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The MS-13, the Aryan Brotherhood and the Crips

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The MS-13, the Aryan Brotherhood and the Crips 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. …………………………………………….. 2 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. 3 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 4 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”). 5 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 6 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 7 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
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