Click to watch video

They’ve been doing it for years.

They are young girls who fight to survive a life on the streets: a life among gangs.

“She came to my face and she put a gun to my head, so I took it away from her, and I shot her because she shot me,” one former gang member said.

It’s a story that rings true in just about every corner of the country.

On San Antonio’s west side, the story seems to repeat itself more often than not.

University of Houston Professor Avelardo Valdez spent more than two years examining the lives of 150 San Antonio girls associated with gangs.

11 News

Study finds a new generation of girls entering gangs.

“These girls are not immigrant girls,” Valdez said. “These are second, third-generation Mexican-American girls.”

Girls who don’t know of a life outside of sex, violence and drugs.

Many of them have joined one of 26 currently active street gangs, but its those on the outside his book focuses on the most.

They’re called the beyond-risk girls. They’re not the typical self-identified gang members or affiliate, but rather these are girls who have created new roles for themselves within the gang community.

“They have the same risk as the gang girls they’re involved in crime, probably drug use,” Valdez said.

And he found it’s normal, even accepted, among their community.

Their average age: 17. Not quite a girl, not yet a woman.

Yet they are the sister, girlfriend or even daughter of a gang member, expected to adhere to traditional gender roles and above all stand by the gang.

Valdez blames their downfall on a breakdown of institutions.

“The school systems, police, religious institutions that are really not reaching out to these girls,” Valdez said.

But there is hope that is coming from within.

“Most of these girls want to straighten out their lives and, if given an opportunity, that can happen,” Valdez said.

Among his most surprising findings, he discovered positive family relationships, especially between mothers and daughters, can prevent the troubles from starting.

"Of all these girls, the girls that had the best mother-daughter ties did significantly better and had less negative consequences of their behaviors,” Valdez said.

And there’s more hope to be found in people like Precinct 6 Constable Theresa Garcia.

She’s part Robocop, chasing after truant kids in the city’s east side, and part mentor, teaching a 13-week gang resistance program at predominantly Hispanic elementary schools.

She works hard at getting through to kids before the gangs do.

“You’d be surprised,” she said. “Parents talk to them about drugs, the birds and the bees, but a lot of them don’t talk to them about gangs.”

It’s opening up the lines of communication to close down the paths to destruction.