Our Editor made a private visit recently to New York. He attended a musical on Broadway based on the life of the Capeman murderer. The lyrics written by Paul Simon and Derek Walcott. The play was about gang warfare in the 1950's and was based on a real life story about Salvador Agron, a teenage Puerto Rican found guilty of killing the 16 year old American, Robert Young. Another teenager was stabbed but he survived the injuries.

Our Editor says "I was intrigued by the play and throughout my visit to New York it reminded me still of certain areas where there is still segregation and gang mentality.

Edges Magazine has made contact with Doctor Francine Garcia Hallcom from California State University. She has done extensive research on street gangs, interviewing well over 1200 gang affiliated youths. Certain patterns have emerged in this research and she shares the following findings with Edges Magazine.

"Gang membership is primarily a parenting problem. This does not sit well with the Hispanic community because they think of themselves as a tightly knit, cohesive, family oriented group. However, where there is even one parent, grandmother, uncle or someone who has established a truly strong bond with these "barrio" youths, they either very loosely affiliate and leave the gang soon after, or they never affiliate at all. It appears that if they have even one person whose trust and love they do not wish to violate, they stay out of gangs. There are, however, hundreds of others who have both mums and dads, but no one cares about them. They are the ones who find a "family" and "respect" in the gang. These two words come up repeatedly in interviewing them. Our society needs classes in parenting. Some people hurt their own children so badly and so deeply, I find that aspect of my research very disheartening and even sickening."