Gangs Aren't Just In Big Cities

Gang violence is a huge problem amongst Americans. Gangs are everywhere, they even exist up here in Moline, IL. It obviously is not as much of a problem as it is in LA, Chicago, or New York; these large cities have significant amounts of gang violence. But here in the Quad Cities, gangs do exist and violence is all around us.
When I was in second or third grade, I was walking around in the woods near my cousins trailor park, when we came across some concrete walls. It was just an old building and the walls were covered in writing. The words written on them that had no meaning to us, but we got the hint that it wasn't anything good. On the way back to my cousins house we ran into some older kids smoking cigarettes. They were probably in seventh or eighth grade. There was no dodging them so we had to talk to them. A little nervous, I decided to ask one of the them what he was doing with a listerine bottle. He looked at his friends and laughed, then turned back towards me saying he was using it to get drunk. Finally we got past them. Once we were out of sight from them we laughed about how they were drinking something that you are supposed to clean your teeth with. Then my cousin told me that the kid we were talking with had told him previously, that his older brother was in a gang. He said that he had to get beat up to get in, then once he was in they made him do bad things to prove he was tough. One thing he had to do was cut off a cats tail.
This is just one small example of how we face gangs in our lives. As I have grown older, I have seen kids at school turn to gangs 'for protection,' or so they say. It's crazy to see them turn from being interested in school, to chosing a life of drugs and violence.