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Youth Gangs as a Social Problem Sometime in the past 20 or 30 years, youth gangs have increasingly become a social problem society has had to deal with. Many wonder where these young groups come from and what gives them the idea that being in a gang is an acceptable and wonderful way to live. There are many possible answers to these questions, but on the surface it is evident that youth gangs come about through something as simple as a negative change in an individual’s personal wants or needs or how they were raised. This change in morals may stem from movies, peer pressure or something else entirely, but to effectively find a way to end gang violence, we must dig deeper and find exactly what factors are causing the loss of morality in these young one’s to begin with. The forces of the media, an individual’s home environment, and peer pressure/acceptance are three possible negative effects on one’s morals that could later lead to youth gang membership. The influence of television and movies over children today is one way morals are becoming more negatively deformed. The American Academy of Pediatrics compiled statistics on media violence that say, by the age of 18, the average U.S. child has viewed over 16,000 murder