Gangs have become increasingly become more violent over time and have also increased their activity in drugs and other illegal activities to support the gang and help recruit new gang members, often from U.S. middle and high schools. In this scenario, you have been asked to begin a gang initiative with a community that has suffered an increase in gang activity over time.

Your police department follows closely the community policing paradigm, meaning it has realized the importance of working with the community as a whole to resolve long-term problems that have often stymied efforts led only by the police in the past. Recently, one of these community groups came to you, as police chief, and asked that you respond to what it feels is an increasingly dangerous gang problem in the community. There have been several serious incidents of violence and drive-by shootings, along with the increase in drug traffic and attempts to gain new gang members in your local middle and high schools.

You recognize that increasing patrols and arrests in the area will only solve the problem short term or perhaps just displace the problem, so you want to seek a more long-term solution.

Individual Portion

Individually, you are to explain the following:

The initiatives you will take individually, outside of the department, to address this problem in the community
How will you measure the effectiveness of your initiative?

Albert Bandura brought forth the social learning theory. In this theory, he studied how violence portrayed in the mass media would have an affect upon children. One of these effects was modeling. A child would internalize what he or she saw and imitate the behavior.

Do you believe violence in the mass media and in video games contributes to the violence of youth? Why or why not?
How could the effects of this violence on children be negated?