Gang Deconstruction

of violence in inner cities in the United States is mislabeled as "gang violence" when in
fact it involves small, informal cliques of people.
As gang members and factions continued to grow, the introduction of cheap crack
cocaine to American cities would prove fatal. Crack money now could be used to
purchase unprecedented amounts of weaponry, and as newly armed gang members
began to fight over 'turf', or the territory in which gangs would run their lucrative drugtrades,
violence soared, as the FBI's national data of gang-related homicides show:
from 288 in 1985 up to 1362 in 1993.
The targeted killing of the 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee, the son of a Chicago gang member
who was lured into an alley and shot in 2015 marked a new low in gang violence,
associated with the splintering of gangs into less organized factions often motivated by
personal vendettas.
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