My Stake

I chose to focus my topic on the different factors relating to joining a gang because I have recently come in contact numerous times with someone who is in fact in a gang. I have met and talked with people who are in gangs in the past, but this particular person confuses me because he's quite intelligent and holds a seemingly harmless personality. It caused me to ask "Why would he enter such a vicious and merciless organization?" After having multiple conversations with this person he gave me a broad view of his personal life and why he chose to take such a direction, but I know that there are plenty of more people in gangs with much more different reasons. My sources so far have written about the different methods to take when researching gang violence, which have led me to study broader views and perhaps if it is the gang members breaking down themselves down or is the society breaking them down?