Professional Documents
Culture Documents
My name is Nidia Valencia and I attend one of the Robert F. Kennedy Community
Schools. I am writing this to inform you that many students from my school are involved in
gangs and they cause shooting around school between them. I see that most of them used to be
friends. But when they get involved in different gangs they become enemies and make the
environment for other classmates dangerous. Teachers and counselors don’t take action about
this issue, they don’t seem to want to stop the problem. In fact, students get bullied at school and
that leads them to join gangs and harm others, it is really hard to stay out of trouble when
teenagers act rude or bad sometimes over the influence of drugs. Most teenagers act like this to
The reason I am writing this is because I believe there is a solution for teenagers to stay
out of trouble and also out of gangs. After the terrible shootings that have occurred in schools in
different states, most of us are left with a question in our heads: what can we do to avoid these
events? And usually there are no answers that no longer know what is the real reason why this
act of violence is carried out. According to recent psychological studies,such as the “National
Gang Threat Assessment”, a determining factor in these events is the depression suffered by
young people, and as a consequence of depression is successive of violence. At the same time,
psychologists make suggestions to parents who are more interested in the personal formation of
their children. They make recommendations such as the proper use of the Internet and video
games, try to create environments and systems of inclusion in the home and in schools, prohibit
the possession of firearms to children under 21 years of age, which is compulsory in schools, the
use of transparent bags and a review by a personal staff, thereby achieving control of internal
activities in schools.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) they said “gang homicides accounted
for roughly 8,900 of 11,100 gun murders in both 2010 and 2011” this means that teenagers or
gang members are having more mental problems, anger or depression and they are not being
responsible for their actions and how it affects their community. In 2015 there were two men
killed around my house, then days later a student from one of the others community school was
arrested because he was responsible for it, they were from the same gang “MS13” but they were
from different streets supposedly he was taking care of their territory. This is a sad example of
how teenagers get lost in the world of gangs and give up on their education because they don’t
get help from their parents or counselors. Sometimes parents do not know what they childrens
are going through or what they are feeling, which is why teenagers look out for gangs or drugs.
In fact that 37.6% of gang members are 18-24 years old, 32% are 15-17 years is mostly
teenagers that joined gangs, only 14% are over 24 years. I believe there is a solution for this
problem because students need to take advantage of the education we get and learn something
Sincerely,
Nidia Valencia