BY: COLLIN KIMPS, DYLAN SUNDIN, AND JON STREI

What is Teenage Violence? Teenage Violence is the type of violence (Assault, Murder, etc.) that is carried out by a teenager.

Teenage Violence in… Romeo and Juliet There is a lot of violence in Romeo and Juliet, because throughout the play there are many fights, and a number of characters die. Although not every death is by murder, all of them are violent. The deaths from the play are as follows: Tybalt killed Mercutio Romeo killed Tybalt Romeo killed Paris Romeo killed himself Juliet Killed herself This is interesting because every character that kills someone, or gets killed, is a teenager.

Gangs are violent. They kill innocent people, rival gang members, and law enforcement. The violence that gangs bring to a neighborhood have an effect on the youth. The gangs also bring drugs, alcohol, guns, and other items that destroy the lives of people. But the worst thing that gangs do is recruiting teens.

What is a Gang? In Chicago a good definition of a black "street gang" is a unorganized group of young men who rarely engage in illegal activity.

Of all the self-identified gang members in Chicago 70% are unemployed.

A child's exposure to community violence affects the whole family. Parents are often very worried about their child's health and well-being. If resources and help are limited, parents can become angry. As a parent, you might blame yourself for not being able to keep your child safe.

What this means is that gang violence affects the lives of family members because of the affect it has on youth and teens. Parents of the teens can become so worried in their child's safety that they blame themselves for being incapable of keeping their child safe. Parents may become overly protective and if their child does something, parents may go too harsh even if the behavior is the result of a community problem. So gang violence affects the teens lives in safety manner, then the parents become crazy, then back to the teens it becomes over the top for them.

Law enforcement professionals say that the issue of why kids join gangs is complex. According to the Justice Policy Institute, no single risk factor or set of factors can accurately predict which young people will become gang members. One of the most common reasons kids join gangs is that they are from broken homes and desperately want to be part of a family-like group, and they perceive gangs as being able to provide that. Brandon Robinson grew up in a housing project in Kansas City, Missouri. As a participant in a 2007 survey about gangs, he told interviewers that many of those who join share the commonality of being from poverty-stricken, dysfunctional backgrounds. "You got family members on crack and you ain't eating right," he says. "Everybody's hungry."12

This is saying that basically gangs get teens to join because they are desperate. Desperate to leave their home life, to find something they can call their family, because their family is not providing for them properly.

Other reasons for joining gangs include the lure of having money to spend (from stealing or selling drugs), easy access to drugs, and protection from the dangers of the street and rival gangs. Yet many criminal justice experts say that being part of a gang does not keep kids safer at all. In fact, studies have shown that young people who are involved with gangs have a markedly higher likelihood of being injured or killed than those who are not gang-affiliated.

This says that teenagers join gangs for the money, drugs, and for protection. But gangs provide the complete opposite of protection, based on the statistic from the article.

Act I Scene I TYBALT What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: Have at thee, coward!

This is like the violence between gangs, because Tybalt is a Capulet. And he hates the Montagues, much like rival gangs hate each other.

Mercutio: Good King of Cats but one of your nine lives. That I mean to take bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out

This was the part of the book where community violence from gangs is at its most! Mercutio and Tybalt had there own little problems with each other and just like how it could happen in life, it ended bad. Tybalt ended up slaying Mercutio. That had an affect on some other people's lives including Romeo. Romeo went on to live with grief and eventually made some bad decisions, like revenge on Tybalt. Gang violence played a role in Romeo's life and it is also doing so in some teens current life.