Jazmine's Story

Jazmine Clark is 15-years-old. She has been coming to the Center of Hope every day after school since she was 5. Jazmine enjoys boxing as a hobby and she doesn’t want anything to do with the gangs because she feels as though she could do something better with her life.

While interviewing Jazmine, she looked outside the window of the library and said, “That man on the corner is a well-known drug dealer and I know this because one hand is in his pocket holding his weed and the other hand is holding his phone, it’s just something you know when you live here.”

Jazmine explained that she has no intentions on leaving Newburgh because this is her home and it is everything she knows and she doesn’t want to start over and neither does her family. Her cousin tried pressuring her into joining the Crips last summer. Her cousin also explained to her that joining a gang would give her power, give her something to do and that it wasn’t a big deal.

“You stand in the middle of four gang members who stand in four corners and they jump you and that is how you are able to be apart of the gang.” Jazmine wanted nothing to do with this and decided this path was not one she was willing to take upon with her cousin who visits her family in Newburgh every summer.

According to the website of the National Gang Center, children who experience 7 or more risk factors at ages 10 to 12 are 13 times more likely to join a gang in adolescence than children who experience only one risk factor or none at those early ages. Youth who experience all of these risk factors are 40 times more likely to join a gang than youth who only experience one of these factors. These risk factors include an early delinquency, troubled home environment, unhealthy school climate and an unsafe community environment.