Do most gang members have parents who are also in gangs?
Occassionally, but its not the rule. Of the hundreds of gang members I’ve worked with, only one in five had parents with similar affiliations. However, it makes sense that if a parent had a troubled youth that they never overcame, then they won’t have tools to help their own children who have trouble in school, show learning or emotional disorders and start to act out. Its not that the parent is telling the child “you better join my gang” but that the parent simply doesn’t know what to do so that their child is successful; especially if parent is still struggling with addictions, unemployment, unstable relationships and other legacies of a gang life.
