Love and Relationships

with Mary Jo Rapini

6 Ways to “Gang Proof” your Kids



Gang violence is not a new problem for Chicago, Illinois, but recently it’s gained much more attention in education news. Since many schools in the poorer neighborhoods of Chicago have been closed down, many students must travel longer distances through unknown and gang-infested territory to get to their new school. The areas were deemed so dangerous that the city set up the Safe Passages initiative, which lines sidewalks with police and large “Safe Passage” signs to protect traveling students. Many news articles have criticized that the signs already have bullet holes in them, and on Sunday a man with gang connections had been shot near one Safe Passage route.




Why Youth Join Gangs:



The most basic need, physiological; gangs “take care of their own.” They have a strong sense of loyalty and companionship, and they may occasionally help out members’ families. The second need, safety, is a very common reason that youth join. If youth are surrounded by violence or feel neglected, they may seek out protection from a gang. Ironically, this often brings more violence to their lives from criminal activity and rival gangs. However, there is still the sense that a fellow gang member is watching their back. Gangs also fulfill social needs through their sense of loyalty and belonging. They also offer a sense of “play” by throwing parties or engaging in petty crime, such as graffiti tagging. Gangs can even fulfill the fifth and final need, self-actualization. Self-actualization includes creative pursuits and the creation of an identity. Gang members may feel a sense of empowerment and pride after completing a successful robbery or mugging. They may express themselves as artists through graffiti.


Gangs often begin with friends that are toxic to your child. Once your child is part of a gang it is much more difficult to intervene. Gang members are terrorists, because they often have little regard for anyone or anything. Their violence and crime extends outside of rival gangs to innocent bystanders. The police (and often citizen) response is to crack down on gang violence, but research has shown this is not necessarily the best option. In 2010, Dr. Vigil, a professor at the University of California, noted, “Law enforcement and suppression tactics, already overtaxed as a solution to a problem they did not start, are having only moderate and uneven success in addressing the gang problem. It doesn’t make any difference how many jails we build or how many cells are set aside for each new gang cohort, the strategy we now have has failed. It has failed because it is not based on facts, on science, on human development, or on common sense. We need to be honest in recognizing this fact and bold and courageous in charting a new course” (Vigil 2010). Vigil’s point is that gangs represent a human development issue, not necessarily insufficient law enforcement. Gangs are filling a void for adolescents, and it is our duty as parents to figure out what is missing from their lives before they join a gang.


How Parents Can Stop Their Children From Joining Gangs:


Teaching parents to be aware of gang behavior in the early stages can help them change their child’s current path. Parents need to know the friends of their child, and be alert to friends who are toxic or aggressive that could get their child into trouble.

  1. Talk to your child. Does your child feel alone or friendless? These are situations to begin working with immediately. A child with a low self-esteem is easier to tempt into gang like behavior.
  6.  In the Houston area a web site to go for help is If you want out of a gang and you don’t know where to turn, call the Houston Police Force and ask for the gang division. They will help you get out safely.



With special thanks to Sarina Rapini MPA ( for helping me help parents. Losing a child to a gang is a tragedy of the worst kind.




Vigil, J. D. 2010. Gang Redux: A Balanced Anti-Gang Strategy. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.


15 Responses

  1. oldoak says:

    “Be sure to praise your child on what they do well.

    But stop praising them for everything they do-it makes them weaker and more insecure

    • maryjorapini says:

      Oldoak, you are so right with this piece of advice. Parents are no longer available to their kids, their guilt spurs their incessant need to try and make their child feel good. They buy more and discipline less. The product is our children no longer can function…they react with violence, or are lulled into a sleepy depression and lack of motivation waiting for mom or dad to bail them out. WE all have to wake up… make changes in our homes, so our communities can thrive once again. Never give your child more game time than face to face family time. Thank you, mjo

  2. ThePrize says:

    The only way to make schools better is to privatize the entire system. Let parents send their kids wherever they want. If the kid gets out of line, he or she is booted out of the school.
    My sister taught public school for 14 years and hated it. She just started teaching private school this year and loves it.

  3. SuperFlyLib says:

    If you don’t want your kid to join a gang….stop having kids out of wedlock. “Where’s my baby daddy?”

  4. Bill in Houston says:

    Geez, and people wonder why I want to move my family the hell out of Houston (and the USA)??

  5. BOB says:

    Why are gang members allowed in our schools?

    Parents this problem is your fault. You seeded your schools to law and school administrators.

    The schools then would get be served by a
    parent and would settle and then devise a way to keep parents happy and everyone in school at all costs as they were measured by the state.

    This led to allowing all kinds of troubled kids in your schools. Today most of these more serious infractions would have gotten you expelled for the year many years ago. The schools had no troubled kids like today
    attending classes.

    Until you shut off the lawsuits you and take the power back from the state and allow school administrators to expel these bad kids this will continue.

    You cannot have it both ways and graduate all of these people if they won’t behave in school.

  6. fire ralph draper says:

    The worst gang in all of Harris and Montgomery County is SPRINGisd superintendent ralph draper and the board of SpringISD. This band of thugs has brought the district to a new low. Test scores are lower than they have ever been.More teachers in SpringISD have had sexual relations with students than any other district in the state. Draper is disgusting, throw the bum out !!

  7. ken reed says:

    Jojo, you’re right. Reality is a liberal plot. And if that fungus gets inside your body, use a new product called Innuendo. It’s a suppository, and knocks it every time.

  8. Fred Gherkin says:

    The reason that kids join gangs is because being in a gang makes a kid cool. Like really cool. The only way to keep them out of gangs is to berate them constantly so that they feel like they’ll never succeed at anything, even being really cool like the members of gangs are. Therefore why try to be in a gang then? They may still join a gang but they probably won’t have as much fun.

  9. BOB says:

    Ah the best solution is to home school and you will not get the indoctrination of the government policies we now have in this country. These policies seem to support progressive liberalism which is a fungus people get before communism.

    • Sam says:

      Go away.

    • jojo says:

      Bob speaks the truth. Liberalism is a fungus and must be stopped.

    • DoubleDown says:

      If it weren’t for liberalism, you wouldn’t be writing your inane comments on this page. I’m an independent and I usually vote Republican, but I can’t stand ideologues who do not have the intelligence to consider the meaning and import of an individual event or situation. Dividing the world into liberals v. conservatives or Democrats v. Republicans is the refuge of the intellectually bankrupt. But to do otherwise requires thought and intelligence.