This is true because the majority of violent crimes are committed by young adult ages eighteen and twenty-fours, but most importantly those young adult who are in gang. The reasons these young adults commit criminal activities are because they are naïve and need money to support their gang and drugs addiction. In addition, many of these young adults lived in poverty community where there are a huge percent of gangs and drugs influences among them. 

For example, in the county of Los Angeles, there are more than 1,300 street gangs with over 150,000 members and within the City of Los Angeles alone, there are over 400 separate street gangs and an estimated of 39,000 members (VPC, 2007). With this many gangs’ members, the causes of crimes will surly rise. Nevertheless, the National Drug Intelligence Center states that “Criminal gangs commit as much as eighty percent of the crimes in many communities” (NDIC, 2009). Eighty percent of the crimes committed by gang members are a lot of crimes and that is why many gang members are in prison. However, the majority of gang members who are in prison are in there for non-violence crimes such as the illegal possession of drugs and other contraband. So how is gang tide to the issues of prison overpopulating?

         In year’s end 2009, there are a total of 1,613,740 inmates in Federal and States Prisons (BJS, 2011). Out of those 1,613,740 inmates, more than 147,000 are well known documented gangs members (NGIC, 2009). Although this figures only showed a small portion of the gang inmates populations, don’t let that deceive you as there are more members who are unaccounted for. The 147,000s are only those who confess to being a gang member and the real numbers are still unknown. Also, most gang members who are arrested and convicted of a crime do not provide law enforcement officers and judges of their gang status. Most of the times they hide it, but surely if we were to look at the inmates prison group populations, we could easily express that there are more gang inmates than what the statistic are showing. Overall, in general, gang does contribute a higher numbers in increasing our prisons population and making our prison system to be overflowed.

Bibliography

BJS (2011, September). Prison Population count 2009. Bureau of Justice Statistics.             http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=131

 

Chlemacher, Stephen (2007, February). Study: Prison Population on the Rise. The associate Press 2007. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0214-07.htm

 

Johnson, Kevin (2006, September). Violence crimes rise after years of falling. USATODAY 2007.             http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-18-violent-crimes_x.htm

 

NDIC (2009, January). National Gang Threat Assessment 2009. National Drug Intelligence Center. http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs32/32146/index.htm

NGIC (2009, January) Gang Proliferation. National gang Intelligence Center. http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs32/32146/gangs.htm

 

VPC (2007, June). Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles.             http://www.ph.ucla.edu/sciprc/pdf/GANG_VIOLENCE.pdf