Gang Diversity

The latest national gang survey tallied 26,000 gangs with a total enrollment of around 850,000 members at any given time, nation wide. Gang member now tend to be older than they used to be 63% are young adults and now only 37% are juveniles, also more girls and involved with gangs now than ever. 38% of gang members are female, but they tend to abandoned gang life earlier than men do. About a hundred years ago, large amounts of gang members were White. But by the late 1970s, about 80% of all gang members were Black or Hispanic.
Gang problems are becoming bigger in every city but especially impacting large cities like Los Angeles and Chicago. It's going to become more prevalent in our youths lives and if things don't start to change now then the violence and number of casualties will only become far worse.
The movie "Redemption" that shows and talks about the life of Stanley Tookie Williams is a very good example of how things should change. He was the leader of the Crips and he was convicted of several robberies and murders and was put away in prison for life. However later in his life he became a five time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, an author of several books including "anti-gang and violence literature."
He also helped with drug busts and he attempted to make peace with the bloods. After this tremendous change he was executed in 2005.
I'm not saying that he should have been released but he never should have been killed because of the alter in his life and changes that he made, not just to get out of jail, because he knew he would never get out.