Crips

History and Development

The Crips began in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. Raymond Washington and Stanley “Tookie” Williams are generally cited as the initial organizers of the group. The first name taken by the Crips was the “Baby Avenues” for the street on which Washington lived. There is some dispute about the origins of the name “Crip” itself. Some suggest that the initial name was Cribs and it evolved into Crips. Others suggest that the initial name was “Crypts” taken from the Vincent Price movie, Tales From the Crypt. Other reports suggest that one of the members was a cripple and walked with a cane.

Whatever its origins, Crip gangs spread quickly throughout South Central Los Angeles into other parts of the city and Los Angeles County, composed primarily of young, male African American residents of these neighborhoods. These groups took the color blue as their primary symbol, and similar to the longer-standing Hispanic gangs in southern California, wore bandanas that identified their membership.

Members of the Crips fought against other youths in neighborhoods in and around where they lived. It did not take long for youths in other neighborhoods to form groups for protection; these groups soon took a name. The groups opposed to the Crips came to be known as the Bloods, and early gangs were known as Piru Bloods, for the street near which many of the youths lived. These gangs chose red as their color. Wearing this color symbolized both membership in the Bloods and opposition to the Crips.

The development of the Crips reveals the importance of oppositional groups in gang activity. As Malcolm Klein (1995) has observed, gangs cannot exist in a vacuum. Thus, because of the role that external rivals play in both increasing solidarity internally and spreading the growth of the group, the Crips could not exist long without a rival. The rivalry between the Bloods and Crips has been important in fueling the growth of both groups.

Equally important to that growth, however, has been the impressive movement of Crip and Blood gangs into popular culture. Even though black [Page 205]gangs in the Los Angeles are fewer in number than their Hispanic counterparts, they receive the most attention. This notoriety is in part due to their involvement in violence, but can also be tied to their emergence in popular culture. This can be seen most directly in the depiction of Los Angeles Crips and Bloods in movies such as Colors and Boyz in the Hood, books such as Do or Die, and music videos. Through these vehicles, gang style and aspects of gang culture were spread to other American cities. There are even reports from several European cities, including Amsterdam and Munich, that youth groups that emulated Crip gang styles were emerging.

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