The Soaring Rise of Gang Membership in the United States

It's been quite the first decade of the 21st century. Two wars, two Presidents, the advent of Lady GaGa and Justin Bieber, not to mention the explosion of social media, iPhones, iPads, Droids and more. Clearly, the last ten years have changed the way people live their lives in unprecedented ways.

That same sentiment applies to many youth in the United States, though not necessarily for the better. Case in point, statistics related to gang membership in the U.S., which are rising sharply, and have been on the rise since 2002. In Chicago? Gang membership is up ten percent. In Los Angeles? Eight percent. And as a whole, there are 42,500 more young people in gangs today than there were at the start of this decade, a roughly six percent increase as a whole.

So how is it that while many in this country move forward, so many, particularly youth, are moving backwards into cycles of violence? Well, one reason, according to a former gang member in New York, is that youth in many vulnerable areas face a lack of opportunities and a lack of schools. His name is Lawrence Richardson, and as WHEC.com reports, he gave Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a lot to chew on when it comes to youth violence.

"It's not what you want to do," he said. "It's not where you want to be because you will live in fear on a daily basis."

His sentiments dovetail nicely with a convergence in Washington, D.C. this week by the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP). This group is working hard to address the root causes of gang violence in communities, and collaborate with youth to become positive agents of change within their community. One of their goals while in Washington? Urge legislators to support a piece of legislation known as the Youth PROMISE Act. It's the only bipartisan piece of legislation before Congress dealing exclusively with youth violence, and if it passes, it may just help take those soaring gang membership numbers around the country, and turn them in the opposite direction.

The Youth PROMISE Act picked up a bit of steam in the U.S. Senate last month, when Senator John Kerry became the 15th sponsor of the legislation. Moreover, a leading youth advocate for the measure was nominated to be a keynote speaker at Campus Progress, where he gave what Ezra Klein dubbed one of the best speeches of the day. His name is Kevin Sanchez, and he's a former gang member now dedicated to preventing violence in communities around the U.S. His words nail exactly why the Youth PROMISE Act is necessary.

"It is time for us to start reacting to the symptoms of violence, and start being proactive to address the root causes of this issue," Sanchez said. "Violence disrupts every community in this country ... I know the power of prevention and intervention programs. At the age of 17, one of those programs ... came into my life and was able to transform the mentality of anger to a mentality of peace and love."

That's exactly the goal of the Youth PROMISE Act, to turn the focus of our anti-violence programs away from incarceration, and toward rehabilitation, prevention, and transforming hearts and minds from hate and violence, to creativity and peace.

Sanchez pointed out during his keynote speech that more youth will die in the streets of America this year, than will those fighting in wars abroad. By the time you go to bed tonight, sixteen young people will have been killed today because of acts of violence.

That's sixteen youths too many. And it's reason number one why we need the Youth PROMISE Act, lest sixteen turn into seventeen, or eighteen, or thirty or more.

There's enough support in the U.S. House to get the Youth PROMISE Act to pass. But in the Senate, where voices like Sen. Kerry will be amazingly helpful, work still needs to be done. That's why organizations like YEP, The Peace Alliance, and others are calling for people to put pressure on their legislators, and to get this bill passed and on President Obama's desk. Not in 2012. Not in 2014. Not in 2020. But now.

Click here to send a message to your Congressperson. And to check out Kevin Sanchez's keynote speech, check out the video below.

Photo credit: Tony the Misfit