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This
Gang Awareness Message is from Michael Leonard, Criminal Justice
Consultant.
  
Message for Youth
What preventive steps can Youth take to help avoid
possible risk of gang membership?
Hanging out with the wrong friends
can get you to not
perform well in school, because gang lifestyles do not value or promote
the educational process.
Youth should avoid:
- Involving yourself in purchasing
alcohol/drugs of any kind (including beer and Marijuana)
- Going shoplifting and friends that you
know shoplift
- Any type of gang fighting or bullying of
any kind
- Being unkind to people that groups dislike
- Writing gang names, symbols or related
graffiti on books, papers, bodies, or walls
- Getting into arguments that do not
involve you
- Signing onto gang websites that ask you
for personal information
- Poor decision-making perpetrated by gang
affiliation
- Gang initiations
- Joining a gang because it makes you a
dependant rather than an independent thinker
Steps youth can take to promote positive peer
pressure:
Youth
should:
- Involve yourself in supervised positive
group activities in school, in church and in the community
- Stick to curfews that are set by your
parents or guardian
- Choose friends that have rules similar to
yours. Example: curfews
- Get a mentor in your career choice or
field of interest
- Become a mentor to a younger child
- Stay away from where gangs are to hang out
- Participate in family gatherings and
gather with family often
- Always
let parents or guardians know whereabouts and times of travel along
with arrival times. They are your best defense if ever questioned by
police about possible committed crimes.
Interested in a presentation to your
business, church, civic group or classroom?
You can
reach Michael Leonard Sr. at his email address Gangsrreal@yahoo.com.
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