[consonants]

This. Thank you for presenting your argument in a much less combative way than I would have.

There are basic survival and social pressures at play, protection from harm and corrupt law enforcement is a primary motivator for people to join gangs. Drugs are a means to an end in terms of literal survival, ie having a roof over one's head and food on one's table. Isolation from society due to social, economic and logistical/geographic factors is isolation from the things that society tries to offer: protection from harm and ability to make a living.

People in gangs are under no illusion that they might be on the path to great wealth through their actions, because they understand the state of their community and the status of their senior members: poverty ridden/unsafe/neglected and in jail/dead/still in the same place they've been.

It seems as if this author has some preconceived notions of the motivations behind gang membership and decided to regurgitate them.