Gangs

Types of Gangs

Popular culture currently represents gangs as a phenomenon particular to racial/ethnic minorities; however, gangs are not restricted to particular racial or ethnic groups. Gangs vary from outlaw criminal biker gangs, such as the Hell's Angels, Pagans, and Bandidos, to skinhead, youth, prison, ethnic, neighborhood, street, and even occult gangs. Historically the term gang was used most frequently to describe a variety of small, loosely organized criminal groups. Currently, the term is frequently used to refer to street gangs who claim neighborhood territories in primarily low-income sections of large cities.

Street gangs are different from organized crime because they usually lack strong ties to economic and political social institutions. A street gang's primary asset is the territory it claims in the form of a series of neighborhood blocks known as its “hood.” Street gangs usually involve youth ranging in age from preteens to the thirties. Members generally participate in gangs at four different levels varying from least to most involvement: behavioral emulation, apprenticeship, regular, and hard-core membership. Gangs participate in criminal acts such as the distribution of illegal drugs, home invasion, acts of physical violence, car theft, and extortion. Street gangs position members within territories in such a way as to maximize the distribution of illegal goods and services as well as to monitor authorities. Members communicate verbally as well as by use of hand signals about police and other authorities who might be present.

Gang Identification

Gangs identify themselves primarily through the use of colors, clothing styles, hand symbols, tattoos, and graffiti. All of these symbols are used to communicate to others about gang membership or affiliation, gang conflict, and territory. These identifiers can change over time as clothing styles and colors are adopted by mainstream society. Examples of gang symbols that have been absorbed into mainstream culture include the wearing of bandanas—primarily blue and red—as well as the flipping of hats in various directions. Hand symbols and graffiti are commonly used by gangs to communicate conflicts with rival gangs or specific members within those gangs and have not been absorbed by mainstream culture. For example, “wall-banging,” the use of graffiti by gang members to represent affiliation, involves marking over the names of members of rival gangs to communicate that those members are targets. Hand symbols originated from prison gang communications during the 1950s when incarcerated gang members used sign language to communicate between cells. Symbols are an intricate component of modern street gang communication and normally communicate both affiliation and members' ranks.

Gang Membership

Street gangs actively recruit members during school hours and along the main streets that students travel before and after school. In areas where a variety of gangs are operating, the pressure to join a gang is extreme because being nonaffiliated can put an individual in jeopardy. Gang activity pressures youth by creating a general environment of victimization such that individuals join to deter threats of extortion, robbery, [Page 523]and physical violence. Official membership usually occurs after what is known as a “jumping in” ritual that involves the violent beating of a new member. This act secures gang loyalty and provides evidence to the gang that the new member is “tough enough” to endure lifetime membership. The gang mentality facilitates violence and self-mutilation such as branding and cutting skin. Some gangs practice such rituals to show how tough they are, whereas others cite cultural values for mutilation. For example, Southeast Asian gangs believe that one must endure pain to properly repent for sins, and members mutilate themselves in search of atonement for criminal activity and as self-punishment for shaming their families.

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