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Ethnography Field Trip
Identify the methods used in this study -- were they effective?
The research was conducted through interviews on the street and elsewhere, and also they were given a formal questionnaire to complete. The researchers only conducted research on these individuals if they met two criteria: a) if they openly acknowledged that they were in fact members of a gang; they also needed to be between the age of 14 and 24 to qualify; and b) they could be youths not linked to a gang but the same age and in the same neighborhood as those identified in "a."
How did the researcher know whether or not the individual was lying or was in fact a gang member? This is a pertinent question because most gang member do not, "as a rule, talk to researchers, anthropologists, sociologists, etc." In this case gang members would verify that those being interviewed were in fact members or just being coy and deceptive, according to the report.
A formal questionnaire given did not of course ask for a name but delved into school experiences ("Do you remember any of teacher's names?"); and the questionnaire also asked about home...
The questionnaire also inquired about why the person dropped out of school and if any relatives have been incarcerated.
In the initial interview the researcher switched from English to Spanish which made the interviewee more comfortable. Some of the challenging issues during the initial contact with gang members included: some gang members called others "snitches" for participating, making it difficult; just walking up to an apparent gang member in a barrio takes a certain amount of steel nerves; asking gang members to "self-report" is not considered good science because the participant may project what he or she would like to be thought of, not the real person as others see him or her.
Question TWO: What were some of the challenges and how did they address them? Did they succeed? Defining who is and who isn't a member of a gang is problematic, but it seems that the researchers conducted scholarly investigations into how police departments define and identify gang members, and those descriptions were known and understood out front. For example the California Youth Gang Task…
Works Cited
Hallcom, F. (2001). An Urban Ethnography of Latino Street Gangs in Los Angeles and Ventura
Counties. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from: http://www.csun.edu/~hcchs006/21.html.
To summarize, research on gangs has shown the gang problem to be increasing dramatically. Gang members list many reasons for joining a gang, including protection, peer pressure, economic needs, social needs, power, because relatives are members, a lack of parental or community support, and social status. According to the research, gangs tend to exist in greater numbers in low-income populations, and in single-parent households. Additionally, research has shown that while
Government Since gang-related crimes fall within the jurisdiction of state, this research will give an insight on the need to find solutions that increasingly include all levels of government. Congress needs to pass legislation that will change immigration enforcement laws and make more aliens deportable. In addition, the federal government should take a more active participation in helping local and state jurisdictions develop anti-gang responses. The local, state and federal governments
S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. The legislation makes the provision of over $ billion in funding "for gang prevention, intervention and law enforcement programs over five years and establishes new crimes and tougher penalties to deter and punish members of illegal street gangs." (Feinstein, 2007) the legislation proposed by Feinstein would make illegal participation in a criminal street gang a federal crime. The legislation criminalizes violent crimes in furtherance or in
Gang activity would then threaten the family and friends of gang members due to association and not any true guilt in any criminal activity. Along with the potential threats to innocent community members, gang activity deteriorates the condition of the communal space as well. Graffiti is very often evident as border markers and property rights within the gang hierarchy; yet "graffiti is offensive to the community" (HACER 2005:35). Along
Merton also incorporated Durkheim's observations of the difference between intrinsic motivation for work and economic profit and purely superficial extrinsic motivation for the tangible trappings of success and/or social status. Since post-Industrial Revolution social values tended to focus so much more on acquisition and less on contributing to society through work, individuals experiencing psychosocial strains from the lack of available opportunities for legitimate work often sought to acquire the same
Graffiti: An Anthropological Analysis Graffiti is one of the oldest extant art forms: graffiti has been found on ancient monuments as well as on subways and billboards across the urban landscape of today (Alonso 1998: 3). The piece of graffiti I chose to use was a series of images inscribed on a No Parking sign. I found this piece of graffiti [URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/livenature/235459080/] on a common photo-sharing application known as 'Flickr'