If what you took from "The Wire" is that many gang members are "worthless thugs," then you sort of missed the point of the show. "The Wire" is as much a commen

If what you took from "The Wire" is that many gang members are "worthless thugs," then you sort of missed the point of the show. "The Wire" is as much a commentary about the social conditions leading to crime (broken education system, blighted cities, etc.) as it is a commentary about criminals and law enforcement. David Simon, the show's creator, has gone on record as stating that the show is really about three things: 1) the pointlessness of the drug war; 2) the social conditions of the underclass in America; 3) society's misguided obsession with simple, reductionist statistics (i.e., judging police effectiveness by "clearance rates," judging teachers by student test scores, etc.) at the expense of more complex and nuanced systems analysis.