CHAPTER traced back to soon after the Revolutionary War. In the early 1900s, Whyos Menu GANG VIOLENCE IN AMERICA However, those first groups are characterized gang activity began (3 CE HOURS) more as social clubs, forming among groups to move west as Punching ... $2 of like background and ethnicity, devoted to Chicago street gangs Break nose & jaw ...$10 Learning objectives maintaining some form of homogeneity while the formed in earnest, Break leg or arm ... $19 ! Gain knowledge of the history of gangs in nation moved forward into the unknown territory although a few white Shoot in leg ... $25 United States. of its newly won independence from England. gangs in the area The Big Job $100 and up ! Describe the current state of gang The more serious street gangs did not emerge could trace their roots (Source: OJJDP) membership and activity. until the early 19th century, and were still mostly back to the 1860s. Chicago was gearing up as ! Identify the breadth of the gang violence youth fighting over local turf.4 an industrial giant toward the end of the 19th problem. century, and recruited workers heavily from ! New York City, as the hub of immigration, Describe the role and image of gangs in southern and Eastern Europe. As with New York, naturally assumed the role as birthplace of gangs popular culture. gangs grew out of this massive immigration and ! in America. List programs shown to be effective against mirrored the New York patterns. gang violence. In a comprehensive report on gang history in Some early Chicago gangs sprang out of the America, the U.S. Justice Department’s Office Introduction famous ward politics system. One of the most of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention A 15-year-old Chicago boy is gunned down infamous was Ragen’s Colts, an offshoot of the (OJJDP) found that early immigrants encountered while standing in front of his cousin’s house, Ragen Athletic Club established by Cook County 1 limited possibilities because of discrimination by receiving his birthday gift. Commissioner Frank Ragen. The club, originally native-born Americans and a lack of marketable In St. Louis, during a funeral visitation, a formed as an amateur baseball team, made the skills. Because of the enormous waves of people dispute between gang rivals erupts in gunfire news of the day repeatedly in stories about 2 arriving daily, housing was scarce, as were jobs on the lawn of the funeral home. violence against black Chicagoans.8 In Daytona Beach, Fla., dealers and users for the unskilled. Finding themselves living During this period, Chicago had a well-defined populate a park known for its drug deals in the squalor of early American slums, some “gangland” that bordered the downtown business while on the opposite street corner, families immigrants turned to crime out of desperation, district on three sides, with Lake Michigan on the and tourists stop in for a dozen Krispy and gangs formed as a result. This lack of fourth side. The area south of downtown included Kremes.3 opportunity would raise its head often in the nation’s history as a primary reason for gang the turf of the Ragen’s Colts, who claimed 3,000 All across America, street gangs, and formation. members. North and west of downtown, the their activities and violence, have become gangs used river bridges to battle each other.9 commonplace. News outlets are filled with daily Although some early American gangs formed recitations of the violence. No place is immune, along ethnic boundaries, many sprouted in areas By the Roaring ’20s, Chicago became the focus and even when performing as simple a task as that were not populated by a single ethnic group. of gang activity in the U.S. as rival gangs sprayed stopping off for a dozen donuts on the way to Many gang members had jobs, although routinely the streets with machine-gun fire. Young Mr. Sunday school, Americans never know when they in manual labor. Ethnicity often took a backseat Capone, having moved from New York, had might become the next innocent victim. to territoriality with the early gangs. perfected his craft and stood atop the heap. Although numbering far less than 1 percent of Forming after the War of 1812, the more serious The 1930s through the 1960s saw a second wave the American population, gang members, at gangs began appearing in New York City on the of Chicago gang formation, this time driven not minimum, evoke a healthy caution from the lower East Side. With mainly Irish membership by immigration but by a different engine, the average American if not a gut reaction of fear these gangs, among them the Bowery Boys, migration of Hispanics and African-Americans over something that seems out of control. Log were joined after the Civil War by gangs formed to the North. Some of the largest gangs of this onto any forum, blog or newspaper comments among the Italians and Jewish. However, the era were the Disciples, P. Stones, Vice Lords and section on the subject and the American attitude violence was still along the lines of turf warfare. Latin Kings. As the 1960s dawned, gang violence is evident. Anger comes first, then bluster, then exploded again in Chicago as battles raged over It wasn’t until 1820 and the formation of the frustration and fear of a subsection of American drug distribution. society that mainstream America sees as out of Forty Thieves Gang that America got its first control. dangerously violent gang that focused on Meanwhile, Los Angeles had been gearing up criminal enterprise. The latter part of the century with the formation of gangs in the 1930s and And when Americans turn to their leaders, they saw the advent of what many still believe to be 1940s that grew out of Mexican ethnicity. The see that the officials, too, are frustrated. There the most significant street gang in the country’s earliest Americans of Hispanic descent found appears to be no single answer, no single act that history, the Five Points Gang. Named after the themselves left out of opportunities as the government, law enforcement or social services area of Manhattan where five streets converged, western United States grew, but in 20th century can take that will solve a problem allowed to the Five Points Gang graduated many of its best America, Hispanic Americans organized for fester and grow. Law enforcement, social workers into membership in the Sicilian Mafia, known different reasons. and ordinary citizens alike search for answers as as La Cosa Nostra. One member in particular the gang problem seems to escalate beyond their The Treaty of Hidalgo, Many gangs learned the lessons well, a teen-aged recruit early which ended the Mexican- ability to deal with it. in the 20th century named Alphonse Capone.5 with a national American War in 1848, presence … can Where did these groups come from? Why did The 2002 Oscar-nominated movie “Gangs of created Americans out of they spring up? What is the extent of the danger? trace their roots to New York” told the story of the Five Points whole cloth by virtue of Los Angeles. And how do we combat it? 6 Gang. Mexico’s ceding land that Violence prevention This course will provide answers to those is now the Southwestern coalition In that late 19th century time frame, the Chinese questions, outline solutions that appear to be U.S. All Mexicans living in the region Tongs formed in New York, satisfying themselves working and offer links to resources for breaking immediately became American citizens. But as with running the opium trade and gambling the vicious cycle of gang violence. America moved westward, these new citizens enterprises. That period also spawned The were treated as interlopers.10 History of gangs Whyos, a gang that actually had a menu with The first gangs in the United States can be prices for various “violence-for-hire” activities.7 As residents of these areas made their way into the cities, and as immigrants crossing the border Elite CME Page 1 from Mexico arrived, they brought with them an some 40 years after being denied membership in the lessons of street life until he lies dead in the intense loyalty to their ethnicity and homeland. the Boy Scouts because of his skin color. street, holding a gun. Acknowledgement of the These loyalties, more than a lack of opportunity “vicious circle” of gang life is brought home “That’s the Boy Scouts of America.” he says, in the East, fueled the early gang movement in through the device of beginning and ending “a racist organization.” Kumasi echoes the the western U.S. the song with almost identical verses about a sentiment, brimming with remembered rage that tearful mother giving birth, sad instead of joyous As millions of Latinos moved into the region, seems to boil easily to the surface even now. because she knows what the child will face. most found their way to Los Angeles, allowing “We couldn’t be Cub Scouts,” Kumasi says. “We it to supplant Chicago as the nation’s second- couldn’t be Boy Scouts; we couldn’t be Explorer America so embraced the song that it became largest city. These immigrants brought with them Scouts. We couldn’t become involved in any kind Presley’s first Top 10 hit in four years. He also pride in their particular part of their homeland. of organization that would bear us good fruit.” made it a staple of his Las Vegas shows. As they settled in the barrios of East Los Angeles, So the youth of South Central Los Angeles As much as Elvis grabbed America by the heart, Mexican-Americans banded through the bonds of formed their own clubs, fueled by the anger two years later, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick this regional pride.