Most of the gangs in the United States started from the urban regions. Despite the belief that the gang has been existing from a very long time, the gang in the United States started at around 19th century specifically at major cities such as New York, other cities like Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, as well as Miami and other major cities. The poor sections of the cities provided a more room for the vice in the United States. The gangs were based on ethnicities such as the Irish, Italians, and polish among many other ethnicities in the USA.
The gangs were organized in groups that included; the shirt tails, who could wear their shirts outside their pants as a sign of group affiliation. This gang was found at the five point slum in Manhattan,
The Shelton gang terrorized the area of Fairfield Il., in Wayne County, during the prohibition era. During the prohibition the Shelton’s got into bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, facts about the organization, and how it all ended in 1945. During the prohibition, they bootlegged their own moonshine and others all over Wayne County. While they were bootlegging and making alcohol, they made a lot of rivals with other bootleggers in the area. Beside just bootlegging they also had casinos for people to gamble at all over southern IL.
Tookie and Raymond claimed to have begun this gang only as a means of protection against other gangs in the area. Unlike the previous organized groups instead of adults working together against a bigger cause the Crips originated on campuses of High Schools in the Los Angeles area. Fremont High School was the home for “Eastside Crips” and the “Westside Crips”, while Compton quickly formed another fraction of Crips. Some gangs that were formed were the Rollin 20s Crips, 5 Duece Crip, Main Street Crips, and Kitchen Crip. Although these organizations used the Crip in their gang titles they often remained independent and held their own gang leaders and members.
The group originated in Los Angeles, but later it spread its activity into Canada, Central America, Mexico, and different areas of the United States. It lasts since the 1980s. The members are mostly Latinos from Central America. The identification mark of gang members are tattoos. They usually cover their chests, arms, and in some cases, even their faces.
The exact location is up for debate, but it is generally accepted that 18th Street Gang started near 18th Street and Union Avenue in the Rampart District of Los Angeles. 18th Street was not always its own gang. It was originally part of Clanton 14. They wanted to make a separate clique called Clanton 18th Street and allow immigrants the opportunity to join.
In the film Crips and Bloods Made In America by Stacy Peralta, the history of the two south L.A. gangs is discussed in depth. The current disadvantages these modern gangs are faced with can be traced back to the oppressive and segregative history of America towards people of color. In the 60’s the black community was extremely strong and had a plethora of leaders who united and led their fight against inequality. Even in the face of white flight and segregation (Schneider, Escape From L.A.) the community had thriving social programs, cultural hubs, and vocational opportunities that was beneficial to its members (Film: Crips and Bloods).
Ask the average American to name a gang they are familiar with and chances are the response will be either the Crips or the Bloods. Over four decades ago, African American youth founded these gangs after many years of oppression, marginalization, and institutional racism. The Crips and the Bloods, who originated from neighborhoods of Southern California, have now spread across the nation with a presence in thirty-two states. They changed the American landscape forever.
The Gerson Park Kingsmen is one of the oldest gangs in Southern Nevada. They got their name after the old Herbert Gerson Park housing project near Martin Luther King Blvd and Lake Mead. The gang is a hybrid street gang composed of Bloods and Crips. The gang originated in the 1970 and they are the oldest criminal gang in Las Vegas. Members are known to wear green and black as those are their colors and they are also associated with the numbers 369.
Victor M. Rios was born in Mexico. When he was two years old he immigrated with his mother to Oakland, California. He went through a tough childhood and he and his mother moved several times throughout poor neighborhoods such as West Oakland, The Fruitvale District, and Elmhurst. As a result of growing up in this kind of environments he was forced to be part of Latino East Oakland gangs. Stealing cars, selling drugs, getting into street fights and having problems with police was all he would do until he was 15 years old.
There is a 25% increase of gang activity in Chicago as of 2009 to 2011. There are about 100 different types of gangs and a few of the most dangerous ones are in Chicago. For example you have the Latin kings, Bloods, Crips, Disciples, Folks, and many more. One of the most dangerous gangs in Chicago would be the Latin Kings. Each gang could have over 100 members or more in their
How were juvenile gangs formed in the 1920s? In the 1920s, Frederick Thrasher studied over 1,300 youth groups in Chicago and discovered that social, economic, and ecological factors in cities generate breaches in the usual fabric of society, allowing gangs to form. These organizations establish initially to meet needs such as play, enjoyment, and adventure, but if a confrontation with adult authority persists, the groups solidify and their activities become primarily criminal, leading to the formation of gangs. In places of high poverty and confrontation with adult authority, these groups solidify and become gangs.
Gangs had also become a big part of the 1920’s, they had a lot of say in went on round the towns they lived in. Gangs had a lot of control of how liquor got in and out of their towns “It was smuggled in from the seas off both the east and west coasts and brought overland from both Canada and Mexico.” (McNeill). Everyday people would smuggle liquor in from all over if it was hard to find by them. They would sell it to family and friends all over and speaks did the same thing.
Gangs represent themselves by symbolizing different colored bandanas for each gang, wearing baggy clothes, and mainly jeans and t-shirts. Rap music is typically associated with gangs also. Lingo of gangs can be things such as heavy use of slang, derogatory terms which are usually used to describe other gangs, and secret codes. A secret code of the largest American gang, the Bloods, is “suwoop” which is supposed to imitate the sound of a police siren. Tattoos can represent a gang too, as many will get tattoos all over their bodies that symbolize which gang they are associated with.
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.
When the did the gang start? How did it grow and develop? The Barrio Azteca was formed in El Paso, Texas in the prison system. The gang was formed in 1986 and the gang increased after 1996 because of the rise in the deportation of Mexican criminals from the USA.
Most gangs are made up of young males that are of a similar background and have a desire of acquiring