In the article, “Wrestling the Devil: Conversion and Exit from Central American Gangs,” Brenneman captures the emerging crisis of urban violence in northern Central America in the past two decades. In spite of the responsibility of the youth gangs for the violence, the article highlights the influence of the punitive approaches in dealing with the gang violence in sharpening the public hostility against the gang members. The punitive approach continues to create a conducive context to the aspects of ‘social cleansing’ seeking to reduce gang violence through the elimination of gang-affiliated youth through increased instances of extrajudicial executions. Amid the development of the public anger, as well as resentment against the gang youth, various religious leaders have focused on optimizing their responsibilities as society members to develop approaches to rescue gang members and restore them to society. In the process, such leaders tend to make considerable sacrifices while taking personal risks based on their actions. In the development of the article, the author describes the challenges and risks associated with leaving gangs. Besides, the article adopts the sociological approach to the conversions of the gang members in discovering the resources these leaders and gang ministries provide to the former gang members seeking to deal with the problem of the spoiled identity. The article comprehends the use of semi-structured interviews in 2007 and 2008 with the former gang members, as well as gang ministry coordinators sustainable with the handful of follow-up interviews in 2013. In their article, “Disengaging from Gangs and Desistance from Crime,” Sweeten, Pyrooz, and Piquero (2013) sought to explore the relationship between disengagement from gangs and desistance from crime within the life-course criminological framework. In the article, the authors tend to conceptualize gang disengagement as the event of gang membership de-identification and practices associated with the declining gang embeddedness. The authors focus on examining the implications of the event, as well as the process of disengaging from the gangs concerning criminal distance approaches and the criminal offering. The authors use longitudinal data, as well as multilevel modeling. According to the findings of this study, disengaging from gangs tends to have indirect relationship to offending through less exposure to antisocial peers, less victimization, less unstructured routine practices, and more temperance. From this perspective, gang disengagement contributes to the decreased contemporaneous offending without predicting the future offending following controlling for the resistance mechanisms. Moreover, the article highlights that leaving gangs more quickly reduces the exposure of the members to antisocial peers while developing better working histories associated with ideal psychosocial characteristics even in the gang. Brenneman (2014) and Sweeten, Pyrooz, and Piquero (2014) tend to have diverse similarities. In the first instance, the two articles focusing on discussing the same content. For example, in both articles, the authors focus on the assessment of the final course of gang life, which is leaving the gang. In this context, the authors highlight some of the contributing factors to the decisions by gang members to leave the gangs. Furthermore, the two articles capture the reintroduction of the gang members into society following the decision to avoid engaging in criminal activities. Critically, these two articles focus on the assessment of the practices of an individual’s life as he or she lives the gang to become a normal member of society away from the criminal activities or practices in the community. On the other hand, Brenneman (2014) and Sweeten, Pyrooz and Piquero (2014) tend to have differences in their presentation, as well as tackling the final life course in the gang. In spite of tackling the approach by members to leave the gang and re-enter the society, the two article focuses on incorporating different approaches to the achievement of their goals. For instance, in his article, Brenneman (2014) focuses on the optimization of the resources to describe the challenges and risks gang members experience or face as they move away from their criminal activities in the respective gangs. Other than this descriptive approach, Brenneman (2014) uses the interview method in the collection of data concerning the perception of the religious leaders in their practice toward helping the former gang members to enter the society. On the other hand, Sweeten, Pyrooz, and Piquero (2014) seek to use longitudinal data and modeling frameworks in the exploration of the issues associated with deterrence from crime and leaving the gangs. Besides, Brenneman (2014) assesses the role of religious leaders to help the former gang members. Alternatively, Sweeten, Pyrooz, and Piquero (2014) highlights the relationship between disengaging from the gang and stay away from crime. These aspects highlight the differences in their perceptions and views on leaving the gang and entering into society. Conclusively, I believe there should be research on the former gang members’ experiences upon returning to society. This is through assessing their views or perceptions on what they deal with upon returning to society. Furthermore, the study should explore their suggestions to other members of society on what to do in overcoming the challenges of violence in society. The approach might play a valuable role in the documentation or development of policies to deal with the implications or challenges of gangs in the communities.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
