Female Gangs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Female Gangs - Essay Example In the technical sense, most of these females have not been considered as gang members, but as a relative or as girlfriends (SDCOE, n.d). In effect, they have often been viewed in a subservient role – people who would hold weapons or drugs or as sex toys. Today, most of these roles are still seen among female gang members, however, many female members have now taken on male roles as a means of integrating their lives into gangs (SDCOE, n.d). Many of them emulate male members in terms of clothing, criminal activities, tattoos, graffiti vandalism, weapons use, as well as the application of violence. Their reasons for joining gangs are as varied as their male counterparts and their activities in these gangs are also related to a variety of reasons. This paper shall now consider female gangs, their reasons for joining gangs, their usual activities in these gangs, the crimes they commit, their initiation process and related qualities. This paper is being carried out in order to est ablish a clear and comprehensive understanding of the female gangs and their involvement in these gang-related activities. Female gang members, as was mentioned above, have traditionally been considered by law enforcement authorities as nothing more than â€Å"accessories† to male gang members (Curry and Decker, 1998). As a result of these perceptions, law enforcers have been reluctant to qualify female activities in the gang as gang-related activities. The fact that there is a biased perception on these activities not being naturally feminine also affects the perception of these female activities. In the recent context however, attention has been brought forth to the commission of violent crimes by young women (Archer and Grascia, 2005). Females have not been considered capable of carrying out so-called male crimes because of gender