"Today's children, unlike those of earlier generations, are fed a steady diet of glorified violence . By the age of sixteen the typical child has witnessed as estimated 200,000 acts of violence, including 33,000 murders. Inevitably, contend many experts, some youngsters will imitate the brutality in real life." (Time Magazine) The media bombardment that teens are faced with in society distorts the laws of reality, and as one sociologist puts it: "adolescents show little if any concern for the physical injury or harm inflicted for their victims." (Time Magazine) In addition to these factors, when parents are violent around their children, research shows that the children are a lot more likely to grow up violent as well. There are also no guarantees of children that are living in the ghetto to have a fat wallet. In addition, their chance to move their way up in today's harsh society to much higher positions with more attainable cash is very limited. .
Further back in time, adults were the ones hustling drugs. However, times have changed. Juveniles are now the ones trafficking drugs throughout the streets, since they will receive far less penalties than an adult. Stunningly, children start trafficking drugs as early as eight years old, and these same children usually join a gang by the time they are twelve. The drug business is a very organized, structured, rule abiding business with different job opportunities for different ages. As early as eight years old, they are recruited as "lookouts," making up to 900 dollars a week. When children enter their teen years they begin to move up the ladder as "runners," making over 300 dollars a day. From here, assuming the child has not been shot, he can then become a drug dealer earning some 3,000 dollars per day.
The rising use of crack cocaine in the last decade has made the problem of teen violence even worse. "In all my years of experience, I've never seen a drug that's more frightening and more of a menace than crack because of the violent reaction and nature of those addicted to the substance.
