Originally Posted by
detroitsgwenivere
I love when people try to make out Detroit as some hot bed for gangs. Give me a break. A real gang has hundreds even thousands of members and is quite visible. Big cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago estimate gang membership in the hundreds of thousands. Even smaller midwestern cities like St. Louis and southern ones like Little Rock have significantly more gang violence than we do. I think the notion of a gang problem is blown out of proportion so that the city has a reason to garner federal grant money for their notorious gang squad.
The groups named above that are currently active are more like "block sets," groups who are fighting to maintain drug turf. Most of the drug related shootings are between groups of young people numbering no more than 10-15. The drug dealers I've spoken to [[I know that sounds bad but when you live in a dope hood this is inevitable) say they would never maintain a big gang because A. they become too visible to police, and B. Everyone is cutthroat and out for themselves. These kids are no dummies believe me. Good math skills, business entrepreneurship, and customer service are only some of the skills these kids possess in order to maintain profit generation. I found myself trying to convince these kids to go back to school so many times I can't count. They would always say they had to make money somehow and they weren't willing to bust their ass at a fast food joint for BS money. Hard to argue with them. If only these kids had good mentors....