The Anatomy of Current Gangs in the USA: the MS-13, the Aryan Brotherhood and the Crips

Home , Avenues (gang)

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Jitka Balíková

The Anatomy of Current Gangs in the USA: the MS-13, the Aryan Brotherhood and the Crips

Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr.

2009

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

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Má vděčnost patří vedoucímu mé práce, za jeho velkorysost, rady, čas a inspirativní semináře; a také mým blízkým, za nekonečnou trpělivost a podporu nejen při psaní.

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 5 Case Studies Representing Main Typological Groups of U.S. Gangs ...... 8 1. Mara Salvatrucha ...... 10 1.1 Origin ...... 12 1.2 Brenda Paz Murder ...... 15 1.3 The FBI Counter-Activities ...... 16 1.3 Communication ...... 20 2. The Crips ...... 23 2.1 Structure ...... 26 2.2 Signs and Symbols ...... 30 2.3 Activities ...... 34 2.4 Crips and Bloods ...... 36 3. The Aryan Brotherhood ...... 38 3.1 The Symbols of AB ...... 43 3.2 Structure and Initiation ...... 46 Sociological Aspects of Gangs ...... 51 1. Original Motivation ...... 54 1.1 The Economic Factor ...... 55 1.2 The Integration Factor ...... 57 1.3 The Defense Factor ...... 59 2. Hierarchy and the Military ...... 63 Sociological Aspects Applied on the Social Theories of Norbert Elias ...... 68 1. Medieval Behavior Patterns and Gangs ...... 68 2. Prison ...... 69 3. The Society of Individuals ...... 74 4. Figuration ...... 75 Summary ...... 77 Bibliography ...... 80

Introduction

Nowadays, the U.S. authorities estimate that there are one million gang1 members all over the USA, formed into 20,000 gangs2, which are criminally active in all

50 states and the District of Columbia (“NGTA”). These gangs might be classified by a number of criteria. The common aspects that serve this purpose of classification are territories or location, size of the gang, its activities, structure and prevailing ethnicity of members. Yet there are a number of features that might be applied too, although these are not easy to analyze systematically, especially because of their secretive character. Among these are communication tools such as hand signals, codes and symbols.

In general, the U.S. gangs are both urban and suburban, though this was not true forty years ago, when gangs were solely urban. Since then, they have spread to all kinds of regions, mainly to expand their drug selling market and thus to increase their profit (“Into the Abyss”). Gangs are beginning to expand on the basis of economic logic

1 In the thesis, a concept of a gang is used as a denotation of a group, which might resemble an organization of three or more persons with a common identifying sign, symbol, or name, who are individually or collectively involved in criminal activities that are often of a violent character or connected to illegal narcotics business (“NGTA”). A gang also often creates an atmosphere of fear and intimidation

2 The research was conducted in 2008 and published 2009 by National Drug Intelligence Center and National Drug Threat Survey (“NGTA”).

and as a result, gangs and their criminal activities will most probably infiltrate to even wider range of cities and towns:

Once the concentration of sales of illegal goods or services in any region

becomes saturated, the prices, and correspondingly the profits, will drop.

Consequently, dealers have an incentive to expand to areas with less

competition (Sieberg 127).

Needless to emphasize, the majority of gangs are involved in criminal activities such as drug and weapon trafficking, which have turned many of the early rising gangs into profit driven organizations. In total, it is estimated that 80% of criminal activities are committed by gangs (“NGTA”).

Another aspect, which enables classification and comparison of gangs, is their history and origin. In general, the first gangs in the USA were emerging in the 1960s under the influence of the African-American movements and hence most of them were consisted of African-Americans only (“Know Gangs”). The second immense wave of gangs' emergence was caused by Central American immigration. In the atmosphere of steadily increasing population of urban areas, especially in California, the ethnic communities turned into a battlefield of competition and oppression (“Gangland”).

The early African-American gangs, such as the Black Disciples, were becoming more organized and structured in the 1970s, catalyzing the origin of both rival African-

American gangs and Hispanic gangs. The period 1990s was a peak time for gangs, which often grew from local or regional character to a federal or national size. One of the main causes was clearly an illegal narcotic business, which was nourishing both

gang activities and the recruiting of new members. The criminality has also been supplying the U.S. prison system with a significant number of gang members from the streets and while doing so it has brought gangs into U.S. prisons (“Gangs or Us”).

Here the conditions and causes for new gangs' emergence were similar to those in the streets, i.e. if a group of inmates was continually oppressed by a gang, these prisoners then created their own new gang for the sake of defense and protection against other inmates. Consequently, the gangs have been numerically growing and spreading through all of the American states, mainly in East and

Southeast regions. Finally, the USA witnessed the origin of a significant criminal subculture (“Know Gangs”).

As mentioned above, the gangs in the USA manifest a number of both common and diverse aspects, which emerged under specific conditions. Some of the key features of gangs in the USA, including the origin, communication, structure, activities and symbols are both studied and then summarized from the sociological perspectives in this thesis. The following chapters thus aim to analyze common sociological aspects which justify classifying U.S. gangs as a subculture.

In the thesis, three major3 gangs were selected and mapped for the sake of demonstrating both the gangs' similarities, distinctions and anomalies. The thesis

3 For the sake of simplification and considering the total number of gangs, the size of the gangs in the following case studies was a primary criterion of selection. Therefore, the conclusions

consists of three main parts. The main and initial one studies three typological gang representatives, i.e. the Mara Salvatrucha, the Crips and the Aryan Brotherhood and the second part is divided into two sub-chapters, all of them analyzing the previous findings of the case studies, with a special emphasis on common sociological features such as motivation, structure and hierarchy. Finally, the concept of gangs is applied in theories of Norbert Elias in the last part.

Case Studies Representing Main Typological Groups of U.S. Gangs

In this chapter of the thesis, three U.S. gangs have been mapped to illustrate three distinctive types of gangs that have emerged in the USA. These gangs, namely the Mara Salvatrucha, the Crips and the Aryan Brotherhood, share a set of similar features as far as the structure, hierarchy, activities, communication and rituals are concerned, still they differ in aspects, which are usually conditional to distinct territories, original background, character of the members or existing conditions for communication strategies.

First, each of the three analyzed gangs is a representative of a mono-racial or mono-ethnic gang type. Mara Salvatrucha is a prevailingly Hispanic gang, whereas the

Crips are mainly formed by African-Americans and the Aryan Brotherhood is almost

that follow are not intended to be applied to minor gangs too which might be incomparable in terms of structure, origin, activities and motivation.

entirely a Caucasian gang (“Know Gangs”). All of the three above mentioned gangs also have an outstanding, usually a socially negative, quality that caused a notoriety of these gangs. As for the Mara Salvatrucha, one of the largest gangs in the USA, the FBI officially labeled the gang a world’s most dangerous gang, mainly for presenting an unprecedented level of brutality and violence within their activities. Also, the gang has become international with its recent spread into Europe as well (“MS-13 News”).

The Crips are specific with its origin connected to the Black Power Movement and they also catalyzed both the origin of a number of other African-American gangs and the crack-cocaine epidemic (“Crip-Knowledge”). Unlike the Mara Salvatrucha and the Aryan Brotherhood, the Crips are also a representative of a gang that has not developed an efficient structure and hierarchy. On the other hand, the Crips are a unique gang for their communication tools that have been adopted by a hip-hop culture and have widely popularized the gang (“Crip-Walk.org”).

Both the Crips and the Mara Salvatrucha are representatives of street gangs and hence the last gang illustration comes from the area of prison gangs. The Aryan

Brotherhood represents typical prison gang features, including secretive activities and communication. The gang is also an illustration of gang type with a firm and strict hierarchy enhancing flourishing drug and gun business in the prison system (“LA-

Weekly”).

Moreover, all of the three gangs have been selected considering their size and hence the high level of threat they present to the police and FBI authorities. The gangs are further analyzed in the order of their size, starting with the largest Mara

Salvatrucha and ending with the less numerous Aryan Brotherhood that resembles a subculture with an exclusive membership (“NGTA”).

1. Mara Salvatrucha

The Mara Salvatrucha gang that is also known as ‘MS’, ‘Mara’, ‘MS 13’ and

‘18’ is one of the largest gangs in the USA and has also spread to various parts of

Central America. The estimated number of the Mara Salvatrucha gang members was about 50,000 in 2005 and it has been steadily growing ever since (“Gangs or Us”).The total number of the MS 13 gang members worldwide nowadays, is reaching 100,000 and has spread through 33 states, i.e. the Mara has been active in 6 countries internationally (“NGTA”).

Untypically, in comparison to other gangs, the MS has also not been limited to urban areas only, which might be observed in gangs such as Crips and Bloods, but it survives in rural areas as well, expanding its territory from Central America to the

American Heartland. The MS-13 territories have not been restricted to the Northern and Central America only; the gang has recently emerged in the Southern America and

Spain as well (“Gangland”). One of the reasons for this growth being an unfortunate policy of the FBI, which in striving to reduce the number of the MS members caused quite the opposite. This effect is in more details analyzed below.

Nowadays, the MS 13 gang is being considered one of the most threatening organized crime groups to the security of the US citizens. According to Luis Li, former

Chief of the Criminal Branch in L.A. City, the Mara Salvatrucha is a “huge multi-

national, deeply hierarchical gang4 that changed its emphasis from gang banging5 to profit making, being more like an organized crime group” (“Gangland”). Nowadays, it closely resembles the structure and mechanisms of a mafia, sweeping across continent, presenting an international menace. The following chapter attempts to map the gang from the perspective of its origin, development, structure, reasons and character of the risk it poses on its members and non-members.

The origin and meaning of the gang's name has had a number of variations so far. Most probably, the expression ‘mara’ comes from Salvadoran marabuntan word, which means a gang or also a fierce type of an ant6. “Salvatrucha” is a portmanteau, that is a blend of words ‘Salvadoran’ and ‘trucha’, which stands for being alert, entailing preparedness for crime or police abuse (“Urban Dictionary”). However, the

4 Nonetheless, the complete structural and hierarchical system of the Mara Salvatrucha has not been uncovered yet. There might be one as well as thousands of leaders of the gang

(“Police Link”).

5 Gang banging is a slang expression denoting one of the most frequent gang activities in general, which is fighting to protect the territory, i.e. a turf or it is also called a hood, of a gang against the enemies, usually a rival local gang. Gang banging implies various punishments for trespassing the gang's territory borders, ranging from beating and stabbing to shooting (“Know

Gangs”).

6 There is also a street in San Salvador called La Mara, which might be connected to the name too (“MS-13 Gang”).

etymology of the name is bound with Salvadoran guerillas, which used to be a source of much of the gang's early manpower. This is still evident in the gang's motto, which calls for ultimate loyalty and willingness to fight for gang and its fellow-members, ‘La vida por las maras’, meaning ‘the life for the gang’. The number 13, which is frequently used when abbreviating the name of the Mara Salvatrucha, is referring to the letter M, which is the 13th one in the alphabet (“Police Link”).

1.1 Origin

Although the Mara initially started in the city's Pico-Union neighborhood in the Los Angeles area in the 1980s, the original members did not mostly have American citizenship and had immigrated to the USA from Latin America. At first, it was growing on local LA problems; consisted prevailingly of Salvadorans. Later the early MS leaders allowed other Central Americans to join the gang. Still, MS 13 remained almost strictly

Hispanic for a number of the following years. MS 13 has since then been mostly a mixture of refugees from Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua too.

Nowadays few African-Americans are part of the gang too, being a race minority of the gang (“Gangs across America”).

The impulse for the emigration was civil wars and dictators causing numerous casualties and suppressing the citizens of the Central America and especially in El

Salvador7, where the original members of the Mara gang come from. Partially, the immigrants and early members of Mara Salvatrucha were former soldiers of paramilitary groups such as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMNL)

(“Police Link”). In other words, they were Salvadorian peasants, trained as guerilla fighters, adept at using explosives, firearms, knives and booby traps. Despite a common reason for the escape to the USA of the majority of Central Americans in the

1980s, the Hispanic gangs, which were primarily formed in American Southwest and

West Coast States, were not built on the purpose of uniting the immigrants (“Police

Link”).

In the 1980s the non-simultaneous waves of Latin American newcomers have raised a rivalry inside the whole community of the Hispanic immigrants (“NGTA”).

There had existed gangs already, which felt the need to protect their territories and interests and started to oppress and misuse the new immigrants who initiated new gangs for the sake of protection against the already established ones, predominantly

Mexican and African-American gangs. The MS 13 gang, which is the major clique of

MS, has then unleashed violence against migrants on the southern border of Mexico

(“Into the Abyss”).

The MS has never been a compact body but rather a number of cliques, which usually differs according to an area of the members' origin. Every clique then, has its own spokesman, who attends regular meetings with other spokesperson in the

7 The Civil war in El Salvador lasted till 1992 (“Gangs or Us”)

neighborhood. Although only Salvadorans were allowed to join the gang at the beginning, the gang founders have been gradually shifting the boundaries. These days, almost any Central Americans may join the gang, no matter their original countries

(“Gangland”).

The early members, however, formed the gang not for the sake of violence, but they primarily started a union of adolescents with the same origin and interests, such as music, which brought a mark in their later hand-sign communication.

According to Alex Sanchez, one of the original members, the early MS gang members called themselves ‘stoners’ and only later became involved in violent activities to prevent discrimination and alienation coming from the USA immigration community, especially from the Mexican and Afro-American gangs, which were terrorizing the newcomers (Gangland).

Concerning the characterization and classification of the gang, MS-13 is an organized crime group of typical features, such as mono-race or mono-ethnic members, violent and illegal activities, clear structure and hierarchy and symbols ranging from tattoos to hand signs (“Gangs or Us”) ). The MS is a well-structured gang with multiple leaders, which allows it to have ambitions to reach gang hegemony in the USA.

The financial sources and activities of the MS-13 are mostly illegal, such as selling and smuggling narcotics, arms trade, extortion, witness intimidation, burglaries, human trafficking, car thefts, home invasions, assaults and contract killing. Common drugs sold by MS members include cocaine, marijuana, heroin, crack, and

methamphetamine. MS-13 gang members have even placed a ‘tax’ on prostitutes and non-gang member drug dealers who are working in MS turf (“Police Link”).

1.2 Brenda Paz Murder

In 2003, a corpse of an MS-13 member, Brenda Paz, was found at the

Shenandoah River in North Virginia (“Law Center”). This murder was both an act of punishment and loyalty from the MS-13 gang in Virginia. Paz had become a police informant, which is a capital crime against the gang rules. Although pregnant and 17 years old, she was stabbed over 12 times by her friends, fellow gang members short after she had voluntarily left a place of police protected custody. According to one of her sentenced murderers, Ismael Cisneros, “she knew the rules and she died by them”, which Brenda unknowingly approved herself too: “… first it's God, then your mother, then your gang. You live for your God, you live for your mother, you die for your gang”

(Brenda Paz in “Gangland”).

Brenda Paz had endangered the gang members and the gang activities, thus the gang charged three members with her murder. Before the execution, the gang, which has its own rules and justice, provided her with a trial that usually has three stable stages:

1. Investigation, which is private and the accused one is not present

2. Meeting of members with high status, entitled to issue orders, who

discuss the faith of the accused member

3. The clique then chooses a member or members who execute the

punishment (“Gangland“). 15

For the FBI, Paz was a great loss of an extremely precious source of information concerning the MS-13 gang activities, symbols, structure, operation mode and rules. Ismael Cisneros, one of the convicted murderers, has later attempted to leave the gang and started to provide details concerning the death of Paz and his membership in MS-13:

It's a very strange world and only those who live through it, can tell the tale. …

When you join the world of gangs, it is if a curtain is placed over your eyes and

you begin to live in darkness. Then there are only three roads open to you, to

hospital, to jail or to death. (“Gangland”)

1.3 FBI Counter-Activities

Especially these criminal activities led the FBI in the USA to impose measures and started monitoring the gang members. The FBI has been attempting to decipher the code and methods of the MS. In five countries there has been initiated a coordinated program, that succeeded in arresting over 660 gang members so far. Still all these activities seem to have only a strengthening effect on the gang (“Police Link”).

An obvious way to fight and dissolve the gang was to set up SWAT teams, prosecute the members that were not granted the US citizenship for violating the law and deporting them to their mother countries. The FBI has since then returned a number of MS gang members back to Central America either for their illegal status in

USA, committing crime as a non-citizen or both (“Gangs across America”). 16

Nonetheless, these deportations had a massive negative echo back in Central

America. Not only did they little eliminate the size of the Mara Salvatrucha gang in the

USA, but mainly they have spread the gang into the Central American countries, where it had not been before. The gang deportees from the USA have been recruiting immense numbers of new members who then come back to the USA and the gang carries on with the illegal activities with a non-reduced strength and frequency (“Gangs across America”).

As a matter of fact, the MS-13 adopted a new level of brutality in Salvador.

Not only have they grown in size, but also in the degree of violence. The brutality and severity of the last Salvadoran civil war have taught the gang violent practices that had never occurred in the USA before the deportations. This legacy of a decade long war have outspread decapitations, chopping of fingers, hands and genitals with machetes; and massacres of whole families with machine guns (“Gangland”).

However, the connection of MS-13 and Salvador is not only in terms of violent heritage from the civil war, but the Mara maintains contacts with Central America also for the sake of business, especially arms and drugs trade:

In El Salvador, a hand grenade sells for $1.00 to $2.00 U.S. dollars and an M-16

rifle will sell for approximately $200 U.S. dollars. The alliance to El Salvador and

groups like La Mara and FMNL allows MS-13 to gain access to military-style

munitions and establishes a network to traffic illegal firearms into the United

States. (“Police Link”)

Drugs are a strong financial motivation for these contacts too. They are often traded for stolen U.S. cars in Salvador and the drugs are then smuggled back and sold in the USA. It is estimated, that about 80% of cars in El Salvador had been stolen in the

USA (“Police Link”).

The MS members have recently expanded to most of the USA states, including the capital Washington, DC and in Salvador the security and police authorities report that the majority of the local gang related inmates fled or were deported from the

USA8 (“Gangland”). In other words, the MS gang has been like a boomerang to the US government, only growing throughout its flight.

The second counter-effect of the police actions and FBI activities has been unfolding in prisons both in the USA and in the Central America too. Arresting numerous MS gang members only shifts the street gang into a new territory and turns it into a prison gang too. The whole prisons have now become new arenas for gangs and some of them are filled with MS members or former-members only (“Gangs or

Us”).

The gang's motto is, like in many other gangs that the membership is a no short-term deal and once you are a Mara member, you are a Mara member forever.

The only way to disaffiliate the gang without running the risk of being punished, is to

8 The vice-minister of Security in El Salvador, Rodrigo Avila, reported 3000 murders only in the area in San Salvador in 2005, involving among others the Los Angeles MS-13 clique, the

Hollywood Locos (“Gangland”).

retire and become a non-active gang member, otherwise the gang members punish the escape in a similar way to army during the war punish the desertion of a soldier, i.e. by his death (“Into the Abyss”).

Thus, the USA and also the Salvadoran authorities has built prisons providing a certain degree of security to the former gang members, who would otherwise be killed in the streets for deserting their cliques and gang: “Once you’re in MS-13, you’re in for life” (“Gangland”). Meanwhile gang members in prisons are still actively communicating with their gangs in the streets and other prisons too and they are obeying the orders.

Actually, the community of active gang inmates has grown into a size of a new warzone, where the inmates of a high hierarchical status have the authority to “call shots” (“Gangland”), i.e. to initiate actions and coordinate attacks of the gang or clique both in the prison and also in the streets. In other words, prison is both no obstacle to gang activities, second it is generally not viewed by the gang members as a sort of punishment, but rather an opportunity to learn and improve the status via allying with the older gang members in the prison: “For MS-13 prison is not a punishment, it's ending-up school” (“Gangland”). According to Alex Sanchez, a former MS-13 member, the imprisonment is a benefit to a young gang member and it makes the Maras more violent: “… you see these elders coming up from university, to teach you knowledge”

(“Gangland”).

1.4 Communication

As well as other gangs and also social groups in general, the MS inclines towards specific symbolism to demonstrate the membership and loyalty with the group. The majority of gangs have their own set of tattoo symbols, which is also a typical feature of mafias, though these are usually more secretive than the ones of gangs. Nevertheless, the FBI and police in the USA have started mapping and classifying the symbols and tattoos of various gangs and simplify the identification of its gang members as well as potential investigation of gang criminality (“Police Link”).

As far as the hand signs are concerned, these are an essential part of a gang communication and learning them is a part of the initiation process. Every clique has its own specific signs, but there are also ones that are common to the whole gang, especially referring to the gang's name. The clique members may then use letters from the alphabet, mimed with fingers, to spell the clique name and show their loyalty

(“Know Gangs”).

This system of hand signs is called “stacking” (“Gangland”) and is a powerful tool for communication that may both warn the gang member and coordinate the attack. For instance, tagging the shirt signals the other members to kill a person, dusting off a shoulder equals stabbing and rubbing a stomach means shooting a person). It has been developed for the purpose of prison environment messaging too, where the verbal communication might be either impossible, forbidden or both

(“Gangland”).

Apart from the hand signs, gang members use graffiti with both symbols and numbers, usually to mark their territories with the names of their gang and cliques or to cover the symbols of other gangs. The MS-13 graffiti and tattoos often imitate old

English style writing, using block letters in the script. The Mara members prefer specific colors in clothing and graffiti too; these are predominantly blue and white

(“MS13 Gang”).

Frequently, gang members refer with tattoos to their cliques and territories, using phone or post codes, whole clique, gang names and various abbreviations as well. Gang tattoos, however, are very complex in terms of their deciphering, because they might bear the information ranging from life stories to gang identifications. A common feature of gang symbols in the USA is occulting thematic, appearing in any variations (“Know Gangs”).

The tattoos and hand signs, the most frequent markings of gangs, have been moved to a more secretive level within gangs recently, which is a strategy similar to mafia, with the aim of avoiding being noticed and labeled as a gang member. The MS members are thus reducing the previously most popular tattoos of ‘MS’, ‘Salvatrucha’, the ‘Devil horns9’, names of the cliques etc. The hand symbol of ‘devil horns’ has been adapted by founding Maras from the heavy metal bands (“Know Gangs”).

9 This hand sign resembles a pitchfork symbol of former members of a gang alliance called Folk

Nation, which originated in Chicago. This symbol is thus representing their rival gangs of the

Nonetheless, there is another, purely practical, perspective of gang tattoos. It effectively prevents those gang members, who bear tattoos on visible parts of their bodies, from getting a job. This is not an acute problem while the person is still in the gang, but if he is trying to change his life and leave it, not only does he face a threat of punishment, but he can rarely find a long-term job (“Life in the Fast Lane”). The tattoo removal is expensive and thus usually remains a permanent stigma of the gang member. Consequently, what used to be a sign of gang affiliation and pride of membership and neighborhood turns into a massive obstacle for a life outside a gang:

Tattoos on the forearms, hands or face are called ‘job-stoppers’ said Lost.

When former gang members attempt to put their lives back together ..., they

soon learn that removing the tattoos is very costly …, frequently beyond

financial reach of most former gang members. Some tattoo removal

businesses charges as much as $8,000 to remove a single tattoo. (“Life in the

Fast Lane”)

To sum it up, the Mara Salvatrucha is one of the most numerous, dangerous and violent gangs in the USA, which has massively spread across the borders on the account of activities that were supposed to prevent and eliminate the gang and its

People Nation, which reverse the symbol to offend the Folk Nation (“Police Link”). Both alliances are analyzed further in the text.

activities. Moreover, the Salvadoran civil war brutality has penetrated into the acts of the MS-13 and the new as well as the current members deported from USA have been coming back to the Northern America with a new level of violence.

The FBI and police program has proved inefficient so far, allowing the Mara to grow into a critical stage. According to Brenda Paz, a police informant from the MS-13, the gang is improving its structure and has a strategy for it. It has also focused on recruiting youth in local schools, including in high schools, juvenile detentions and middle schools (“Gangland”).

2. The Crips

The Crip gang has, as one of the few gangs nowadays, a clear origin and early history. Since 1970s it has spread into a size of a national gang and it has another feature too, common for most of the USA gangs, i.e. it has primarily a mono-racial structure. Crips is a notorious gang for various reasons, one of them being a severe feud with a rival gang, the United Blood Nation and a set of famous and frequently used symbols, signs and a typical dance (“Crip-Knowledge”). Thus Crips is a gang that intensively resembles other large gangs in the USA and the aim of this chapter is to map its main features and compare them with other gang analyzed in the thesis

In contrary to the majority of existing gangs, the Crips did not build their gang from scratch, by gathering group of adolescents. Originally, the gang rose from uniting of the existing gangs in Los Angeles, similarly to the MS-13 and a number of other

gangs too. The Crip founders were Raymond Lee Washington and Stanley Williams, nicknamed Tookie (“Know Gangs”).

Alike in any revolution, the founders and original leaders of the gang,

Washington and Tookie, had finally been murdered or executed for the sake of the

Crip gang. However, at first they were extremely successful in recruiting and joining the existing clicks of gangs in West and East Side of Los Angeles. Despite being only 15 years old, Washington was a charismatic teenager, inspired by Black Panthers, Black

Power Movement10 and a strong gang, the Avenue Boys from East Central Avenue, existing since 1964 (“Gangland”).

Mainly after 1969, when the L.A. leaders11 of Black Panthers were murdered, a large vacuum of leadership sprang into existence and this was an ideal condition for

10 The riots and police brutality in 1965 were one of the reasons for a rise of wide African-

American community resentment. Aquil Basheer, a gang intervention specialist and one of the former members of Black Panthers, emphasized the role of the Black Panthers Party as an organization preventing crime and helping Black community in the 1960s and 1970s: “We actually started out as the patrolling agency, which would patrol and police the police”

(“Gangland”). Still, the Black Panthers and the Black Power Movement inspired the formation of one of the most violent gangs of today in the USA.

11 These were Los Angeles Panther Captain Bunchy Carter and Deputy Minister John Huggins, who were shot during the dispute over Black studies at the Black Student Union Meeting on

UCLA Campus (“Into the Abyss”).

gangs, especially the Crips to grow and absorb Black Panthers Party enthusiasts at high schools. Finally, Washington, leading the East Side Crips and Tookie, the head of the

West Side Crips, managed to create a gang that united the majority of smaller groups in the neighborhood and in 1970s and 1980s consisted of 75% of the L.A. African-

American community, making Crips a strong, powerful and an intimidating gang

(“Gangland”).

As a reminder of the influence, the new growing gang started to call itself the

Baby Avenues, which soon was converted to the Avenue Cribs12, as the gang was steadily expanding. There are several theories for the word Crib to emerge in the gang, one being the fact that the gang members lived in the area of the East Central Avenue.

Still, this is an improbable hypothesis13, because a gang always starts up in the area of the members' domiciles that then defend and protect their territory (“Police Link”).

Another thesis relates to the fact that the original members were very young, teenagers and adolescents entirely, so the name ‘crib’ was referring to the age of the gang members. The change in the spelling is again unclear, being explained by at least

12 Apart from Avenue Cribs, Washington and Williams created another two possible names for the new gang, i.e. Black Overlords and the Assassins (“Gangland”).

13 Among false claims that the Crips have created themselves about the origin of the gang name, is an explanation of the name Crip as an acronym of the Community Revolution in

Progress. This contemporary public statement was issued to win sympathy of public, describing the gang as a peaceful organization (“Chicago Gangs”).

three potential story versions. In the early 1970s the Avenue Cribs allegedly robbed several Asian women in Los Angeles area. While trying to identify the attackers, the

Asians described them as ‘crips’, i.e. an abbreviation of the word cripples, for the style of walking of the Crip robbers was very distinct14 (“Crip-Knowledge”).

The incident was then published in local newspapers, where the journalist called the attackers a ‘gang of crips’. Soon afterwards, the name became notorious nationwide. The second variant alters the section of a distinct style of walking, but prefers the police calling the violent teenagers ‘crips’, because they were constantly carrying and walking with a cane both as a symbol of controlling local prostitutes and as a weapon. The third version inclines to an opinion, that the change happened only because of a simple typo or misspelling (“Crip-Knowledge”).

2.1 Structure

Unlike the MS-13, the Crips are not divided into cliques but into sets, sub- clicks, blocks, cards and lines15. There have emerged a large number of sets, originally coming from two major parts of Crips that were more in alliance than competing each other at first. These two parts were divided by the Harbor Freeway line into West and

14 A less widespread version of the origin of the letter change also refers to the brother of

Raymond Lee Washington, who was allegedly handicapped and had difficulties walking and thus was being ridiculed by his peers and they wrote a word ‘crip’ on his sneakers

(“Gangland”).

15 Cards and lines are ether small alliances, uniting blocks or whole sets (“Crip-Knowledge”).

East Side Crips, controlled by Washington and Tookie respectively (“Gangs across

America”).

Despite the fact that Crips were originally only a numerous group of adolescents ranging from the age of 13 to 20, the gang has formed over 200 divisions or sets16, controlling large areas in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia,

Connecticut, Florida, Pennsylvania and other East Coast regions and it is present in nearly every city in the USA. It is estimated that there are from 30,000 to 35,000 members of Crips in the USA and most of the active members are adolescent males.

The Crips are also primarily, but not exclusively and African-American gang (“Police

Link”).

In general, the Crips are less structured than the majority of national and international gangs, such as the MS-13. Although there is a hierarchy in the structure of a Crip gang, the ranks are loose and the members are rather equal17, considering each other members of a large family. In fact, the gang is also widely consisted of family members, such as siblings, cousins or close friends. To emphasize the importance of these close relationships, the members call themselves ‘cuzz’, meaning cousin, to signal both the equality and alliance of the Crip peers. The key role in the

16 The Crip gang includes sets such as, Avalon Crips, Eastside Crips, Inglewood Crips, Westside

Crips, the Rolling 30's and 92 Hoover Crips (“Know Gangs”).

17 The rule is that the newcomers and the young members of the Crips are being put in charge of selling drugs (“Know Gangs”).

member's status plays respect of the other members, which grows with the length of a

Crip membership as a matter of principle. Also there are only few members who dominate and can give orders to other members and these are often the original or early members of the Crips, called ‘big homies’ (“Know Gangs”).

However, Crips have a set of leaders18 that always manage individual sets.

Since the number of the subdivisions is vast, the individual sets do not necessarily cooperate and are not inevitably allies. They may unite only for the sake of a gang war or drug business. Most probably they would join forces against their enemies, especially the Bloods19. Although the sets are independent and they also construct

18 The set leaders are often young males, the oldest and toughest family members, from their late teens to early twenties (“Gangland”).

19 The Blood gang, also known as the United Blood Nation, was originally a prison gang, formed in 1993 within New York City prison system on Rikers Island's GMDC. In 1993 it merged with small 8 Blood sets that already existed in New York Street. The primal motivation in the prison was analogous to the creation of the MS-13 gang, i.e. a protection of the African-American inmates, who were oppressed by the Hispanic inmates, mainly the Latin Kings gang. The street

Blood sets emerged from the drug sale competition as a rival of the Crips (“Gangs across

America”).

In 1996, the Bloods were already a firmly established street gang with territories such as New York City, New Jersey, Baltimore, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and

Connecticut etc. However the Bloods suffered from fragmentation, causing fights between the

individual gang sets, similarly to the Crips. Thus in 1999 they attempted to unite the existing

Blood sets under the alliance of United Blood Nation (“Gangland”).

The Bloods have grown into one of the most violent gangs on the East Coast in the USA, with estimated 20,000 to 30,000 gang members, being involved in typical gang illegal activities, such as thefts, robberies, murders, assaults, drug dealing and extortions. The Bloods have a defined inside hierarchy, which is less complex and strict than the one of the MS-13 gang. Still, similarly to the MS-13 and unlike the Crips, the Bloods' structure is consisted of military ranks, ranging from Generals, Superiors, Captains and Ministers, to Commanders and

Blood soldiers (“Know Gangs”).

As well as the Crips, the Bloods have their own symbols and signs that are frequently reflected in tattoos, graffiti and hand signaling. The main gang color is blue and may be combined with another color, depending on the choice of an individual set. Since the Blood members call themselves, ‘Damu’, which is a Swahili word meaning blood, ‘M.O.B.’, which stands for ‘Member of Blood’ or ‘Money over Bitches’; or ‘Dawgs’, pronounced as a word

‘dogs’. These names are being often used to demonstrate the loyalty, membership and gang affiliation. One of the common symbols is a dog paw figuration, which might be created by cigarette burns on the skin (“Know Gangs”).

Apart from the Crips, the Bloods have been in the gang war with the Folk

Nation alliance and Norteños, whereas they may join forces with the People nation alliance,

Latin Kings and Sureños. Notably, the Latin Kings were originally a reason of the Blood gang emergence in the New York City prison, but nowadays they have turned into allies against gangs in affiliation with the People Nation (“Gangs across America”).

their own alliances and organizations, they need to get permission from the headquarters of the Crips, preventing a revolution, caused by an emergence of a new ally from within the Crip gang (“Gangs across America”).

2.2 Signs and Symbols

Despite a low level of complexity in structure, the Crips have developed an intricate system of communication and symbols that first bears an immense prominence to the members and second it is so elaborate that it is incomparable to the majority of other gangs in the USA. The communication tools of the Crips are ranging from graffiti and tattoos to various hand signals and a specific dance (“Know

Gangs”).

The Crip members rarely have their bodies covered with gang tattoos. The reason for this is highly practical. In contrast to other gangs that cover even their faces with gang tattoos, the Crip members are more difficult to identify and therefore it is more complicated for the police to investigate the gang activities. Also, to avoid being connected to the recent crimes, the Crip graffiti never describes the present activities and is restricted mainly to the past or the future ones (“Crip-Knowledge”).

One of the most widely known symbols of the Crips is colors, prominently blue and its variations20. The gangs that surround the Crip areas also mark themselves

20 Especially, the larger sets of Crips combine the blue color with another color that is usually somehow connected to their specific territories. For instance, the Grape Street Crips accompany the blue with purple, the Shotgun Crips from Gardena in California with green,

with distinct colors that are clearly dissimilar to the combinations used by the Crips.

According to the early Crip members, the blue color originated either from the school colors of Washington High School in South Los Angeles or it might have been adopted from one of the original members nicknamed Buddha, who used to wear a blue scarf in his left pocket (“Know Gangs”).

The color that a gang member wears might be fatal for him as it clearly identifies his gang and when being in the territory of an enemy gang, color is sufficient evidence: “Wearing the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood means trouble”

(“Gangland”). The trespassing of the territory borders is then often punished with violence, which might include a shot to death. The gang colors present an immense danger to the non-members too, because an unconscious wearing of a gang color might result in death (“Know Gangs”).

The Crip members frequently wear blue rags or bandanas around necks and on top of their heads. Blue color and emphasizing the left side of the body either with a scarf or a sleeve or a trouser-leg rolled higher are the most frequent symbols of the

Crips. Apart from these, the Crip members replace, delete or substitute the letter ‘b’ or

‘ck’, which stands for ‘Crip Killer’ with a ‘c’ or ‘cc’ or they simply cross the letter out. As

which is a city color; the Gangster Card Crips combine blue with yellow and black, the

Neighborhood Card Crips and Avenue Crips use baby blue; the Fudge Town Crips mix blue with brown and the Hoover Criminal Crips use orange flags together with the blue ones (“Know

Gangs”).

far as the verbal communication is concerned, the Crips have also reflected their hatred to the Bloods here, by omitting or replacing the letter ‘b’ with a ‘c’, creating thus a new set of vocabulary (“Crip-Knowledge”).

In contrast to the Mara Salvatrucha gang, the Crips do not call their hand signaling ‘stacking’, but ‘flashing’. Otherwise the system is similar, often reflecting the letter ‘c’ and the names of individual sets or cards. Unlike other national gangs in the

USA, Crips have been extremely creative in developing various systems of communication (“Gangland”).

Not only have they been using hand signals, but also other specific communication strategies that emphasize the membership and territory loyalty and respect. One of them is shouting of the word ‘C*a+rip’ to other Crip members, which is used as a greeting (“Know Gangs”). Notably, this shouting is frequently not addressed to anyone specific, only marking the territory of the gang, simply by letting the enemy know that a Crip member is present. Crips are thus using the same primitive, acoustic strategy to protect their territories similarly to animals, such as the apes (“Mammals”).

Moreover, the Crips, unlike any other gang in USA, have created and popularized a unique dance that has been evolved for the gang's communication purposes solely in 1970s. This specific dance, called ‘Crip’ walk or ‘C-walk’21 is a kinetic

21 The dance consists of various combinations and series of feet motions, which also involves spelling the letters and words either symbolic for the Crips or ridiculing the Bloods gang

(“Gangs or Us”).

demonstration of three basic gang rules. First, it shows that the dancer is a member of a Crip gang22, second, it is a prove of the dancer's loyalty and affiliation to the gang and finally, it is a war dance that was formed to threaten the enemy, i.e. a member of any rival gang and emphasize the masculinity of the Crip member performing the dance.

According to an American rapper Ice-T, a former Crip member, only the Crips could initially perform the dance and it was impressive both for the other Crip members and the gang enemies, “… it was the coolest dance, you have ever seen. To do it meant you was in that gang. It looks crazy, kinda [sic] like a war dance” (“Gangland”).

To summarize, the Crips use both special verbal, visual, sonic and kinetic communication tools. The hand signaling, called flashing, is frequently used in other gangs too, but the Crips have changed their entire word-stock to demonstrate their hatred of their rival gang, the Bloods. Apart from that, the Crip members shout the name of the gang to protect their territories and have also invented a dance that shows masculinity, loyalty and rivalry at the same time and it has also been adopted by the hip-hop and rap culture and widely imitated since 1970s (Ghaill 155).

22 Originally, the C-walk was being performed by Crip members only, but it has widely spread since the 1990s and nowadays it has become a part of a hip-hop and rap music culture (“Crip-

Walk.org”).

2.3 Activities

Being a member of a gang means automatically a duty in participating in gang activities that are financial sources for the gang (“Gangland”). The Crips are among those gangs that evolved a complex and efficient strategy of earning money with minimum effort. Though the Crips are not a well-structured gang, they still succeeded in getting rich on a drug business.

Apart from drugs, the gang has been involved in a number of other activities, mostly illegal and violent, such as narcotics dealing (especially crack-cocaine), extortion, firearm trafficking, interstate drug smuggling, robberies, murders and violent assaults (“Know Gangs”).

Nevertheless, drugs have always been a crucial part of the Crip history and have also been one of the causes of the gang's peak period, when Crips flourished in terms of power, finances and size. From the 1970s till the 1990s, the gang started a crack-cocaine business and it grew into a crack epidemic, peaking in 1989. The crack has been one of the igniters of the Crip gang, changing it into an attractive and increasingly violent organization, recruiting hundreds of adolescents and making them sell drugs and use them too.

Crack has finally turned into a weapon of mass destruction both for the Crip members and their territories, because not only was crack destroying the lives, identities and health of the members themselves, but the adolescents under a steady

influence of drugs started to commit violent crimes of unprecedented brutality, shooting whole families to death23 and taking whatever they wanted no matter the cost. The Crip members were having a drug distorted value system, where life was not worth anything. According to Barry Bryant, an original Crip member, the drugs turned him into a violent criminal, “I got something good inside of me that really didn’t wanna hurt nobody, but when you get that drug inside of you, everything else don’t mean that to you no more” (“Gangland”).

According to Lil Rick, an early Crip member, the drug money was fast disappearing and all what was left was a gang destroyed by drugs, “The devastation were swift. Mothers incapable of being mothers. Fathers incapable of being fathers”

(“Gangland”). As a result of the gang activities, the Crips got addicted to their own drug

23 In 1988, two of the numerous victims of the drug distorted gang behavior, were gang- unrelated girls driving a Hyundai in Los Angeles. Six members of the Eight-Trey Gangster Crips, a Crip set, had been deceived in a drug dealing business, being sold two pounds of white flour as a part of a $ 14,000 crack-cocaine deal, earlier that day. To take revenge, they fired 10 or 15 bullets on a red Hyundai, mistaking the identity of the girls, while being vaguely informed that a drug-dealer's sister had been driving a red car that night. These random murders were, according to Jesse Brewer, a Police Chief Assistant from the 77th Street Division L.A., a proof that the gangs under the influence of drugs were getting “more violent, more vicious and more random” (“All Blood Gangs”).

product and they spread a crack-cocaine and criminal24 epidemic in urban enclaves

(“Into the Abyss”).

The membership in Crips has always been very tempting, because it equals no work and no reporting to anyone and resulting in enormous profits that finally have been leading to fights over territories and permissions to sell drugs. Therefore, the

Crips have adopted a new form of profiting in the streets and that is extortion, a typical illegal gang activity that provides large amounts of money with only little time and energy spent (“Chicago Gangs”).

Similarly to MS-13, the Crips' everyday activity is to protect their territory, the so called ‘hood’ and to punish the enemies and trespassers they spot inside. As mentioned above, these fights are called gang banging, but the Crips has again created their own expression for it, i.e. ‘cripping’. Ken Bell, a former Crip member, explains the strictness and inevitability of cripping rules and duties for any of the Crip members,

“Crippin' is for gang bangin' mode whatever goes down goes down, you might shoot somebody, you know, fight and there’s no thought of wow, that’s my mum, that’s somebody’s little brother. … It doesn’t matter, you charged to the gang and the gang aim is gang banging …” (Gangland).

24 In 1990 the number of homicides in Los Angeles reached 600 (“Gangland”).

2.4 Crips vs. Bloods

One of the main characteristic features of the majority of gangs is a need of an enemy and the more concrete the rival is, the better for the gang identity, because the gang members identify themselves through black and white optics, thus through other gangs. The Crips have therefore also defined their greatest enemy within the gangs in the neighborhood territories. Still, what makes this very instance untypical is that the Crips' arch-enemy gang emerged from the inside of the Crip gang itself (“All

Blood Gangs”).

In the period of a crack-cocaine epidemic in California, the Crips had already experienced a diversification in terms of a number of new sets and subdivisions.

However these sets had difficulties coexisting and sharing drug sale territories and money coming from the drugs. Thus the rivalry burst inside the Crip gang itself and a new gang was born in 1970, called Bloods, aiming to fight and lead war against at that time larger and more powerful Crips (“Gangs across America”).

To distinguish themselves, the Bloods created signals and symbols that were in a complete opposite to the Crips25. The Bloods and the Crips have since then started a severe and violent war, full of shooting, stabbing and killing the members of the

25 The main symbolic color of the Crips is blue and so the new gang chose red instead, calling themselves Blood inspired by the color. The typical left side of the body emphasis was also changed to a right one by Bloods, i.e. the Blood members started to wear a red scarf on the left and rolled up their left sleeves and trouser-legs (“Gangland”).

enemy gang. According to Barry Bryant, a former Crip member, the Crips and the

Bloods were constantly slaughtering each other, “Crips and the Bloods turned to be just like the Ku Klux Klans. They had a same thing in common. They just kill each other.

Kill niggas” (“Gangland”).

In 1993 they violence between the two gangs was peaking, so they publicly attempted to conclude peace in the so called Peace Summit, reassuring the mutual respect and guaranteeing no killing. For the next several months, the number of the

Bloods-Crips homicides decreased in 10%, but not even in this period did they ceased.

According to Pookie, a current Crip member, there is no chance, the rivalry and the war between the Bloods and the Crips will ever stop, only it might decline in terms of violence and frequency of homicides, “Truce between Bloods and Crips never last too long. There’s always something” (“Gangland”).

3. The Aryan Brotherhood

“When you talk about a White group, the bell that rings the loudest is the

Aryan Brotherhood” (“Gangland”).

“It's *the Aryan Brotherhood+ not a social club, it’s not a bunch of kids playing

at Neo-Nazis; these are very dangerous men, who will exterminate your

family. … That’s who the Aryan Brotherhood is” (“Gangland”).

The MS-13 and the Crips are both gangs that are prevailingly in the territories of the urban streets, but a gang called the Aryan Brotherhood originated and has been

surviving and flourishing almost entirely in the prison system only. This sociologically specific environment has shaped the gang into an untypical form in comparison to other street gangs, including the MS-13 and the Crips. Still, there is a set of features that are common to the gangs in general.

The Aryan Brotherhood, often shortened as ‘AB’, is structurally and functionally very close to an organization, rather than a gang only. Although there have been profound changes during the history of the Aryan Brotherhood, it has preserved its original White supremacist character. The AB gang is almost purely mono-racial, but being of Caucasian and non-Jewish origin is definitely not a key prerequisite to the AB membership (“Know Gangs”).

Despite the fact that one of the primary motives for the emergence of the AB was an alliance of the White minority, the race has not remained a main AB policy for a long time. Originally, the membership of the Aryan Brotherhood was exclusively Irish

American and most of the gang's early activities were racially based. Gradually, the gang started to be driven by profit and partially diverted from the racial restrictions.

According to Melissa Carr, a member of Anti-Defamation League in Orange County, “in the beginning, their crimes were solely motivated by race. As the criminal organization has evolved, they have tended towards crimes that have little or nothing to do with race” (“ABC News”).

Similarly to other gangs, including the Crips, the AB has been prone to creating alliances with gangs of non-Caucasian races to boost the drug business if needed. The allies have been ranging from the Mexican Mafia to the African-American

gangs too. Needless to clarify that there have not been any signs in terms of a non-

Caucasian being accepted as an AB member. Yet, a substantial part of the Aryan

Brotherhood gang is consisted of members of either mixed or Jewish origin (“Chicago

Gangs”).

The number of the members of the Aryan Brotherhood is estimated at about

15,000, but actually it is unknown, as well as other aspects concerning the gang

(“Police Link”). The main reason for this is the secretive concept of the AB caused by its main territory, the prison. Therefore the pressure on the AB members to keep every piece of information about the gang a secret, including the communication tools and activities, is immense and revealing anything to a non-AB member or police authorities is worth death penalty, executed by the gang itself: “What’s the message? *You+ can’t stop us [the AB gang members], doesn’t matter if you’ve got guns, doesn’t matter we're in the hole26, doesn’t matter the restraints, we're going to kill you. That’s the message” (“Gangland”).

The Aryan Brotherhood was formed in 1967 in Californian San Quentin prison and the key motivation was, similarly to the MS-13 gang, a protection from the suppression by other gangs in the prison, above all the Mexican Mafia members and the African-American gangs. Before 1960s, most of the U.S. prisons were both racially segregated, which prevented emergence of gangs and gang wars and the inmates that were not African-Americans did not feel threatened and intimidated. The change had

26 A slang expression, referring to prison (“Urban Dictionary”).

come with the Civil Rights Movement and Black Panthers emergence, when a new era of violence committed by African-Americans, such as Black Guerilla members (“Prison

Life”)

The Aryan Brotherhood thus originally aimed to protect the White minority in the prisons and stop the victimizations both by the African-American gang inmates, but also of the Mexican Mafia. Ironically, the Mexican Mafia has later, due to the drug business, turned into one of the major Aryan Brotherhood allies. The same inversion happened to the MS-13 gang, whose original enemies, the gangs from the Folk Nation alliance have finally become their allies for the purpose of both gang banging and drug trafficking (“Aryan Brotherhood”).

Nowadays, the Aryan Brotherhood is a criminal empire that has spread across the whole U.S. prison system and is connected with a number of myths and legends, which refer to any aspect concerning the AB gang including the origin. For instance, the membership in the AB is definitely not a matter of fact and not everyone can win the exclusive privilege of being even given the chance to attempt the initiation ritual.

Moreover, the White inmates that have not been invited to join the gang feel threatened by the AB gang (“Know Gangs”). The uniqueness of the ritual is further analyzed below.

As already mentioned, the Aryan Brotherhood has turned away from racial hatred as their main interest. Nowadays, it is not White power, but prison power, which could be defined as gang's true agenda. The strength and threat that the AB gang members present did not arise from the size of the gang, but from its brutality

and willingness to engage in any violent assaults: “The Brotherhood strategy is simple.

Be more extreme, more violent, more terrifying than everyone around you”

(“Gangland”).

A former leader of the AB, Michael Thompson, a key figure in the gang bloody riots, who has killed 22 men inside the prison, affirms the essential role of fear in the power games of prison system, “If we have to, we will come right to warden's office and kill you at the warden's desk and it doesn’t matter and if the warden gets in the way well kill the warden too27. … Inmates will always fear me more than they will staff, because they believe that I will kill them, if they don’t do what I tell them to do. That’s the essence of power” (“Gangland”).

The ultimate goal of the Aryan Brotherhood is thus not race supremacy, but a total control over prison business, especially drug smuggling and selling. However, according to Michael Thompson, both the racial hatred and drug business are present in the AB, “It's *the Aryan Brotherhood+ a criminal organization, we need to be clear on that. Is there racism? You bet, there’s racism! Is it dominant? No” (“Gangland”).

27 The Aryan Brotherhood is infamous for having no constraints as far as the guard killing is concerned. In 1983 Thomas Silverstein, nicknamed ‘Terrible Tom’, an AB killer of a high rank, killed a guard with two stabs and was followed by another AB member, who killed another guard from the same shift within next few hours (“Gangs or Us”).

3.1 Symbols of the AB

As mentioned above, the Aryan Brotherhood was originally formed as a White supremacist groups, similar to other groups with Neo-Nazi ideology. Although, the AB gang has in the meantime turned away from an entirely racial agenda, the symbols, which are connected and related to the Nazism and Adolf Hitler, remained firmly adopted in the gang.

The Aryan Brotherhood, however, combines the various SS and Nazi symbols, names and abbreviation of the gang name and occult symbols with a shamrock28, which is a unique symbol of the AB, which only the gang members are allowed to have in the prison area. Casper Crowell, a former AB member, describes the danger of having shamrock tattoo in the prison, despite not being a member of AB: “Somebody wears shamrocks and [he is] coming into prison system, I mean, even if they were Irish

*…+, well, you know, ‘sorry for your luck, cover it up,’ you know. Usually, [there are only] one people that wear shamrock in the system and that’s the Aryan Brotherhood”

(“Gangland”).

28 Tyler Bingham, nicknamed ‘Hulk’, a top leader and one of the original members of the Aryan

Brotherhood, who is actually of a Jewish origin, has had a unique combination of tattoos, which prove that the racial politics is much less important to the AB gang than it is for any Neo-

Nazi or White nationalistic group. Bingham has had Swastika tattooed on one of his shoulders and David's star on the other (“Gangs across America”).

The shamrock refers to original and early members of the Aryan Brotherhood, who were prevailingly Irish Bikers29. The members of Aryan Brotherhood have, as well as other gangs under investigation and monitoring of police, recently chosen the strategy of rather secretive tattoos, which do not openly reveal their membership

(“Police Link”).

In contrast to the street gangs, the AB gang has naturally not evolved a set of typical graffiti, because the gang purpose of protecting the territory within a prison is very limited. Only in large prison cells, where dozens of inmates are being gathered because of lack of space in the prisons; the gangs, divided either by a race or large sets, defend or respect territories, i.e. showers, aisles, beds etc. (“Gangland”)

Even though the AB gang lacks a system of graffiti, the gang members have perfected a different communication strategy, which is crucial in the prison environment. The prison system requires very intricate and complex coding and

29 A shamrock, a three-leaf white clover, is one of the most frequent symbols of Ireland. Since the 17th century it is also used as an emblem of Saint Patrick's Day and since the 19th century it has become a popular symbol due to its adoption by emerging Nationalistic Movements

(“Emblems of Ireland”). Apart from a shamrock emblem, the Celtic iconography has spread within the AB young members recently, emphasizing the Irish original gang members (“Know

Gangs”). Among other frequent symbols are SS lightning bolts, Nazi runes, numbers ‘88’ referring to the 8th letter of the alphabet; ‘HH’, which stands for ‘Heil Hitler’; Nordic dagger on a shield with lightning bolts; a falcon, relating to Sinn Fein and Gaelic phrases and references to Celtic and Norse mythology and legends (“Prison Life”).

smuggling tactics to deliver messages, drugs, weapons and whatever demanded to inmates and AB members. The Aryan Brotherhood, unlike any other gangs, has been using a two-layer coding, which is based on a 400 year-old binary code system developed by Sir Francis Bacon. Apart from this, the AB is frequently using a simple but very effective method called urine-writing30 (“Prison Life”).

The prison communication that also reaches outside the prison itself is so successful, that the Aryan Brotherhood members are able to control and lead the gang and prison sales from the cells. The rules of the AB are strict and their violation is always punished and if one of the basic gang rules was broken, the gang calls a meeting and decides the future faith of either the fellow members or other inmates who have offended the gang or are an obstacle to the gang's business (“Prison Life”).

The Aryan Brotherhood gang is active both inside and outside the prison system. The outside members, i.e. the released inmates, are obliged to support the imprisoned members and supply the gang inside the prison. Considering the split character of the gang and its secretive quality, it is then obvious that neither police nor

FBI authorities have certain knowledge of the number of AB members. They estimate that there might be about 15,000 Aryan Brothers in total, i.e. both outside and inside

30 The message is written on paper with an acidic substance, such as citrus juice, urine or bleach. After a while, the liquid dries out and becomes invisible until carefully heated by flame

(“Gangs or Us”).

the prison system. The AB gang forms less than 1% of prison population but it is responsible for up to 20% of the prison homicides (“NGTA”).

The activities of the gang are mainly smuggling and selling drugs in prison, where the price of drugs increases three to four times the value in the streets. Apart from methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana and other narcotics trafficking, the AB is often engaged with extortions, assaults and contract homicides31 (“Gangs or US”).

3.2 Structure and Initiation

The rank system, as well as the structure of the Aryan Brotherhood is one of the strictest and best-defined among other gangs. This was mainly caused by the prison system conditions and an AB need of a total control over the members. The lower rank levels are usually called the ‘kindred’ that recruits new members, i.e. the

‘progeny’ and are organized into ‘families’, controlled by a ‘council’ or a ‘commission’ that gathers AB leaders who are an analogy to a court system, deciding over AB rules violations (“Aryan Brotherhood”). Michael Thompson illustrates the function and activity of the AB council with a Steven Barnes32 case:

31 According to Thompson, in the San Quentin prison solely the AB income was $3.5 mil in 1978

(“Gangland”).

32 Steven Barnes is a former AB member, who started to cooperate with police and testified against the Brotherhood. Then he was put under protective custody and thus made inaccessible to the physical punishment and most probably murder of the AB members. Until

So we *Aryan Brotherhood members+ can’t get the Steve Barnes, so now the

issue comes up, let’s kill his family. Let’s kill his wife, let’s kill his kid, his

daughter, let’s kill his mother, father. Let’s make an example of him. So we

met as a council and said, ‘Can we do this?’ and we took a vote. I was the only

one, who voted and said, ‘No, we can’t do this’. (“Gangland”)

The hierarchical system of the Aryan Brotherhood is unlike the one in Crips, is anything but loose and though the new members always start in the lowest gang position with the lowest status in all gangs in general, the initiation ritual of the Aryan

Brotherhood is more complex and stricter than in any other U.S. gang. In other words, the gang initiation usually consists of a proof of willingness to involve in violence in the majority of gangs, whereas in the Aryan Brotherhood, an aspirant of a gang membership undergoes a ritual called ‘making the bones33’, being a part of ‘Blood in, blood out’ rule which requires a future member to kill someone, who is on a death list of the AB gang to be given an admission opportunity (“Prison Life”).

that point, the AB prison violence had never reached outside the walls. Still, Barnes turned against the gang and the exemplary punishment had to follow (“Gangland”).

33 The MS-13 also has an initiation ritual, though it does not involve homicide. The ritual is called ‘jumping in’ and consists of a group severe beating of a new recruit, which last for 13 minutes as a symbol of the MS-13. Similarly, the 18th Street gang involves 18 seconds of beating in its initial ritual. The potential female members might then usually choose between beating and being “sexed in”, i.e. entering the gang via sexual intercourse with one or several of the older gang members (“Gangland”).

However, only after the potential member is unanimously consented by an AB commission, is he permitted to become a member. Mostly, the only way to be even allowed to commit the initiation murder for the AB gang is to be invited to the gang by existing members, who do so only on the account of the potential member's activities that should indicate his strength and violent character. The initiation murder then proves dedication and loyalty to the gang, while racial beliefs are only secondary, resulting in majority of apolitical members, who have joined the gang since the 1980s34

(“Gangs across America”).

34 Nevertheless, some of the gang members are still interested in Neo-Nazi ideology and hence commit racial crimes. Also, racial politics is a vital component of the prison system, having a steady impact on the behavior of the prisoners. The number one rule is that an inmate has to stick with his or her own race only and is obliged to defend its member under the threat of being punished. According to a Caucasian inmate Casper Crowell, a former AB member, “if you see a White guy getting stomped out over here by another race, being White, you have to help him. If you don’t help him, you gonna get dealt with. That’s just part of prison. That’s prison politics” (“Gangland”).

The last known case of racially motivated assaults of AB was in 1997, when the gang attempted to start a racial extermination of African-Americans in the Lewisburg Penitentiary and murdered two prisoners of the African-American gang called DC Blacks. Each of them was stabbed more than 40 times. However, the FBI managed to map the whole net of orders, leading to the homicides and charged two top-leaders of AB, namely Barry Mills, nicknamed

The ‘Blood in, Blood out’ is also a general motto of the Aryan Brotherhood gang, which refers to an endless loyalty of the gang members. This is analogous to both the Crip and MS-13 gangs, which consider membership a lifelong matter, which does not provide a member any possibility to secede from the gang. The AB rule ‘Blood in, Blood out’ refers to the first initiation murder that any new member has to commit to be a part of the gang and also to death as the only way out of the gang, no matter if it is natural or caused by a non-member or a fellow member as a punishment for violation gang rules (“Gangs across America”).

Nothing proves an acceptable reason for a member to step off the gang, including disagreement with the AB politics. On the other hand, this is more probably followed by a punishment in failure of loyalty. Both the former top leaders of AB,

Thompson and Crowell define the major and frequent clashes of the AB members and the AB politics and violence:

“[Being an AB member] you start justifying things that are unjustifiable. I

[Casper Crowell] can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but they are race traders,

they’re heroin brotherhood. That’s what it is really” (“Gangland”); “I [Michael

Thompson] don’t have a problem at all with violence against those, who

understand what it’s about but I will not and cannot tolerate violence against

the ‘Baron’ and Tyler Bingham, nicknamed the ‘Hulk’, with serial murder and other crimes

(“Gangland”).

children, women or elders35. In any capacity, any shape or any form”

(“Gangland”).

The Crips have coined a motto with a similar meaning and consequences. The

‘Crip or Die’ rule that is well-known outside the gang too, applies to members as a symbol of loyalty; indicates both a life-long membership in the gang and also a fact that not being a Crip in the Crip territory automatically means being a Crip enemy who might as well be shot as a trespasser (“Into the Abyss”).

In 2002 the FBI again hit the headquarters of the AB with the aim to disrupt the Aryan Brotherhood gang by leaving it with a leader vacuum. The result however has been disputable. The members of the Aryan Brotherhood consider themselves warriors and the police and FBI investigation and charges may only strengthen the resistance and popularity of the gang (“Police Link”).

As far as the former members are concerned, the reign of the AB in the prison system is definitely not over: “People will step up, that’s nature of the beast and it always will be” (“Gangland”). According to one of them, Michael Thompson, the only effective way to destroy the AB gang has to come from the inside of it: “Remorse is always subjective; you cannot impose it upon somebody. All the sentences in the world, all courts in the world cannot impose remorse by an individual. He or she must

35 Thompson refers to previously mentioned serial homicide ordered by the Aryan

Brotherhood to exemplary punish Steven Barnes, who cooperated with police authorities

(“Gangland”).

embrace that by himself. … I felt I had a responsibility to combat that which I’ve created and so I made training films, I did lectures; I went to court to testify. I still do it till this day” (“Gangland”).

Sociological Aspects of Gangs

Generally, gangs might be considered a subculture groups for a number of reasons, but mainly because of their separation from the majority society. Further specification requires a more in-depth analysis of the gang-majority relationship.

Gangs are either isolated entities as a result of separating process that take place within the majority but they also might be functioning independently from the beginning of its existence.

For illustration, the Hispanic gangs, such as the MS-13 or the Mexican Mafia or Nuestra Familia, did not emerged from the inside of the U.S. majority society, but they were formed from the legal or illegal immigrants coming from the Central

America. These immigrants created mono-ethnic gangs while being already in isolation from the majority. On the contrary, the members of the African-American gangs have been both U.S. citizens and also a part of the majority society though with certain inner or outer tendencies of isolation (“Gangs across America”).

Regardless the initial impulse for forming, gangs as a subculture group have a certain relationship with the majority society. Although they are formed in opposition

to the main society, its values and domination, which are typical features of any subculture group, they are not purely independent on it. Either the bonds to the majority are tight and a gang is still a part of a majority or it is a segregated and prevailingly independently-functioning entity outside the main culture. However, mostly the bonds exist, at least for the sake of profit. Since gangs are usually involved in drug selling and trafficking, they simply use the majority society as a commercial outlet and a precious source of new costumers and recruits (“Know Gangs”).

For these illegal activities, the gangs might be also further classified as a

“delinquent subculture36” (Jenks 15), i.e. a subculture group that is criminally active

36 The delinquent subculture and its denotation reach back to theories of Karl Marx, who coined the term ‘Lumpenproletariat’, denoting those members of society, who disobey its legal rules. In other words, it is an assembling of the lost, rejected and the fallen ones, or perhaps more analytically those excluded by the dominant, normative classificatory structure of relationships in society (Jenks 47).

Despite the socially pejorative denomination, the dangerous class could be as well considered to be following the message of Marx by reconsidering the conditions of its members. The members of a dangerous class are aware of their non-normative status and unacceptable ways of behavior for the majority population. Hence through constructing a subculture group, its members are reversing their antagonism and feeling of exploitation into a revolution against the majority, building a new form of solidarity (Jenks 47).

and thus imposes threat on the rules, codes, structure and members of the main society. Gangs' criminal activities include drugs and weapons trafficking, extortion and violent acts, such as assaults, homicides (“All Blood Gangs”).

Despite economic bonds of exploitation with the majority, gangs do not create or maintain any sort of social bonds with the majority. Needless to emphasize, the bonds that the members construct individually are not considered group' bonds to the majority, because these individual relationships usually represent contacts with family members that are not in the gang. Thus they are not in any way open cooperation with either the majority authorities or institutions.

Yet, the former gang members might intensively cooperate with the majority, usually in terms of counter gang activities (“Gangland”). These individuals are actually one of the best sources for the legal system of the main society, in the attempt of undermining the gang subculture. Ismael Cisneros, a former MS-13 member, is one of the threats to successful recruitments, claiming that “it *gang ideology+ is all lies. We fight to control territory that is not ours to begin with. We cover ourselves with guns to show the world we're strong, but inside were weak. As for me, by the time my eyes were open, I was already in jail, paying with my life” (“Gangland”). In other words, the gang subculture that has been created in opposition to majority produces members who finally stand in the opposition to the subculture too, reversing back to the main culture.

Considering the findings in the previously mentioned case studies, the gangs share a set of common sociological features. These aspects are generally similar, but still show inherent differences that are analyzed further. Nonetheless, there are three main sociological conjunction points that were drawn from the case studies and might be as well applied to other major U.S. gangs, i.e. the gangs have an initial motivation for their origin, they show signs of an internal structure and finally, they all have developed specific hierarchy.

The following chapter thus summarizes the already mentioned common sociological features and also compares the individual abnormalities with reference to the three typologically representative gangs from the case studies above, i.e. the Mara

Salvatrucha, the Crips and the Aryan Brotherhood. Considering the large number of gangs in the USA, the sociological factors and aspects have been drawn from the three typological groups only. Thus it should be emphasized that minor gangs that may vary significantly from these groups, in terms of size, structure, territory or activities; may not correspond to the generalizations below.

1. Original Motivation

Gangs, as a delinquent subculture group, are from the principle of the definition formed as a revolt against the majority. However, this description does not manifest individual gang differences, based on miscellaneous or multiple factors or both. The factors that are common for the major gangs can be divided into three sub- groups, i.e. the economic, integration and defense factor.

1.1 The Economic Factor

As mentioned earlier, gangs' activities often include illegal narcotic trafficking for the sake of profit. This is true not only about gangs, that similarly to Crips, who have expanded due to crack-cocaine trafficking, sell and control drug selling in the streets; but also about gangs that work prevailingly in prison, such as the Aryan

Brotherhood. The drug business also often turns gangs into profit-driven organization that might resemble mafias (“Know Gangs”).

The drug enterprise has the potential of bringing the gang enormous profits and gangs can be very effective in keeping them as high as possible. Also, gangs are able to gain an absolute drug sale monopoly in their area and thus control and avoid competition from rival drug dealers. This artificial monopoly increases the drug incomes of gangs even more, earning up to a million dollars a week

Walk-up and drive-by drug sales go on 24-hours a day on many corners. Gang

members use cellular phones, beepers, and $60 radio scanners to monitor

police frequencies and alert dealers to raids. When one “crew” is arrested,

another often appears within hours, if not minutes. ‘You've got folks literally

waiting in the wings to sell drugs,’ says Commander Evans. (Sieberg 111)

To put it differently, successful business requires a well-organized and structured entity that is focused on profit mainly. Gangs and their drug business are no exception to the rule. Hence, large gangs involved in drug criminality, might be considered an analogy to business corporations with a primal motivation residing in drug profit. Although large gangs might finally be prevailingly entrepreneurial oriented,

business and profit does not tend to be a typical and frequent motivation of a gang origin (“Into the Abyss”).

The economic factor is significant in the course of the life, flourishing or expanding the gang. Also money and its implications definitely make gang membership attractive and may thus help in recruitment. According to Sieberg, there have definitely been various motives for forming gangs, but none of them are primarily bound with drugs and their sale (112). Still, when there is an outbreak of open violence inside the gang or involving non-members, the motivation is usually restricted to money, drugs, turf, injury, death or insult of another member

The evidence suggests that when bullets fly and bodies fall, something other

than the profit motive is usually at work. Often that something can be

absurdly trifling. Kody Scott, for years, a famously cruel leader of Los Angeles

Eight-Tray Gangster Crips recalls that ‘one of the biggest wars inside the Crips

goes back to when a young girl had a leather coat taken by a guy in my

neighborhood. It erupted into a full-scale war’. (Sieberg 112)

Finances, predominantly coming from the drug business, are thus functioning as a motivation to join the already existing gang and they influence the level of violence within the gang members too. This might be again illustrated on the Crip gang that experienced an immense rise of violence and brutality during the above mentioned crack epidemic (“Crip-Knowledge”). Still, gangs are rarely formed as entrepreneurial groups from the very beginning and the choice of including the drug

selling business into gang activities should be then viewed from the macroeconomic perspective only (“Into the Abyss”).

Finally, a lack of complex organization and structure in the gang is a serious obstacle to validating profit as a universal primal motivation for gang emergence. The early gangs are typically loose formations and alliances that only later may or may not evolve into a complex mafia-like profitable entity, such as the MS-13 gang.

1.2 The Integration Factor

The previously mentioned aspect of profit is an inadequate tool for mapping the motivations of the gang origin, but it very well works in the process of a gang life.

The opposite role in the gang emergence and functioning plays the integration component, i.e. it describes gang more as “cultural groups” (Sieberg 111), which in comparison to the corporation-like gangs, are much less organized and more efficient due to their lack of authority. Nevertheless, the case studies imply that the cultural and entrepreneurial gangs might be as well stages of gang evolution, especially as far as the large U.S. gangs are concerned.

Referring to the initial situation preceding the MS-13 or Aryan Brotherhood emergence; these gangs were formed solely as cultural groups that share a common feature of integration as one of the most significant motives of their origin. Both of the gangs have gradually become intensely involved in profit-motivated activities, which have changed the gangs into entrepreneurial ones.

In the cultural gangs, it is social interaction, close integration, territory and identity, which play the key roles among the reasons of both the membership and 57

origin. Gang structure and its function then often resembles the institution of a family, which is missing in the lives of the majority of gang members. The gang turns into a surrogate parent or the whole substitute family for those adolescents that have been raised by a single parent (of whom a number are unemployed, alcoholic, and drug- addicted or some mixture of the three) with a minimum wage (“Gangland”).

A supporting argument is that the majority of new gang members are teenagers or even younger children. For instance, the original and early Crip members were adolescents only, hence the probable origin of the name ‘crip’. The adolescents, who then join the gang, are often poor, ill-educated and in an emotional need. These potential new members tend to lack skills or education and are unable to support themselves through legal activities:

‘What got me selling drugs,’ said a 16-year-old Black Disciple [gang member]

who calls himself Chill, ‘was the day I filled out 14 job applications and not one

of them stores called me back. I said, I got to make some money. My mama was

struggling. I let my mama keep her little money. This year, I didn’t ask her for no

school clothes, books, nothing. This year, I was a man’ (Sieberg 127).

Typically, an adolescent also follows an older sibling, who is already a member of a gang. Thus a gang provides the new and existing members with a sense of structure and primal need of belonging, because the other institutions ranging from family to school and church have failed to do so. The gangs even have a tendency to support the adolescent members in attending the school. According to Tyson, a Black

Disciple gang member, a gang “is no different than your mama making you go to school” (Sieberg 127).

Yet this is a double-edged pressure on the members, because on one hand the gang supports the children to be enough-educated, which is very similar to a common function of a family institution. On the other hand, gang then links the education with drug sale and it employs the benefits of educated members on raising the profits.

Moreover, the above mentioned gang support in education happens only in a very limited scale and rarely within non-adolescent gang members. Later, the adult members usually face contempt, isolation and punishment from the peer members while attempting to get themselves higher level of education. Although, the majority of larger prisons offer the inmates a chance to graduate and finish high school or university, it is rather viewed as an attempt to exit the gang, therefore with animosity

(“Gangland”)

1.3 The Defense Factor

One of the strongest and most frequent reasons of both the gang origin and joining the gang is seeking protection. Yet, this act of defense has three diverse forms and causes. Still, all of these causes, which are further mapped in this sub-chapter, are based on violence and fear from being murdered or severely physically punished

(“Gangs or US”).

The first one comes from the threat imposed by other gangs in the territory.

This motif for gang emergence is very frequent especially within ethnic or race 59

minorities, such as the Hispanics, the African-Americans or Caucasians and Asians, depending on the territory and the ethnic or race prevalence. For instance the majority may therefore turn into a position of a minority in the prison system or specific correctional institutes (“Gangland”).

The majority of street and prison gangs, including the MS-13 in the USA have emerged from the need of protection against other groups which was caused by overpopulation of cities and immigration waves (“Know Gangs”). In the prison system, the urgency to create a defense gang is as pressing as outside the prison, because the correctional institutes have become war zones with racial and ethnic hatred and segregation.

Second, the strength and functions of a defensive potential of the gang is entirely dependent on its members, so gangs have developed a set of rewards and punishments for their members, to give them an incentive to stay in and join the gang, be it a positive or a negative incentive, thus the gang protects itself from a danger coming from the inside of the gang too. This defense consists in preventing any of the existing members from attempting to leave the gang, which is a common and basic gang rule. The gang membership is never a temporary matter and turning away from the gang equals a death sentence. According to Barry Bryant, one of the early Crip members, there “ain't no getting out *from the gang+. That’s, that’s not even in the

Crip book *a Crip codex+. Once you become a Crip, you don’t never *sic+ get out. You may slow down, but you’ll never get out. It’s no getting out” (“Gangland”).

This rule reflects the self-preservation effort of the gangs, because anyone leaving the gang may then betray the gang and cooperate with police or FBI, which would both endanger the gang, its members and its business. In other words, a testimony against a gang member may endanger the gang's integrity and might finally undermine gang activity and crucially, its security.

No matter where the danger comes from, whether from the inside or the outside, the gang protects its members by punishments or extortions (Sieberg 52). If a member is suspected of aiding investigators and thus violating the code of secrecy, he suffers the consequences. Even if placed in prison, a member can be punished for betrayal, ranging from various stab wounds, to being shot in the leg, abdomen or murdered. Obviously, the number of gang members, who, when arrested, are willing to testify against their gangs is extremely low (“Prison Life”).

Therewithal, gangs cooperate in deterring the threats coming from the outside of the gang too. The larger the gang is, the more influence it has often gained, which proves in the law and justice system too, where there has been a significant decrease in terms of controlling and sanctioning gang-related activity:

“A study by the National Institute of Justice reports that 51 percent of

prosecutors in large jurisdictions said that intimidation of witnesses and victims

was a major problem” (Sieberg 121).

The system of exploiting, penalizing and rewarding is thus being applied on the potential members already. The negative motivation plays a major role in it though. The fear from penalties that follow failure of meeting the requirements and

duties is very effective, because first it usually equals violent physical punishment and second, which enforces the loyalty of the other members, almost any member may be charged with the execution.

Finally, the defense reason is a motivation for potential members to join the gang as the only means to escape the physical violence of this very gang. Thus those individuals that are non-members are either coerced to join the gang or they do it voluntarily for the sake of protection. Especially, in the heavily populated areas, where there are numerous gangs, the individuals have to make a choice between the danger of being mistaken for a member of an enemy gang and the danger that originates from within the gang itself. A non-member constantly runs a risk of wandering in the territory of a gang and being severely punished for trespassing (“Know Gangs”).

Consequently, for an individual living in an area with a number of gangs protecting their territories, there is often only one way to increase his safety and that is by joining the gang, because the costs of acting independently are higher than the costs of membership. On the other hand, it should be emphasized that apart from members, who choose joining the gang as a lesser of two evils, many newcomers and members actively desire and pursue inclusion in a gang, mainly for the sake of services,

the gang provides. The membership in a gang may equal kinship, structure, protection and permission37 to sell drugs in gang territory (“Into the Abyss”).

However, the gang membership carries two risks of injury or death at the same time. First source comes from within the gang, which includes violence and physical punishments among its methods of controlling the members' behavior.

Second risk equals imprisonment as a result of illegal acts that primarily or secondarily involve gang business. The unwinding and related additional costs to criminal employment can include the pain of stigma, ostracization by the family in case they are not involved in gang business. All of these risks might still be of lower threat in comparison to being a non-member of a gang (Sieberg 127).

2. Hierarchy and the Military

Gangs are social groups that put an immense emphasis on the hierarchy and status of its members. One of the tools, to reach a high status and its related attributes such as money and sexual partners is to be involved in drug business (“Police Link”).

This implication also works in the opposite direction, i.e. for the benefit of the gang,

37 Without this permission, anyone selling drug in gang's territory is likely to be fined or punished. The drug dealer has then only three options to choose from, which may divert the risk of punishment that is to discontinue his work, pay a percentage of his proceeds to the gang, or join the gang (Sieberg 121).

because a well-structured, hierarchically divided gang has a tendency to steadily increase its profit and be efficient in the illegal trafficking of any kind.

Moreover, the high status within a gang and success with members of the opposite sex are actually considered by sociologists one of the key benefits and motives for adolescent males to join the gang (Levitt and Venkatesh 22). Thus the social rules and standards are reversed in gangs as opposed to the majority society, where involvement in drug trafficking equals social rejection and isolation from the middle and high classes of the society and the social status of these individuals is low.

Whereas gangs show the opposite tendency, appreciating and valuing the drug dealing members very high, they are enjoying privileges and no signs of seclusion from the peers:

Ask a gang member about crack, and he will tell you about the seductive idea

of being somebody when you have nothing. ‘If you weren't selling drugs, you

weren't nobody,’ Jovan [a gang member] said. ‘If you sell drugs, you had

anything you wanted. Any girl, any friend, money, status. If you didn't, you got

no girlfriend, no friends, no money. You're a nothing’ (Sieberg 94).

In other words, the hierarchical structure of the gang is derived from the status of gang members reached via involvement in illegal activities of the gang. This hierarchy has not been entirely created by the gang members, but it has been adopted from an institution, which is traditional based on hierarchy and masculinity (Ghaill

204), i.e. the army. Prison gangs, such as the Aryan Brotherhood, are usually highly hierarchically structured, which is a result of close contacts within a relatively small

territory in comparison to streets and also a need of well-functioning business net inside the correctional institutes (“Gangland”). Hence the street gangs, such as Crips, consisted of loosely linked sets, lack the strict hierarchical system within the gang. Still, there is a difference between the respect paid to early or long-term members and the new-comers (“Gangs across America”).

In terms of rewards, gangs apply a triad of money, rank and respect on their members. Notably, this has an identical analogy in an institution of army. Not only in rewards are there resemblances to be found between the army and the gangs. There are structural and functional similarities that have been either consciously adopted by gangs or unwillingly reproduced.

One of the most prominent marks that have been successfully assumed from the military area is the rank system. Gang members are attentively arranged into ranks that they can win depending on their activities on behalf of the gang. The more outstanding and continual the activities are, the higher the rank in the hierarchical structure is. Also the reward in the sense of money is unwinding from both the rank and the duties (Kimmel 432-444).

As already mentioned above, gangs also provide a financial compensation and support to families of deceased or injured gang members, which is comparable to the practice common in the army when soldiers are wounded or killed in action (Kimmel

432-444). This similarity demonstrates the complexity and advanced organization of gangs that has an impact reaching outside the actual gang members.

Third, from the rank derives respect and at the same it guarantees a number of benefits to the gang itself. As mentioned above, any gang aims to prevent the members from leaving and at the same time requires their loyalty and activity.

Competition that originates from the ambition of reaching a high rank and status in the gang is a positive incentive to a number of gang members.

Gangs have various scales of ranks echoing the military ones and clarifying the status and function of the individual members. The ranks vary from gang to gang, but the basic structure remains the same, with regents, who assist by the drug distribution, enforcers, who enforce the rules of the gang and execute their violation and governors, who control drug sales over large areas and have reached one of the highest positions in the gang possible (Sieberg 118).

These analogies between the military field and gangs might have a number of reasons. First, it is definitely the effectiveness that comes with carefully structured and organized institution of any kind. The hierarchy, clear positions and duties are key conditions of successful operations, no matter if these are battle operations, military missions or drug dealing activities.

Second, the soldiers of both gangs and army are being highly rewarded with money, ranks and respect (or its symbols, such as honors in army and tattoos in gangs) for their participation in action and fulfilling the duties. The more profit and gains have they won, the higher their rewards and consequently also their loyalty and motivation to stay in the institution or the group are.

Third, there is another resemblance that should be mentioned here and that is flexibility in terms of human sources. Although the official military initiation ritual might be different from the gang one, the unofficial one might be violent and physically threatening to the newcomers too.

However, for the sake of keeping the optimal number of soldiers, the army has to limit their access as well as the gangs do. Because of these limited numbers of members, both gangs and army may lack soldiers to cover all their activities and both of them then hire mercenary civilians without incurring the cost of additional members

(Levitt and Venkatesh 13). Gangs pay to a needed number of selected non-members for supporting them in various wars either with other gangs or for drug territories.

To sum the previous findings up, gangs have a number of motives for their existence, one of them being selling and distributing illegal narcotics. For the gangs are often well-organized and tightly controlled, they may as well be classified as economic entrepreneurial organizations as well as entities resembling army, which recruit and maintain membership by a set of rewards and penalties. Nevertheless, money is not a typical motivation for a gang to emerge, yet it may make the gang attractive for the newcomers. Apart from the economic factor, there is also a defense and integration factor too. The integration factor is conditioned by malfunctioning families of the potential teenage gang members, who seek social bonds and sense of belonging.

Finally the factor of defense might be characterized as one of the strongest, because it

encompasses three-way protection concerning the gangs, ranging from a group to an individual being threatened by a gang.

Sociological Aspects Applied on the Social Theories of Norbert Elias

1. Medieval Behavior Patterns and Gangs

The institution of prison and correctional institute, as well as gangs have features resembling in the history of development of human society. Especially the medieval age and the human behavioral patterns seem to correspond both with those within prisons and gangs.

According to Norbert Elias, the main feature distinguishing the medieval society from the postmodern one and at the same time signaling the changes in human behavior is the regulation of instinctive aggression (Šubrt 37). What should be emphasized here is also the fact, that Elias analyzes and maps mainly the area of the

Western civilization and does not include any non-Euroamerican cultures in his hypotheses.

Elias assumes, the medieval knights were frequently bursting in violent and aggressive conduct, making it also an essential part of their lives. What is significant with these acts of destruction, killing, torturing and crippling of the innocent is the general public perception of it. This aggression was an accepted standard of the society of warriors without the actors being suspected of mental disorders (Šubrt 37).

Very similar attitude towards violence is characteristic for both street gangs and prison gangs alike. The aggression and violence are an essential part of an everyday life of a gang member and his/her peers do not judge them as inappropriate and abnormal. The same way, instinctive aggression used to form a vital part of medieval society as well as it is a key component of a gang dynamics and functioning.

In contrast to the developmental phases of society which has been continually heading towards a complete suppression of aggression in human behavior, gangs have been involved in a reverse process of escalating the violent acts. In other words, while the instincts and affects have been increasingly suppressed and the expressivity and spontaneity have been vanishing from the life manifestation from medieval period on, gangs keep the aggression as a behavioral standard.

2. Prison

The above mentioned theory of development could be also applied on behavioral patterns in the institution of prison. In general, prisons seem to have established principles that were described by Elias as being significant in the medieval period (“Norbert Elias”). These common features might be divided into three groups, i.e. food, hygiene and sleep. According to Elias, it was the feeling of shame and also uneasiness that cause the renaissance society to modify their customs and everyday behavior under a common denominator, i.e. distance both in the abstract and concrete sense of the word (“Norbert Elias”).

With the evolution of customs, the dining etiquette changed significantly. The cutlery, too, made a major difference between medieval and modern table manners.

The food got further from fingers and the modernity already strictly defines the conditions under which only it is socially acceptable to eat the food with fingers. Also, everyone sitting at the table is given his own plate, cutlery and sometimes serviette.

Especially the knife and its change in shape was a symbolic shift in instinctive and affective human apparatus. Modifying the sharpness of the table-knife blade prevents any possible connotations of aggression.

In prison, the inmates are deprived of the modern table manners and are symbolically located back to medieval period and its customs. Except for a spoon, the prisoners are not allowed to use any sort of a modern dining facilities. In other words, the prison degrades and reverses the social change in human behavior, which impacts the groups that still preserve the medieval standards of aggression. The evolution in behavior therefore fails both in affecting and limiting aggression in gangs and in prison.

The issues of sleep and hygiene are strongly mutually related. A junction of these two spheres is a concept of intimacy that has been gaining the significance since the medieval age. The regulation of behavior and instincts results in a division of private and public spheres. Hygiene and sleep have been most prominently influenced by this change. In the Middle Ages bedroom used to be a prestigious room for receiving guests, therefore very open and public part of everyday life, where the lord slept next to his servants.

On the way to modernity, the bedroom and sleep moved into a strictly private sphere that stayed hidden from the public eye. This evolution was caused mainly by the altered image of body. Modern people grew highly sensible towards issues

concerning their bodies and sleep was no exception. Despite of the modern feelings of shame, the policy in prison deprives sleep of inmates of intimacy again. Due to lack of space and overcrowded prisons, the prisoners lose to a lesser or bigger extend the privacy of sleep. The only place allowing it is the solitary cell.

Similarly, the hygiene, which has been strictly secluded in the private sphere, is pushed to public spotlight again. Bedroom and bathroom have been turned into one of the most intimate and private places of human life. Still, the inmates share all of these hygiene places ranging from showers to toilets in bulk and are being forced to lose their sensitivity and modern standards of shame and intimacy.

The already mentioned three issues of intimacy do not only distinguish medieval age from the modern one, but also depict the growing of an individual human being. Therefore the prison institution reverses its inmates back to their childhood period too, before they were being initiated into the forms of continual suppressing of instincts and affects; and taught how to internalize the pressure of a self-restraint. This could be only achieved by an external restraint in order not only to control instincts and affects, but also to create invisible barrier and a set of permanent standards (Šubrt 39).

The regulating and 'channeling' of the aggression, spontaneity and instincts have a main reason and purpose. With a growing density of people living in urban areas as well as increasing complexity of their relationships, human behavior needs to be reliably and easily calculated and anticipated. This strengthening control influences human body, needs and affects such as aggression. The first step of the regulation is

usually sanctions and bans that put outer pressure on the individuals to fit into the social standards.

Considering the fact that gang members have developed a different set of standards and regulations for aggression, the members are being forced to fully obey the standardized and common social rules only in prison. Correctional institute lacking any possibility for creating the intimacy and privacy for the inmates, still does not lack the need for regulating the aggression and violence of the prisoners.

Gang members follow the medieval pattern of aggression and bring it to the prison environment, which is only regulated by a set of obligations, permissions and prohibitions. Although it is an authority, that should regulate and set rules limiting violence; aggressive impulses can be only suppressed internally and individually in the end with the authority being only a supervisor of a power stabilized society. The cycle of violence involving prisoners and also guards therefore keeps the medieval practice among the prisoners and thus gangs too.

The life of the medieval warrior, who lived to fight, loves fighting and his social behavior is purely purposeful, had a similar function as the one of the gang members nowadays. If a gang member is not provided of a high status in the gang hierarchy, he is only a soldier, who is being given orders and whose only function is to fight when ordered. They are also both getting ready to become warriors since their childhood and if they live in the period of peace, they need at least to preserve an illusion of war (Šubrt 41).

The affects as well as fighting and aggressive desires have not vanished from the modern society, but are clearly defined, softened and rationalized, which is not the case of the gang behavior patterns and prisons. From this point of view and concluding from the hypotheses by Elias concerning the evolution of human behavior, gangs still preserve and are virtually based on the medieval patterns (“Norbert Elias”).

According to Elias, the aggression and violence are necessary in societies that are not well integrated and structured. These societies use violence for defense, getting to resources and territory (Šubrt 42). The only discrepancy then, comparing these societies and gangs, might be found in the purpose of violence, because gang members are not violent purely for the sake of a defense, but also an offense.

From the perspective of violence, a gang very much resembles the concept and monopoly of a state, which legitimately uses and implies violence on its citizens.

Evolving this theory, Elias follows the ideas of Weber and other traditional sociologists, e.g. Simmel and Mannheim. Elias also includes the theses of monopolization and competition in his studies of social evolution and changes (Šubrt 42). These might be further again applied on the gang social group and prison institution dynamics.

The street as well as prison gangs rival among each other in permanent gang wars with the intention to eliminate the existence of the competing gang that either is being involved in the same illegal business or attempts to occupy the same territory.

According to Elias, the tendency to create monopoly is an inherent feature of the competitive relationships, which prevents them from gaining any kind of permanent stability. If one of the rivals gradually extends his power, he might reach the absolute

monopoly in the field (Šubrt 47). Although gang competition manifests resembling features, it has never reached the point of gang hegemony on the long term basis. One of the reasons for a non-existing gang monopoly is a missing supremacy, as far as the sources are concerned, of any of the major gangs in the USA. However, the number of significant and powerful gangs is limited.

3. The Society of Individuals

Through the whole history of sociology, the scientists have been interested in the status of an individual and also the process of gradual individualization and growth of social independence of the members of society. Norbert Elias has only proceeded on the previous theories of Marx and Simmel concluding, that the individuals are being separated from the community for ever, leaving immense traces in the human thought processes (Šubrt 59).

Comparing these findings with the concept of gangs, the postmodern society grows into total segregation of individuals, whereas gangs integrate its members tightly inside the community. In this sense, gangs demonstrate similar characteristics as primitive societies (59 Šubrt), which tend to split into subordinate units with members of similar character and behavior, who constitute segments with only little mutual interdependence. In these types of organizations, it is family and blood relationships that bears high significance:

Another 15-year old Black Disciple who called himself Will said that he was

afraid of going to jail and of dying violently but that he had no desire to leave

the gang. ‘Being in organization is like being in a big family’, he said. ‘They are

always there for you when nobody else is’. (Sieberg 114)

The primitive societies, as well as gangs, have constructed a collective consciousness, ruled by traditions and absorbing personalities, moral, mental and social heterogeneity of individuals. The unifying factor for these communities and societies is identicalness. According to Durkheim (Šubrt 59) the personality of a past person was free, limited and underdeveloped and his society lacked higher degree of organization structure.

Similarly, gangs are not always well-organized, fusing its individuals into an army of soldiers without personalities (Decker 27). Gangs also do not provide any sort of a game space (Šubrt 60) resulting in a decreasing number of choices, the members are allowed to make. In other words, the postmodern majority soiety has been shifting its emphasis from the collective towards individual, whereas gangs have preserved the opposite tendency without any pursuit in the opposite direction.

4. Figuration

According to Elias's theories, gang is a figuration, not only a group or a community of individuals (Šubrt 78). Gangs are bound by mutual relations and interdependence, which is also a formation force of figurations. Therefore, creating a parallel between gangs and figurations of Elias, results in a number of consequent conclusions and defining character frames of gangs too.

The concept of a figuration carries an inherent variable pattern that resembles a game with players. These participants are constructing this very frame by their acts 75

involving not only their intellect but the whole personality. The figurations are based on mutual interdependency friction that may switch the players back and forth the roles of enemies and allies (Šubrt 78). Thus any figuration always incorporates a type of hierarchy as a result of the previously mentioned power games. One of the structural qualities is a fluctuation of a power balance, which is usually either bipolar or multipolar (“Norbert Elias”).

Moreover, Elias defines two basic groups in the society, the outsiders and the established ones. Both of these groups define themselves as the opposites to the other group. The established ones, who might be transferred as a description of a majority soiety that is living within standard rules and framework and expressing violence only within strictly limited areas; are more powerful and acknowledged than the group of outsiders.

The major group develops its own collective charisma and views itself as the better ones. This idealized image incorporates a strictly negative image of the outsiders, who share a collective feeling of shame. The dominant group of the established ones preserves this superior position by obeying the rules, norms and a strict self-regulation. For Elias, these roles are purely consensual (Šubrt 80).

To sum the previous findings up, gangs might be defined as primitive societies on the medieval level of evolution that preserve violence and aggression, whereas post-modern societies limit violence as well as other emotional and affective expressions to a minimum. Gang members are also only marginally individualized and

show no significant signs of a deeper structural system. In contrast to the majority society, a gang is a figuration of outsiders with a collective conscience.

Summary

A gang is a specific subculture group with a high level of risk of injury, death or imprisonment38 and no social, only economic bonds to the majority society. It is a complex figuration with behavioral patterns inclining towards criminality and violence.

For the sake of mapping some of these sociological aspects, three main typological groups of gangs that currently exist in the USA, were analyses in the thesis.

These gang representatives were selected regarding the typical features of the major gangs in the USA, i.e. large size and territories, mono-racial or mono-ethnic structure, street or prison area incidence, criminal or violent activities, origin and individual specificities in communication. The case studies are consisted of the MS-13 gang, the Aryan Brotherhood and the Crip gang.

The largest gangs of the three mentioned in the case studies is MS-13. This gang is formed mainly by Hispanic members, who immigrated to the USA. It was formed in pursuit of protection against local Californian African-American and Mexican gangs. The MS-13 is also specific in terms of an international both street and prison

38 According to Levitt and Venkatsch, active gang members have an estimated one in four chance of dying (25).

incidence, which was primarily caused by FBI counter-activities against the gang. In comparison to the other gangs in the case studies, the MS-13 is an unprecedentedly violent and brutal gang, which adopted inhumane fighting methods from the

Salvadoran war and brought them back to the USA.

Similarly to the MS-13, another U.S. gang called Aryan Brotherhood, has originated from the need of protection against other gang members. However, in comparison to the MS-13, the AB prison gang is not a large gang, though the actual number of the gang members is unknown.

The origin of the third gang included in the case studies reach back to the

1970s and was not in any case formed on the account of a threat by other local gangs.

The Crip gang was created by two teenagers as an expression of enthusiasm and support of Black Panthers. The Crip gang has later split into a number of sets and also gave birth to its main rival gang, the Bloods. Thus the AB gang and the MS-13 have arisen from the protection motives, whereas the Crips were initially based only on the integration benefits coming from a definition of a culture group. Nevertheless, it gradually, as well as the other gangs, turned into a profit-driven organization.

All of the three gangs have also evolved specific means of communication and manifesting loyalty and affiliation to the gang. Recently, tattoos, which used to be one of the favorite gang member tools to refer to their gangs, are being shifted to a more secretive level, to prevent police and FBI from monitoring the gang activities and gang members. Still, all of the gangs use specific coding system with the respect to local conditions. Street gangs, such as Crips and MS-13, use hand signals, or in case of the

Crips a war dance or shout to communicate with peers and intimidate the enemies.

Aryan Brotherhood, which is primarily a prison gang, uses coding systems, such as urine script and encryption developed by Francis Bacon.

Further, several of the gang behavioral features mentioned in the case studies, were analyzed and summarized in the chapter on the sociological aspects of the gangs. Typically, gangs have some kind of motivation as a primal cause of their existence. They emerge either for economic reasons, such as profiting from the gang involvement in drug trafficking; for substitution of malfunctioning family, i.e. the motif is cultural or for the sake of protection. Moreover the defense factor is a multi-layered aspect, because it may cause an origin of the gang, it influences the activities of the gang and it is also a reason for many new members to join the gang. Another studied factor was a resemblance with army and its hierarchical system, providing soldiers and the gang members with money, rank and respect.

Finally, the theories of Norbert Elias were compared with gangs in the thesis, pointing out the similarities of Elias's definition of civilization evolution and related gang features. In terms of emotionality, violence and aggression the gang are analogous to a medieval society, which did not suppress its manifestation. The violent features of gangs are then obviously only further supported by prison system, which lacks basic means of post-modern society that Elias considers crucial for an efficient control of aggression, such as intimacy during sleep and hygiene.

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