MS-13 Gang Behavior Analysis

Early on, MS-13 was a loosely organized collection of smaller gangs that focused on extorting local businessmen and small-scale drug trafficking operations. Unfortunately for law enforcement, MS-13’s operations have expanded past extortion, homicide and drug trafficking. Sonja Wolf finds that, MS-13 engages in robbery, auto theft, rapes, kidnappings, and the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation,” and that, “Over time, gang members have been increasingly implicated in robberies, the illegal possession or carrying of firearms, drug sales, rapes, and especially extortions and homicides. Gang youth have moved from levying minor taxes in their territories to running extensive extortion rackets. Shopkeepers, sex workers, students and teachers, taxi and bus companies must all comply with the requests, though the transport sector is most heavily affected.

Introduction Juvenile delinquency due to gang relation has increased drastically. Many people fail to realize that gangs have a considerable influence on the decisions juveniles are making. Adolescents are easily influenced by the members of the gangs and manipulated to commit certain crimes. As juveniles they are not mentally and emotionally mature to make such critical decisions, which in turn allow gang members to manipulate and control the youth they recruit. Juveniles become a part of gangs for several reasons, including, gaining protection, governmental, and social issues.

Utilizing research findings and realistic experiences, Shakur, Howell, and Griffiths disprove myths about gangs, justify the reasons for young people being recruited because of their desire to be understood by others similar to them, and girls integrating themselves into the groups from their relationships with members. Howell and Griffiths managed to explain the principles behind gangs and their members' lifestyles, while Shakur provided real gangster experiences as supporting evidence for the research findings. Theories to gangs may be existent, but without proper research leading to the findings, or experiences from subjects who lived the lifestyle, beliefs about the organizations merely become empty

Gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions, and up to 90 percent in others, according to the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment. Perhaps one of the most notorious street gangs in the western hemisphere is The Mara Salvatrucha also known as MS 13. “Mara” is Salvadorian for “Group”, although there is debate over the origin and meaning, it is commonly known to mean “street smart. MS 13 was formed on the streets of Los Angeles in the 1980’s by immigrants. “Mara Salvatrucha Stoners” is what MS 13 was originally called, they emphasized on partying, friendship and protecting one another from other gangs in L.A.

The MS-13 gang, well known as Mara Salvatrucha 13, is one of the most organized and violently dangerous gangs in the United States. The gang was establishes in the 1980, in the predominately Spanish speaking parts of Los Angeles, initially starting off with refuges who were in nature calm and in control. However, some Mexican immigrants began their power guiding and controlling these individuals into an underworld organization, which quickly began to harden the individuals. Once this occurred in the El Salvadorian neighborhoods, the immigrants wanted to organize themselves, so they decided to come up with a name for themselves.

“Society thinks we are monsters.” Mr. Antunez said at the beginning of the article Shuttling Between Nations, Latino Gangs Confound the Law. The following paper is going to take a close look at several aspects of Latino gangs and their effects on culture. The taboos and deviant acts that are committed by both groups. Actions the dominant culture has done to enforce the rules of society and, more closely, ways that the dominant culture has been deviant.

Prison gangs have been and are a growing problem. Prison organizations throughout the United States have tried many different strategies to address the issue of prison gang members. One of the problems is that gang members are more of a threat to the staff and other inmates than regular inmates who are not in a gang. The prisons have problems begin able to house certain serious offenders that need to be kept separate because of the limited spacing. Gangs in the prison have a higher disruption and incident rate then non gang members.

We learn from the things we experience, the things we see, and the people with whom we associate. We learn from our surroundings , experiences, acquaintances, friends, and family. Contends that we learn aggression like any other behaviour-by watching others and imitating their behaviour” (2014). This theory explains that people act and do illegal things because that is all they have been taught. Those in gangs who may use violence to resolve conflict and/or establish a respectable name for themselves have been surrounded with those who do the same thing.

In the United States, every year there are around 2,000 gang-related homicides and in the realistic fiction novel, The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton, it explores the issues of gang violence, and teenagers in gangs. Around 40% of all members in gangs are teenagers, who are getting involved in some dangerous things very early in life. In the novel The Outsiders, the “Greasers” which is a gang of all teenagers, fight other gangs and commit serious crimes such as murder. We as a society need to pinpoint why teenagers join gangs and stop them beforehand. We also need to help people get out of gangs if they are already in one.

1. How does Strain Theory define and explain deviance? Strain theory defines deviance as the situation whereby there exists a gap or difference between societal success goals and the determined means available to the society for achieving these goals. In a society, individuals share similar goals towards success and thus have agreeable means of achieving the same, however, when such an agreement is foregone such a society has a high rate of deviance.

In the United States, prisons are held accountable for the safety of inmates regardless of their crimes. Researchers defined Security Threat Group is known as prison gangs, which corrections officers used to take away their recognition term (Security Threat Group (STG) Law and Legal Definition, 2016). The Security Threat Group are hostile inmates that caused harm to prison officials and inmates. The Security Threat Group may vary from state to state within the correctional facilities. It is determined that street gangs and prison gangs are different because prison gangs reflects with the toughness on their role in unlawful activity, higher level of organization, and age structure, while street gangs’ illicit activity is part of the group identity

Gang activities have been increasing over the years from crimes ranging from robberies to homicides. In California, estimates were made by the Justice Department that approximately 175000 to 200000 persons were members of gangs. In the county of Los Angeles gang activities for over a period of five years accounted for over 23000 of the crimes that occurred.(Friedrichs. M. 1999). Gangs have become not only a problem for those communities where the gang's ar located but has become a problem for everyone.

Gang Definition and Classification Classifying gangs is no simple task and to begin you must thoroughly understand the definition and requirements of being classified as a such. There are multiple definitions of a gang, according to The Modern Gang Reader but the one I will focus on is “A street gang is any durable street-oriented youth group whose involvement in illegal activity is part of its group identity.” Now that the definition has been identified it needs to be broken down further to clearly differentiate why this definition is essential.

This paper draws on existing sociological research in identifying a number of theories used in explaining the formation of gangs. The theories discussed are social structure theories, social conflict theory, and social process theories all of which highlight elements of strain in different forms as they relates to gang formation. According to Merton, (as cited in Schneider & Tilly, 2004) structural theories significantly emphasize the role of social and economic structures as the causes of delinquent behavior and tend to treat criminal behavior as the result of the undesirable and dysfunctional structures (P. 3.).

Throughout the 17th-century gangs have been causing havoc in people's life and destroying the society. The National Institute of Justice (2011) has defined a gang as "A group of collective members which create an atmosphere of intimidation among citizens. " Many of these gangs are well organized, using different forms of violence to control neighbourhoods and to conduct their illegal activities. The National Gang Threat Assessment (2011) reports that “Gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions.” Street Gangs have caused incidences of violence that is confined in the inner city of many countries.