5. I think that the most surprising thing brought up in Richard Garland's lecture was what gangs have become in modern times. The common perception of street gangs, backed up by many of the articles I read in the course of preparing for the lecture, is that they have become more about turf and violence than anything else. The images associated with gangs are those we see in the media: tough punks who hold territory and kill each other for various reasons.

Richard Garland surprised me when he said that turf has become less important to gangs. Instead, they are about money. When I stop to think about that, it's a very chilling thought. If a nineteen year-old guy is capable of pulling in twenty thousand dollars a month from controlling and directing his gang activities, street gangs must be organized to Mafia-like proportions. The common perception, the perception indicated by the articles I read, and the perception I had going into the lecture, was just the opposite. Most people see gangs as formed on a sense of fraternity - people looking for someplace to belong, hanging out with each other, and having a sense of community and family. All in all, they're not an organized group in that vision. Even the crimes connected to gangs have a perception of chaos and anarchy attached to them. Graffiti is seen as a nuisance, a gang out just to mark up the town and commit some vandalism for fun. The much more sinister "gang" crime, the drive-by shooting, is so shocking and hated because of its randomness - such shootings, when aimed at a specific target, could easily kill several innocent people, and many perceive some shootings as completely random acts of mayhem, for no purpose other than fun.

In fact, neither of these common perceptions is true. The lecture Richard Garland delivered on graffiti gave me a startling perception of just how purposeful and organized it is. Graffiti serves as a way to mark territory, a way to announce identities, a warning system of sorts, an indication of gang activities, a propaganda machine, and much more. By failing to remove graffiti, people are bolstering gang activity much more than they could know - but so many people consider it nothing more than a nuisance, or don't bother to remove it or paint over it because they think it'll just get put back up again.

The scariest thing I heard in the lecture, though, was the fact that gangs have been moving away from drive-by shootings to execution-style. The cold, deliberate nature of these shootings, and the amount of planning and effort necessary to get someone into the position where they can be killed execution-style, demonstrates how dangerous gangs have become. People look at gangs and think that they're forces of random mayhem, when in fact they're much worse - they are cruel and deliberate machines, carrying out a purpose with cold efficiency. That purpose is money.

Another surprising fact, and a much more pleasant one, is that many gang leaders don't want their gang members to fall into this trap. A gang member does indeed have an undeniably large chance of being caught, sent to jail for a long period of time, and return unable to function in society except as a criminal. The surprise value that the fact has comes again from modern perception; we dehumanize gang members, choosing to think of them as malcontents and nuisances rather than people. We forget that these "devils" are in fact human beings, oftentimes ones who never intended to go as far as they did when they first begin hanging out with a gang. In doing so, we deny them any chance of redemption; we force them into a cycle of crime from which they can't escape.

I think that the lecture and the readings I did point to one thing: the public, at large, needs more education about gangs. Many of the difficulties we have with gangs come from misconceptions and incorrect ideas. Unfortunately, this will not be an easy process; as with so many other things, people have established gangs as a nuisance which they can feel justified in hating, and justified in not trying very hard to stop it. The truth that people will not like is that gangs are worse than they envision them, although gang members are not.

Still, these perceptions must be dealt with as soon as possible. Gang activity is spreading thanks to these misconceptions, and the denial they foster in the administrators and legislators who have the power to quell the threat. The schools, where intervention is most important, have yet to catch up with these new ideas - most of them have taken to banning "gang colors", when Richard Garland tells us they have virtually disappeared.

Gangs are a nationwide problem, and as such the nation must take steps to address these issues. The best thing the nation could do, judging from the lecture, is to ensure that the hate groups which many gangs are a part of, associate with, or simply draw ideas from, have as minimal effect as possible. The actions of skinhead groups such as the Neo-Nazis only encourage the soldier mentality among gang members - and the gang member who sees himself as a soldier, who will do anything for the gang unquestionably, is the most dangerous one of all. Although it is impossible and incorrect to ban such groups, the nation must make sure that they are not allowed to commit any criminal acts without being punished. The nation as a whole must send the message that illegal activities will not be tolerated, while the local communities work to show children that these groups are in the wrong.

I don't think we will ever be able to rid ourselves of gangs. The appeal they offer - fraternity, money, power, and prestige - is simply too great to prevent every child from wanting to join one. However, it is possible to channel the energy of a street gang into an outlet more socially acceptable than crime or drugs. To do so, however, requires that the people in charge have access to the facts, and that the public understands what they are dealing with and how to best combat it. Until that happens, street gangs will only become worse.