You can clearly see the process of "bad choices" in young children, way before external factors have started to stack up.
A child that is not properly corrected at a young age, will most likely continue to seek immediate gratification into adulthood. What is wired into a child's brain is very difficult to undo.
Very true. Poor parenting, combined with the self-destructive effects of drug use cause the violence and mayhem of these drug gangs. What is most unfortunate is these gangs replace the support they would get in the family unit. In these communities, the family unit is broken. That adds to the poor values system they already have. These communities will need lots of work putting the broken family unit together.