why would a sane person want to join a gang?

Seen from the outside you have to wonder about that. If you have a chance to know the hearts and minds of some of the young people involved it is pretty easy to understand. Friends of ours have a ministry to gang kids and kids at risk of gang involvement and we have been on their board for much of the last 11 years. In that time I have learned from the kids that the two strongest factors are fear and a desire to belong coupled in some cases with a desire to just plain survive coupled sometimes with a desire for adventure and excitement and plain old rebellion. The children and teens who are most vulnerable are the one don't see any real place for them in anything else. They may be abused at home or the family may be so poor that their basic needs like food and shelter are not met. Often they are told at home that they are not wanted - either not wanted by their folks or that "people like us" are not wanted here . Sadly in many places this is true. The gang becomes a place they think they are wanted, many times the gang house is where they sleep at night, food stolen by them and fellow gang members is what they have to eat. In some schools many Black and Hispanic kids are treated like unwelcome invaders and told they are doomed to fail and that even if they did well there will be nothing they can do when they graduate. The gang welcomes them even if the "welcome" does consist of being beaten almost senseless to prove they want in bad enough to take it. In some neighborhoods it is a case or either join or get killed or be beaten up almost daily. In the gang a kid who has nothing else has a sense of identity and belonging. He/she can use their talents, skills, ingenuity, and guts to advance and make a name for him/her self and gain respect (and respect can be worth more than food, blankets, life itself when that is all you have), For some a gang is literally a family tradition. It may be the only life they know since children even of preschool age are being recruited to be carriers for drug deliveries and to steal being told they will not get into trouble because they are so young.