“My son, my son! He was a good boy, sure he hung around a bad crowd of friends, had a shaved head, and wore baggy pants, but he’d never hurt anyone. Why did they have to shoot him? Why?” It seems that that more and more parents all over the valley are crying out a similar cry. The significant increase in gang violence in the San Fernando Valley is one of the biggest problems that the valley suffers from. The streets of the San Fernando Valley appear to be the battleground for a Civil War between a numerous amounts of gangs. Too many young people are dying from gang violence, especially innocent by standers. Gangs in the San Fernando Valley appear not to diminish through the years, rather have increased. Despite the vast amount of programs offered or mandated around the valley focusing on gang prevention, such as the Jeopardy Program or the L.A.P.D. CRASH Unit, the killing of human lives continue in a rapid growth. Gangs and gang violence are a big problem in the San Fernando Valley and will continue to be so, unless there’s a truce between all gangs marking an end to this deadly violence.

Gangs in the San Fernando Valley date back as far as the 1920’s. Many of those original gan

Current gang prevention programs have existed with little success. It seems that many of these programs operate themselves during normal business hours, when in fact being in a gang is a 24 hour job, usually requiring overtime in the grave yard shift. Instead of having gang prevention programs that get gangs together at a park to play a friendly game of football, there should be a special program that includes basic training of firearms and target practice on firing ranges. With the gangs new acquired skill, they could now go on a drive by shooting and accurately hit their rival target, rather than shooting the 4 year old girl next to them. Eventually, these gangs would diminish their own selves. Of course, this would never happen and unfortunately we are left having to put up with this deadly gang violence.

gs were mainly formed by a group of adolescents merely socializing together in the same neighborhood. Many of these adolescents which had the same cultural background, language, and customs, could easily associate with each other. The unison between these adolescents manifested from the racial tensions that was created upon them by the military, with such events as the Zoot Suit Riots. These gangs we

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