Gang expert blames violence on mass media

Between seventh and 12th grade, the average student attends 11,000 hours of classes, but they listen to 12,000 hours of music, said Danny Holland.

Holland was the keynote speaker at the 17th annual Utah Gang Conference that kicked off Thursday at the South Towne Expo Center. He is the president and founder of the group Parent & Teen Universities Inc. The Virginia resident gives talks to juveniles and parents around the nation on youth culture, media influence, teen violence and drugs.

In addition to the music, the average juvenile receives more than 1,600 images each day, he said.

Many of those images are pornographic, while a lot of the music glamorizes sex, drug use and violence.

"It's not just the music they're listening to, it's part of a creed. They're saying this is what I believe in life," he said.

The mass media, whether it be music, television, movies or video games, desensitizes juveniles, Holland said. He specifically singled out a group known as Juggalos, or fans of the rap group Insane Clown Posse, or ICP. He called Juggalos extremely violent and aggressive.

ICP and their Juggalo followers have been around since the early to mid-1990s. But it's only been during the past few years they've become a noticeable problem in Utah.

"We've been following this group since 2004," said West Valley police detective John LeFavor.

LeFavor talked about the Juggalo problem before a packed room Thursday during one of the conference's two hour workshops.

Just like straight edgers, groups who belong to a Juggalo gang started off simply as fans of the music. Police struggled with whether this group should be classified as gang members or simply music fans similar to Deadheads. But because some members engaged in a pattern of criminal activity and intimidated their communities, they were classified as a gang, LeFavor said.

Today, there are an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 Juggalos in Utah. About 70 percent of them are simply fans of the music who live the lifestyle preached in the music, which includes drinking, pot smoking and sex, he said.

"I don't believe the majority of them are gang members. They're right on the edge," LeFavor said.

But about 15 percent are involved in criminal gang activity and overshadowing the rest of the Juggalos who may be peaceful, LeFavor said.

Gang cops call Juggalos a fast-growing problem in Utah.

In one case, a Juggalo group from Jefferson Junior High School was busted for committing burglaries within the school, he said.