Troubled Teens Resources

Carl slammed through the front door and went straight into his room. Recalling the gunshot she thought she heard earlier in the hour, his mother suspected that Carl had witnesses a local gang shooting and now chose to stay undercover so that the police didn’t question him as a witness.

Gang Intimidation

A kid in a city infested with gangs can’t afford to be a witness. As teenage drug abuse continues to inadvertently fund the existence of gangs, there is very little a parent can do to protect their at-risk teens from the gang’s reach.

“One teenager described seeing a witness pistol-whipped for reporting a rape to police. “His eyes were completely red; you couldn’t see any white,” the unidentified youth said in an interview with researchers for a study on witness intimidation released yesterday. “They threatened to kill him and his family.”

Another said: “I’d get in trouble if I reported a violent crime. Gangs would be mad at me.”

Having once successfully waged a campaign against witness intimidation, Massachusetts recently conducted a study to determine why it has reemerged as a problem.

No Safe Harbor for Teens

Despite the state’s leadership on public safety issues, Leary said she was startled by the high percentage of young people at the Boys and Girls Clubs who had experienced gun violence. Seven percent reported being the victim of a shooting, 20 percent reported witnessing a shooting, and 18 percent reported a family member or friend being shot at.
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Youths participating in the study agreed, telling researchers they resent the gangs’ power.

“You can’t walk through a street without looking back,” one said. “They just think everything is theirs. They want to be the president of the block.”
(Source)

Teens also cite the schools’ impotency in protecting their students. Rival gangs often use school campuses to stage their rivalries, resulting in lock downs and often assaults on students and teachers. Students often feel like they are in prison with no safe harbor nearby.