Essay Example on Street Gangs Recruitment and How It Mirrors Terrorist Recruitment

Terrorism is a worldwide concern as the terrorists use both violence and intimidation to drive political correctness or realize their political agenda. Various groups including sympathizers, organized crime gangs, and human traffickers fund terrorists including the suicide groups. This means that they have the financial means that most youth lack. The youth who are likely to join street gangs are also more likely to join terrorist groups because of the same reasons- financial gains. (Densley, 2012)

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Street gang recruitments are significantly correlated to terrorists recruitments. The motivation behind joining street gang is mainly financial or economic gains, therefore, when a terrorist group realizes that there are people in need of economic gains, they lure the needy people with promises of economic benefits. Most of the al-Qaeda, Al-shabab and ISIs terrorists were mainly from low social economic status (low SES) families AND BECAUSE OF their financial need, they are identified, recruited and radicalized into terrorists.

2). what experiences or contextual issues might influence how this phenomenon could be studied?

The main contextual issues that might affect the way street gangs and terrorist groups are being studied include social economic status, religion, Islamophobia, or political standings. Other contextual issues (variables) include gender, age, ethnic background, and employment status...

3). in what setting(s) could a topic like this be explored?

The topic can be studied in any political or economic setting. Terrorism is a worldwide problem as their hate and attacks are not discriminative (Densley, 2012).

4). what connection do you have to this topic, and why do you think it is important to explore this as a qualitative study?

In the current environment where political correctness, ideological differences and economic burden are competing. Most of the youth are left with very little chances of education and or employment. The youth especially those from poor families are increasingly becoming easy prey for the terrorist recruiters. The paper therefore hypothesizes that there is significant positive correlation between social economic status and possibility of joining a terrorists groups. Just the same, way, people join gangs for economic benefits, they likely to join terrorists groups. The same groups recruited into gangs are more likely to be recruited into terrorist groups. Terrorists are increasingly recruiting more youth and the current effort of the government is to stop radicalization. The problems are on how to identify the potential recruits before they are radicalized. Therefore, to understand the targeted recruits (Densley, 2012) and the potential impact of their terrorist recruiters, it is important to ask qualitative questions that can be answered by the respondents in entirety.

What possibilities could the results of this research have for social change?

The results of this research would help the government in development appropriate strategies aimed at preventing terrorists recruitments. By understanding the underlying phenomena, the government and special interest groups can develop income-generating programs that would be useful to the youth in terms of economic gains. For example, employment, education, and job creations would help reduce or stop the youth from radicalization as they would an alternative source of income. In conclusion, if you can stop the increase of Gangs, you can reduce the recruitment into terrorist groups. You can also reduce crime with in the surrounding communities.

References

Densley, J. (2012). Street Gang Recruitment. Social Problems, 59(3), pp.301-321.

Taylor, S. (2013). Why American boys join street gangs. Int. J. Sociol. Anthropol., 5(9), pp.339-349.