There is a saying attributed to West Africa that states "It takes a whole Village to Raise a Child".  This is a simple recognition of not only how difficult it is to raise a child, but also that the proper development of the child is for the benefit of the entire village. 

At no time in history is living by this simple principle more important.  Our children today are facing difficulties that few of us could imagine growing up.  As a child growing up the bad influences may have been the older boy encouraging you to smoke a cigarette.  Now, none of us want our children to take up the habit of tobacco, but, compared to the drugs being offered to them today a cigarette does not look like a big deal.  Our children have to deal with people encouraging them to experiment with marijuana, cocaine, crack, methamphetimines, heroin; drugs that could kill them the first time they experiment with them.  In addition their world, as a result of the internet, is far larger than we could ever anticipate a few years ago. 

Our Children are our most important resource, they are our future.  As such we as a community must protect them and provide them with the tools and support they need to grow into healthy, well adjusted adults.

The importance a community plays when it comes to children getting involved in gangs and in getting children out of gangs cannot be over estimated.  It is suggested the single largest factor in gang development in a community is that youths feel disassociated from the larger community, they do not feel they belong.  As such they will radiate to someone who will accept them, the neighborhood gang or drug dealers, fill this role.  To combat this a community must come together and make sure our children feel loved and part of our community. 

For more on this please go to "Slides & Liibrary" and review Professor Melanie Nimmo's excellent paper entitled The Crime Careers of Gang Members: Gender, Race and Desistance.