solved Disscusion question :we read about potential ways of intervening in

Disscusion question :we read about potential ways of intervening in gang violence. What do you think about these interventions, based on what you’ve read previously in this class? How effective do you think they might be? What problems might they experience? classmates comments :1. One intervention I found particularly effective was the Boston Ceasefire strategy. This method combines the efforts of the police and probation officers as they visit the homes of juveniles on probation that seem they may be most likely to offend. The main goal of these visits were to ensure juveniles were obeying their probation regulations and to send a message that they were being watched, in case they wanted to offend. This project seemed to be quite effective as juvenile homicides declined dramatically during its course. I feel this intervention method was so effective because of the approach it took to stop violence rather than stopping individuals from joining a gang all together. While gangs are the main target of these interventions, I feel the Boston Ceasefire project did so well because the main goal was to reduce and prevent violence. I think that gangs feel threatened when the goal of an intervention is to dismantle the gang or prevent more recruits from joining. However, when the police and probation officers are stopping by to ensure that an individual is doing as they should and not getting into trouble, it is less of a threat to the gang as a whole and more of a concern for the safety of people. An intervention method I found to be not so effective was the gang databases. While I feel these are necessary for prisons and places where rival gangs may be in close quarters, the gang databases maintained at a state level have some issues. These databases underrepresent girls in gangs, yet there are also concerns that too many individuals are included in the databases, and there is concern that some of the individuals in the database may not even be affiliated with a gang. The lack of ability to accurately pick out a gang member could result in people who aren’t associated with gangs ending up in the database and, possibly, even getting longer sentences because of this. Overall, I think gang intervention is necessary in order to prevent and decrease gang activity. I feel the best way to go about the interventions is to start by focusing on stopping violence amongst opposing gangs.2. While I think some of the interventions introduced by the government are more for publicity’s sake than for the good of communities around the country, one of the programs I feel as though had an impact is GRYD (The Los Angeles Gang Reduction Youth Development). This program combines many components needed in order for a program to be successful: planning, assessment, implementation, and outcome evaluation. By have each of these steps the program leaders are able to tweak different aspects of the program and change them accordingly. When reading about the other programs in the textbook it seems as though those programs were created and then left alone to see if they worked without being willing to change as they learn more about those in gangs within their community. Although, it is also important to note that results are not going to be immediate results, therefore it can be difficult to determine whether or not certain programs are actually effective. On the other hand, many programs are not effective in the long term when it comes to deterring youths from joining gangs. An example of this is the GREAT program. In this program, there was short term effects that showed there were fewer social problems amongst teens, but in the long run the program did not seem to have any effect on students in terms of gang membership. I think something that can be taken from each of the programs talked about in the textbook shows that each city is different in terms of what they need when targeting gang membership amongst teens. But more importantly, there needs to be more research into these programs in order to find the one that helps students the most.