There are just as many gangs today as there ever were, and they are getting more violent. Children today have to worry about what colors not to wear, for the fear of making a gang claiming that color angry is a matter of life and death. Teenagers in gang wars are killing each other like target practice. This young society is out of control and no one knows what to do. We are supposed to be civilized people, not wild monkeys running around hollering threats, and marking territory. So many innocent people are dying from others' rage. Too many teenagers are getting away with violent gang crimes like rape, murder, and vandalism. Our community has to wake up to open their eyes and see what is going on with our youth, our future.

Ideas of increasing police presence in suspected gang areas along with police talks with suspected gang members are said to help the gang violence tone down. This idea however is only going to raise the violence and tension within gangs. Determining who and where gangs hang out will be up to the police officers themselves and would probably waste a lot of time. The police officers will be depended on their discretion completely, and they cann

ot be correct all of the time. Police talking to suspected gang members would either put that member in danger of getting killed or force innocent people to be the scapegoat for events out of their control. It is the officers word against the suspected teen, so who do you think the community is going to believe. There would be too much police power going around, which will cause havoc with the gangs who take revenge in their own hands.

Making it a crime for youth to be in groups larger than two is an idea not clearly thought out. Some people may think that not allowing teens to form groups may lessen the chance of a gang being started. Where would the authorities draw the line between when a person cannot have a group of friends to when it would be okay. There is no control group for this idea so there will be no proof of its effectiveness. If teens were to be arrested or fined for every extra friend that they have, the community would probably have all their tax money sent to the police department. The jail cells would be full of harmless people who have a social life sleeping next to murderers. Preventing the youth to form groups is not going to stop gangs from forming, and it is treating the public like we are robots. Who is to say who your friends can and cannot be. Groups of friends are not what starts gangs, but it is the fear of others taking over. So making it a crime to have more than one hang out friend is out of the question.

Others may not agree with prop 21 because of the harsh punishments that the young teens will have to endure. Along with the grueling punishment, is the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to fund all the components. My thought is yes it will be expensive, but if you do not use the money here the government is going to use it elsewhere.

People may argue that it is unconstitutional to have such strict gun laws, because of one's right to bear arms. But isn't it logical that if there were less weapons going around, that there would be less violence with those particular items

Some common words found in the essay are:
, prop 21, gun laws, suspected gang, strict gun, money prop, money prop 21, strict gun laws, prevent gangs, country world, police officers, violent crimes, tax money,
Approximate Word count = 1381
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)