Street Gangs

[Skit]
News Reporter: To the adult world, the casual violence of gang life was horrifying. But in the distorted world of gangs, risking death by getting shot was one sure way of winning a gang's respect
Gang Member 1: I was shot when I was 15 or 16
Police Scanner: Shots fired in the area gang fight in the parking lot
Gang Member 1: When my lungs collapsed, um, the, the .22 is still lodged in my chest to this day
Gang Member 2: See getting shot and living was more for my ego it was more for my image. I could now, I could walk around like Superman, I'd been shot. I'm, you know I'm, I'm the great I am now in my chest at that?
News Reporter: They show off their scars the way war veterans display purple hearts
Gang Member 3: I got shot in the heart and, um. These are other scars that I've had from other neighborhood fightings and it doesn't stop
News Reporter: Do you get used to death? Do you get used to the fact that you could die any day? (Do you get used to it?)
Gang Member 4: See I don't worry 'bout that 'til you get hit by that bullet. See like, that's just like when people steal cars, they don't worry about getting caught 'til they caught, right? Same when we shooting at a person, I don't think about getting caught 'til I get caught
News Reporter: The explosion of gangs in the last to decades of the 20th century grew under a much larger problem. The rise of a social underclass and America's failure to provide hope. The children born into a world of disintegrating family life and grinding poverty. Although there small successes with programs designed to create a future for some of those children, no one came up with a large scale program that dealt effectively, with the forces of despair and alienation that prompted some many young Americans to look for their identity and their self-esteem in the world of street gangs