Week 5 Blog 1

Today’s assignment really touched on something as a parent I feel I struggle with everyday; is technology making our children weak, more vulnerable, and in plain terms stupid.  Mark Bauerlein refers to the under 30 generation as being “the dumbest generation”, and in many ways I wonder if he isn’t correct.  I know I struggle to pry my child from the IPod, or the computer to get her outside and enjoy the fresh air.  Their relationships are on the computer, they network and text instead of study and imagine.  And who is really to be held responsible, if the technology is there it is going to be wanted and used, but doesn’t it fall on the parents to help find the balance and find control?

Something that I thought of today was a term that was brought to my attention when I was looking into ADD and ADHD, this is NDD or Nature Deficit Disorder, where people are so disassociated with the world around them that they don’t know what their natural surroundings are.  It blew me away to think of a world that was so technology based that they forgot the sunset or that the trees are the reason we breathe.  But it is the truth, you look around at all the faces stuck to their cell phones, I pads and all the other little gadgets we all feel we need to leave the house and it is really no surprise that NDD is something that really exists.

Week 5 Blog 2

I have at many points really thought about how lucky we are in America to have the several technologies that we take for granted, so this topic was something I had spent a lot of time thinking about in the past.  We are very fortunate for the many technologies that we have from lights to the IPod that my child believes she cannot live without.  But what about other countries?  We have seen throughout this course that poverty, where you live, and who you live with is 3 prime factors that go into what kind of life you will have and how you will develop as a child; technology is no different. 

Something that kept playing through my mind while doing today’s assignment was the commercial you see for laptops, ‘buy a laptop and provide one to a child in Africa’.  I think in some ways we move through life without truly evaluating the position of other countries, or the fact that the simple conveniences that we have are what keep so many other countries in levels of higher poverty and lower access.   

A reference to the digital divide which refers to the “gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic area at different socioeconomic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access information and communications technologies and to their use of the Interned for a wide variety of activities (Bergh, 2004)”.  This is a broad statement that pretty much lays is out clearly if you do not have the means to access modern technologies you will not leave the life that has been handed to you.  

Week 4 Blog 5 Gang Intervention Efforts

TRIANGLE

It was uplifting to view something that regarded intervention and positive effort.  With reading so much on poverty, struggle, gangs, which all leads to higher health risk and possible injury it was a breath of fresh air to see places like Glen Mills Academy that are using positive efforts and reinforcement to change the lives of people.  This establishment had almost cut the statistic that 60 percent of all delinquents at some point return jail in half.  This means that places like this are working and at a much more efficient cost.  Glen Mills is an example of how to show children positive peer pressure and a change from the pressures of poverty and deprevassion.

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An extra point that needs to be made is in reference to the difference in surrounding from prison, juvenile detention, and a place such as Glen Mills.  References were made that it cost less per day to work with students at Glen Mills versus a standard prison setting; which is sad when you look at the difference in scenery.  Glen Mills was beautiful, and was treated and respected in such a way; the prison is just that a cold place of concrete and bars, yet it still costs more money?? Does not make sense.

CIRCLE

What I really enjoyed about Glen Mills is that the youth that are spending out their sentences are referred to as students, not numbers.  They are given the opportunity to feel self worth and build who they are while they are learning how to reestablish in society.  I think a lot has to be said with this; when you watch shows such as Locked Up, or Scared Straight there is one thing in common in how prisoners refer to themselves, they are a number, nothing more.  I think that this degrades the person and reinforces a lack of self worth which only heightens the problems instead of solving it.  Glen Mills has taken this into account and properly done something about it and it shows.  Something as small as one word can really mean a lot.

“Glen Mills Gang: Arrested Without Locks and Bars.” (2000) Films on Demand. Web. 27 Jun 2011. <https://myasucourses.asu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_206021_1>.

Week 4 Blog 4 Globalization and International Gangs

TRIANGLE

The first thing that really stood out to me in reading the article “The Global Impact of Gangs” was a reminder on how people use terminology in order to portray what they want to say.  Many pieces of literature will have you believe that the birth of gangs was in America when in fact it was Latin America; this is an excellent example of what I mean.  In many other countries children brought into gangs are termed differently, such as the ‘invisible soldier’ or street children, the one I thought was almost ironic was “children in organized armed violence (Dowdney, 2003)”.  We all know what these words mean, but coin them differently so that we can shift blame, or responsibility.

While I have seen so many specials on gangs and prison, I am still amazed at the fact that the majority of gang leaders do their work from within prison walls.  In many circles you have not truly done your time and cannot be a higher level gang member until you have served time.  And it is within the walls of their cell that calls are made, money is cared for and peoples fates are judged, whether or not they live behind the cell walls with the person calling the shots.  How is it that the very system that we set up to punish perpetrators of crime is the very same spot that the higher gang members want to be calling their shots from?  Not only does the gang member live the life within the walls through illegal means and monies but they care for their families outside the same way.  Why I see it I really cannot understand it.

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My squaring point is how the writing showed how in many ways how the economic changes that the US has gone through has reinforced gangs and gang work.  “In the wake of reduced opportunity for unskilled labor, many gang members have remained in their gangs as adults and gangs have become an important ghetto employer (Hagedorn, 2001)”.  Many people come to the gang with lack of education, and skill and from there they are groomed into the foot soldiers that they become.  They stay within this life and their families generally follow suit because there is such a lack of options on how to make anything different.  The United States does not have a high range of labor jobs that require little education, until that or how we educate people in lower economic classes, they are going to continue work ‘ghetto employment’ means that are available to them.

CIRCLE

What must be circled are the hard facts that we learned about place such as Haiti where the state “lost all capacity to control the populace and various types of groups of armed youth, leading to the deposing of Aristide and an uncertain status for the new state (Haegoedorn, 158).”  In these cases the states or countries themselves are being overthrown by their gangs, and while we would like to think that being American is enough to keep it from happening here, nothing is impossibility.  We have many things in common with the other places around the world, gang members are buying off their freedoms, making decisions that will affect massive groups of peoples, and overthrowing the decisions of others.  Is corporate America enough to keep organized crime leaders at bay?  It is scary to think of how gangs work in other countries, how vicious and unrelenting they are, and how they have changed the environment in which so many live in.  We have isolations of this is different parts of America such as LA that as we know has a huge district of people that do not truly live by the laws that everyone else does.  They live by their drugs, their gangs, and their immediate needs to overcome poverty.  All of this scares me to think of what could happen if the gangs of America truly wanted to fight for control.

 Hagedorn (2005). The global impact of gangs. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 21(2), 153-169.

Week 4 Blog 3 Generational Gang Membership

TRIANGLE

Connections between the film’s take on generational gang membership and other resources we have had in this class were that in many cases the family that children are born into is in many ways their gang family.  As the video “Nuestra Familia, Our Family” showed, the gang family is your family, and your family is part of your gang family.  You are born into a gang allegiance, defined by it, and raised by it.  Lil Mondo was an excellent example of this; he was born into a family where is father was already part of the Nuestra gang, therefore making him a soldier in the making.  He learned from his father the prices you pay for your gang or ‘family’ by watching him go to jail, he learned the trade from the those that cared for him when his father could not, and from what he saw of his father when he came back into his life.  This was something that he set to repeat himself by committing crimes, even murder by the age of 19.  He reset all that had happened to him, by leaving his child behind while he served his time in jail just as his father had. 

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It amazes me that while people join gangs or form them for money and power, they are generally all linked together by poverty.  You don’t see many depictions of the gang member that made the big bank and actually owns all of his assets.  So many of these people trap their families in gang life like the Nuestra family out of wanting to make things better, but that is never the case in the long run.  In order to make it to the top you have to be willing to lose a brother or a son, you give way more than you will ever financially gain. 

CIRCLE

By being born with a father that was in the Nuestra family, Mondo’s life had already been set for him.  What he would do, who he would be surrounded by and what he would learn.  And as we saw with how Armando chose to change his life and try to make a difference for his blood family, the fight is long and hard.  Generally you do not leave your gang family and if you do you pay handsomely.  I think that it is worth circling Armando’s fight to change and leave the Nuestra family behind; it shows you that while it seems like your destiny is mapped out for you, you can chose to change it.  It gives you hope that maybe one day these gang families will dissipate as more and more people separate their blood family from their gang families.

"Nuestra Familia, Our Family." (2006) Films on Demand. Web. 27 Jun 2011. <https://myasucourses.asu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_206021_1>.

Week 4 Blog 2 Youth and Gang Violence

TRAINGLE

Explore some connections between the economic issues in the film and the data presented in the article.    

The first point that I enjoyed about today’s information was the cold hard fact that even though the life of a gang member looks identical to what one lives in society (making money, having people above you such as upper management, and consequences for not doing a good job) the cold hard truth is that it just doesn’t pay.  Just as was displayed in the film “Why Do Crack Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?” you see that these people generally do not get farther than home in life because they are too busy being addicts of their own market.  Generally these people health and safety are not cared for or jeopardized in a manner that keeps them from progressing or living life.

Next is how young people become involved in the lifestyle of gangs and drugs.  Generally these young kids are sold on the dollars and cars that they see.  Generally their upper management portrays a lifestyle of money and success even though in most cases the resources that they display them generally do not own.  These young kids become “foot soldiers” committing the acts and crimes that the older gang members no longer want to get into trouble for.  And even though they commit themselves to these acts and live life, generally these children are sold on a lifestyle that usually ends up owning them.

These children believe that they are buying into a lifestyle that will take care of them when generally the truth is that they are becoming part of a life that will kill them.  They are generally not as healthy because of drug use, being on the streets, fighting etc. and they are in more cases then not people that generally end up spending more time in jail then they do making money.  With all of this lower life expectancy, lower standard of life, and lower satisfaction of life is what these children really have to look forward to.

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What is difficult for me to read about and see is how the media is portraying these lifestyles.  While we do have shows that educate and help show the realities of these lifestyles, in more cases then not children are watching and learning about these worlds in rap videos and gangster movies.  Many children get an idea that living this lifestyle is full of girls, and parties, great times and good friends that are better to you than your family.  They reinforce the lies of this dark world and in many way glamorize the very ways of life that can harm if not kill these young minds.

CIRCLE

In reading “Longitudinal Perspective on Adolescent Street Gangs” the writing represented that the only way to make a difference is in assuring that interventions on youth are effective and supported.  While it is unfortunate that many of these kids come from homes that parents either lack the attention or don’t have it to give, we need avenues of support to replace those.  A strong front on the truth of this lifestyle has to be taught, and the glamour of the lifestyle needs to be shown for the sad truth that it really is……a death trap.  If we can target and attack against all that makes this lifestyle look good we can start to make a dent into the number of children a year we are losing to drugs and gang violence.

Krohn, M. D., & Thornberry, T. P. (2007). Longitudinal perspectives on adolescent street gangs. In The long view of crime: A synthesis of longitudinal research. (pp. 128-60). New York: Springer.

TED Talks."Steven Levitt analyzes crack economics." Feb 2004. Online Video Clip. Accessed on July 27 2010.

Week 4 Blog 1 Domestic Violence and Youth

TRIANGLE:

Watching Tracee Parker from Safe Haven speak it did not take long to be astonished by the statistics she spoke of.  The first fact that I could not believe was that 3 to 7 million children are exposed to domestic violence every year, with that overlapping an additional 30 to 70 percent of them being victims of child abuse.  While we all know that this is something that exists to hear and read the actual statistics is heart wrenching. 

Next and even more difficult is to read or hear of what this is doing to these children’s lives.  Women that are victims of domestic violence usually live their lives in confinement, held back from friends and family.  This same pattern is usually repeated in the children; many will not have friends over or begin relationships that will include people coming into their family home.  Not only are these children scared of what their friends may witness, but are embarrassed to admit the lives that they behind closed doors.

All of this pain and embarrassment leads to children that live in what Tracee Parker states as “fight or flight”.  Many times children of domestic violence do not know what they should do, they will attempt to calm dad before he blows up, hide themselves and their siblings from the violence, and in many cases the older sibling becomes the caretaker of the siblings, protecting them from violence by taking it on themselves.

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The biggest point that squared with me was the excuses or ‘crazy making’ that the perpetrator the violence uses in order to justify their actions.  In many cases the abuser will deny or distort what has taken place, telling others that they did not really see what took place, or that they did not see the reason for the abuse.  They blame shift, and tell even children that they are the reasons the abuse occurred, and in some cases try to justify why violence was needed in order for the other to learn.  This distorted way of justifying the abuse confuses children, makes them doubt themselves, and in some cases maybe even doubt the reality that they do live in.  All of this makes it very difficult for these children to grow up and live productive and healthy lives.  It is sickening to think of what these poor children live through, and what it turns them into in the long run.

CIRLCE

Action that is being taken in order to help children, protect them and educate them is something worth circling.  Tracee Parker shared her ideas on how you can develop a safety plan to help develop the child’s strength, ability to find help, maybe even just a place they can go in order to receive positive reassurance, not of what happened but of who they are.  It is very important that these children grow knowing that this abuse is not their fault, and they know the resources around them that can help them.  It is important that while they know what is taking place in their home, that they still find a safe place that they can develop correctly and learn the differences between wrong and right, good and bad.  Safe Haven was an excellent example of a place that people can go; Tracee is an amazing women who wants to make sure every child has a safety plan and that they have every opportunity to grow and develop normally.

Fusco, R. A., & Fantuzzo, J. W. (2009). Domestic violence crimes and children: A population-based investigation of direct sensory exposure and the nature of involvement. Children and Youth Services Review, 31(2), 249-256.

University of Wisconsin series on Issues for Youth Advocates and the Systems in which They Work (Producer). (2009, March 30) The Impact of Domestic Violence on Youth

[Online video]. Retrieved July 26, 2010 from http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=29215&fID=345