Gang Mentality Leads to School Violence

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by: Melissa Bruny

School violence can sometimes be an extension of the violence that takes place in the communities and neighborhoods of each particular school. In poorer inner-city areas, many follow a set of rules or laws also known as the “code of the street.” Journalist Doron Taussig asks the question “Is recent school violence a flashback to 1970s street gangs? Or is it something more dangerous?” In his article entitled “Gang Mentality,” Taussig investigates incidents from Martin Luther King High School and Germantown High School in Philadelphia, PA. Currently, gang violence is on the rise with teenagers from high schools all over the city that group themselves based of the different streets they live on. Taussig interviewed two students, one from Germantown High and another from Martin Luther King High School that agreed to explain the dynamics of gang violence and the codes of the street. One student stated that many students join these gangs simply for safety. If one were to get attacked at school, they would have their ‘gang’ on call to get revenge for the person attacked. The student from Germantown High stated that the most essential rule is to always step up and fight for your friends. If you fail to do so then you might be left to protect yourself from your own gang as well as those you failed to fight against. In school’s such as these, fights don’t just end; they lead to retaliations that lead to more retaliation. An interviewed ex-gang member made the point that most of these incidents of violence take place because teenagers these days do not know how to accept losing a fight. Their embarrassment and hurt pride lead them to even more aggressive methods of revenge, such as carrying weapons. Being that many of these groups distinguish themselves based on the street they live on, rival gangs are frequently in the same schools, provoking each other until it leads to a fight. The Germantown High student stated that most fights start over something insignificant such as someone stepping on another’s shoe, but in most cases those incidents lead to more significant acts of violence.  Trying to be the dominant group and ‘one-up’ the next rival gang seems to be the main issue. Most of the time these groups are a product of their environment and if all they see from a young age is people fighting in their communities in order to prove themselves, it shouldn’t be surprising that they pick up the same qualities. After being exposed to the ‘code of the street,’ which revolves around one getting respect, these teens take their means of proving themselves to the extreme, often resulting in senseless murders. Students provoke others just to be given the opportunity to show they are deserving of respect. Attempts of demonstrating ones worth frequently spill into the schools, endangering the lives of many. If it is assumed that codes of the streets are practiced by today’s youth, the only chance of decreasing the amount of violence in schools is to work with the surrounding communities by targeting at risk children for violence from a very young age.

Source: http://archives.citypaper.net/articles/2004-12-16/cover.shtml