Social Marketing Campaign for Youth Gangs Assignment

Social Marketing Campaign for Youth Gangs - Assignment Example This essay declares that the proliferation of gangs is a national and local issue. The young ages of gang members and resulting individual and collective deviant behaviours make them a particular national concern. The basic age range of gang members is between 12 and 24 years, with the average ages of 17 and 18 years. These are children who should be studying in school and being moulded by society to reach for their dreams and upmost potentials. Instead, they are engaging in deviant and criminal behaviours. States and local communities also experience a rising incidence of gang membership. This paper makes a conclusion that in Atlanta, International Robbing Crew and 30 Deep are two of the largest gangs. They are mostly involved in drugs and robberies. The literature on the social context of gang membership contains numerous contradictions. Albert Cohen advances a subculture theory that seeks to explain why the youth join gangs. In particular, a gang provides them the opportunity to belong, to develop their sense of masculinity, to do something that is â€Å"valuable†, or to fight middle-class society and authority follows the study of psychologist Erik Erikson to understand gang membership. Erik Erikson argues that identity is a â€Å"developmental phenomenon† shaped by the social conditions and internal developmental processes. A social and cultural background that provides for the identity formation process and helps adolescents achieve their human identity needs is beneficial to a robust identity formation.