Violence by Gang Members, 1993-2003

BJA report says gang members committed about 6% of violent crime in the nation, according to the victims. Violent crimes for which victims identified the offender to be a gang member peaked in 1996 at 10% of all violent crime and decreased until 1998 to about 6%, and not changing significantly since. 2 pages. Downloadable.

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International Gang Study Concludes That Youth in Gangs Should be Reintegrated into Society

Neither War nor Peace, a major new study of ten countries, finds that gangs everywhere offer youth physical security, identity, employment, and thrills.  It also finds that governments are encouraging the growth of organized armed groups – or gangs – by imprisoning and even executing their members, instead of helping young people to rise above the poverty and social disintegration that is pushing them to join gangs in the first place. It draws on three years of research in Brazil, Columbia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, the Philippines, South Africa, and the United States. Gang expert John Hagedorn at the University of Illinois researched gangs in Chicago for the report. The Executive Summary is 11 pages with recommendations and downloadable.

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Los Angeles and Gangs

L.A. Home Turf for Hundreds of Neighborhood Criminal Groups
A LA Times reporter takes stock of what is known about gangs in Los Angeles, presenting statistics about gang size and composition, where they’re located, how the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department are working to reduce gang violence, and trends in gang activity.

L.A. Violence Crosses the Line
A lengthy (8 page) article on Mara Salvatrucha, which has between 30,000 and 50,000 members in half a dozen countries, including up to 10,000 members in the U.S. The gang’s extreme violence, vast reach and increasing sophistication have made it a top priority at the highest levels of law enforcement.

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Central American Countries Crack Down on Mara Salvatrucha

Authorities across Central America and in El Salvador in particular, have made strides against the Mara Salvatrucha and its archrival Mara 18. In the past year police have arrested nearly 5,000 gang members in a controversial approach called Super Mano Dura – Super Hard Hand. It makes simply being a member of a gang illegal, and having a gang tattoo can land a person in jail. Salvadoran officials claim the approach has stopped the gang’s evolution into something worse.

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North American Transnational Youth Gangs: Breaking the Chain of Violence

This paper reviews the history of gangs in the United States, gang research and causes of gang violence, the development of Latin American gangs, and actions taken by US and Latin American countries. It includes recommendations and interdiction strategies. 

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103 Arrests in Sweeps in Six Major Cities in National Gang Crackdown

The sweeps represent the first thrust of a campaign to rein in Mara Salvatrucha, aka MS 13. With new cells in 33 states and up to 50,000 members in the U.S. and Latin America, the gang has become a law enforcement priority in Washington, El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico. More than half the Monday arrests came in the New York, Washington and Baltimore areas. The FBI has organized a nationwide task force targeting MS 13.

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Hmong Gang-related Killings in Central California

The Sacramento Bees reports that at least eight Hmong have been killed since November, including several apparently innocent victims. Gang violence has been a fact of life among the Hmong in the United States since the early 1980s, when Hmong youths in the poorest neighborhoods formed gangs for protection against established African American and Latino gangs.

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Gangs X 3

FBI confronts new gang threat

MS13 sprang up in California in the late 1980s when Salvadoran refugees, fleeing civil war at home, began forming protection groups against existing Hispanic gangs in their new neighborhoods. In the 1990s many members were deported to El Salvador where they setup branches and, in many cases, returned to the US. Today there are 8,000 to 10,000 members of MS 13 in 31 states.

In the past two years the gang has expanded rapidly. There have been 18 MS13-related killings in North Carolina, 11 in Northern Virginia, and at least in eight in Los Angeles. Members are showing up in Boston and in Omaha. The FBI has created a gang task force to confront gang expansion and the associated violence accompanying it.

Full-blown war by Hmong gangs alarms police

A Sacramento task force tracking turf battles among Asian gangs says brutal and reckless acts are likely to increase. A raging street war between two Hmong gangs has left three dead since Thanksgiving. Latino gangs and African American gangs have become more violent as well. One in every five killings in Sacramento city and county last year was gang-related. 20 in 2004, up from 9 in 2000.

Breaking the Gangs Down

Operation Ceasefire in Rochester, New York does not address the underlying causes of violence. It lays down the law: If someone in a gang kills someone, the police will go after everybody. County prosecutors have done away with plea bargains. Criminal court judges have been asked not to grant leniency in cases involving gang members. The number of homicides in the city was 38 in 2004, compared with 57 the previous year.  

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Gangs Going Global

NPR’s Talk of the Nation today (February 23, 2005) looks at the globalization of criminal gangs. The guest for this segment was Andrew Papachristos, who has worked with street gangs for more than 12 years and is a sociology researcher at the University of Chicago. His article, “Gang World,” was published in the March/April issue of Foreign Policy. Audio story.

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Gangs

Young Children in Fairfax County Virginia Lured into Gangs

Victims of violence and the targets of recruitment are so young, officials are forced to fight gangs not only on suburban streets, but also in middle and elementary schools and after-school clubs.

Laura Bush to Oversee New Gang Violence Program

$150 million will be funneled over three years to churches and other community groups that mentor at-risk children, particularly boys ages 8 to 17 in cities prone to gangs.

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Street Soldiers Inc.

Street Soldiers Inc. is a gang and drug prevention program in Phoenix, Arizona. Street Soldiers offer one-on-one counseling to students identified as at-risk by elementary school principals and school psychologists. They educate students about the high cost of joining a gang: dropping out of school, getting involved in drugs, possibly ending up in prison, or dying. 

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Guns and Jeers Used by Gangs to Buy Silence

Fox Butterfield reports in the New York Times about witness intimidation in Boston and Baltimore by gang members. In both cities CDs and DVDs titled “Stop Snitching” have surfaced, naming some people street gangs suspect of being witnesses against them and warning that those who cooperate with the police will be killed. The intimidation goes hand in hand with a sharp increase in the number of youth street gangs.

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El Salvador Deals with U.S. Deportee Gangs

An estimated 30,000 Salvadorans are involved with M-18 and its rival, Mara Salvatrucha. The gangs claim an average of five homicide victims a day. Government raids began in October as part of Operation Super Firm Hand, a controversial anti-gang campaign that gives El Salvador’s police sweeping arrest powers to combat the increasingly sadistic violence.

Government officials blame the violence at least in part on the deportation of nearly 12,000 Salvadorans with criminal records from the United States since 1998. Many are prison-hardened former gang members in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities who were sent back as illegal immigrants.

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FBI to Help Police Chiefs Deal With a New Brand of Gang Violence

The FBI will soon announce a new attack against gangs. FBI Director Robert Mueller says, in a lead article in US News and World Report that “The bureau is obligated to respond to the growing barbarity and the willingness to utilize homicide, torture, and assaults in furtherance of violent gang activities.” The FBI’s new strategy will:

	Centralize gang investigations at FBI headquarters, setting priorities that are “intelligence driven.”
	Reclassify gangs from “violent criminal offenders” to “criminal organizations and enterprises,” placing them on a part with the traditional organized crime families.
	Use federal racketeering statutes and tough federal sentences to systematically dismantle entire gang organizations.
	Create new field gang task forces nationwide.
	Establish a $10 million national gang intelligence center at FBI headquarters next year.
	Create a national gang task force to decimate one major gang – Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.

The FBI has now identified 1,500 to 2,000 MS-13 members and 15 Asian gangs in Northern Virginia alone. They are a major problem in Denver and even in southern cities like Charlotte and Durham, N.C.

MS-13 was created in Los Angeles by the children of immigrants who fled the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s to protect themselves against a rival Mexican-American gang. When convicted of crimes here they were deported, taking their violent gang culture deep into El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. When those governments cracked down, MS-13 members illegally re-entered the US and proliferated along the US coasts.

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What Happened to the “Boston Miracle?”

The Boston Globe reports on the resurgence of young gangs in Boston. They are younger, meaner, and more lethal. The special collaboration of police and civic groups that in the 1990’s kept gangs in check and won Boston national fame has lost some of its urgency and effectiveness. Gangsters are young (some as young as 12), better armed, and more likely to commit random, unpredictable acts of bloodshed. Fights are no longer over drug trafficking turf, but over the ambiguous but deadly serious definition of “respect.”

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Los Angeles Daily News Series on Gangs Continues

If you read the series on Southern California gangs published in the Los Angeles Daily News last week you might want to check out the final four sections of the report, ending with Part VIII. The final section includes interviews with Malcolm Klein and Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, who regards gangs as the region’s number one problem, but also believes it can be solved.

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Shuttling Between Nations, Latino Gangs Confound the Law

The NYTimes Magazine reports on the movement of Latino gang members between the U.S., El Salvador, and Honduras. The presidents of Honduras and El Salvador have called the gangs as big a threat to national security as terrorism is to the United States. Thousands of gang members are fleeing north, moving with and preying on the waves of illegal immigrants who travel to the United States. The two largest gangs are the Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18. Salvatrucha began on the streets of Los Angeles by the child of refugees of US sponsored civil wars in Central America in the 1980’s. Mara 18 was started by Mexican immigrants in the 1970’s and began recruiting Central American refugees to challenge the Salvatruchas.

Homegrown Terror

This is a massive investigative report in progress by the LA Daily News staff. You will find four major sections (so far) and a slew of articles, photos, essays, interactive maps, and other information. From the report’s lead article: there are about 100,000 gangsters in more than 1,300 gangs in Los Angeles, Ventura, and San Bernardino counties. They make up less than 1% of the population, but commit at least half the region’s homicides – taking the lives of nearly 3,100 people in Southern California since 1999.

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Preventing Gang Membership Among Youth

After a period of decline over several years young gang membership appears to be on the rise. The article from the Corrections.com web site reviews prevention programs at several locations, community models, and detention based programs.

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NIJ Journal Articles of Interest

The latest issue of the National Institute of Justice Journal includes these articles I think you’ll find interesting and timely:

Youth Gangs in Rural America – Suppression of rural gangs must be directed squarely at the unique characteristics of rural youth gangs. Urban gang suppression practices don’t work.