What Causes Chicanos to Join Gangs and How Does That Decision Affect Their Lives? It is a cold and dark night in East Los Angeles. The streets are empty except for a few people on their way home. Then out of the shadows comes a car slowly driving down the streets. There are four young men heavily armed, just waiting for a target to come along. At a nearby house a rival gang member comes …showed first 75 words of 2687 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2687 total…the gang members themselves, their friends and family, innocent individuals caught in the middle of all this, and society as a whole. However our present system of simply locking them up will not work, since the gangs continue to operate within the walls of our prison system. To stop gangs we must prevent them from forming, by giving our youth positive things to do, by ending the poverty cycle and by raising their educational level.