Gang

:''For the electrical term, see Ganging.'' A gang is a group of individuals who share a common identity and, in current usage, engage in illegal activities. Historically the term referred to both criminal groups and ordinary groups of friends, such as Our Gang. Most commonly, the word "gang" refers to street gangs (a.k.a. youth gangs), groups who take over territory ("turf") in a particular city, sometimes simply for lack of something better to do, and are often involved in "providing protection" (a thin cover for extortion, as the "protection" is usually from the gang itself), or in other crime activity. Since roughly the 1970s, street gangs have been strongly connected with drug sales (especially crack cocaine). Some commit burglary, theft, and robbery. Most members retain their gang affiliations when sent to prison. Gangs have been known to claim colors such as red or blue, a trend that started as far back as the late 18th century and early 19th century with the rivalry of the Roach Guards and the Dead Rabbits of New York's Five Points district and later with Mexico bandits and roving marauders in what would later become the Southwest/Western United States. (In the United States, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, "gang colors" can refer to the entire design of a gang jacket.) Gangs often spread by a parent or family moving out of the gang neighborhood, and the children taking the gang culture and lore with them to a new area and recruiting new members for their old gang. This concept has been referred to as ''satellite'' gangs. Some very well known gangs are the Crips and the Bloods. Other large gangs include the Aryan Brotherhood, a mostly prison-based White supremacist gang, the Nazi Low Riders, or NLR, the Latin Kings, the Gangster Disciples of Chicago, and the Los Angeles, California-based 18th Street gang. In the 1980s, other gangs, such as the Central American Mara Salvatrucha, and the Asian Boyz (ABZ) emerged, especially from Southern California. At one point, there was an alleged cybergang by the name of Glock 3, but it turned out to be a hoax. Apart from street gangs, there are motorcycle gangs (such as Hells Angels), prison gangs or STGs (such as the Mexico gang la Eme - the Mexican Mafia), Organized crime (a term deriving originally from the Italian Mafia, but now also applied to the Russian Mafia), and Asian criminal gangs (such as China triads and the Japanese yakuza, as well as smaller Chinese-American outfits like The Ghost Shadows). Some commentators use "gang" to refer to small, informal, and disorganized "street gangs," while "syndicate" or "organized crime" are used to refer to larger international organizations which may control entire legitimate businesses as "fronts" for their illegal operations. The word "gang" generally appears in a pejorative context, though within "the gang" itself members may adopt the phrase in proud identity or defiance. ==See also== * Criminal tattoos * Ghetto Brothers * Hooliganism * Peer group * Subculture * Thuggee * List of street gangs * List of Los Angeles street gangs ==External links== *[http://www.asian-nation.org/gangs.shtml Asian American Gangs] *[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/10/19/BAG7O2EC7D1.DTL Asian Gang Violence in East San Francisco Bay Area] *[http://www.nagia.org/asian_youth_gangs1.htm Asian Youth Gangs] *[http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9216/gangs.htm Gangs] *[http://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/gangs.htm Gangs in the Schools] *[http://www.uic.edu/orgs/kbc/Definitions/mooredef.html Joan W. Moore and James F. Short, Jr., "Definitions of Gangs"] *[http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-4/gangs.htm Learning from Gangs: The Mexican American Experience] *[http://judicialinsp.pwv.gov.za/Manual/005-18.htm#TopOfPage South African prison gangs] *[http://www.gangsorus.com/index.html Robert Walker's Gangs OR Us] (commercial specialist) *[http://www.gangprograms.com/ Phoenix Gang Intervention and Prevention] (commercial treatment programs) ==Alternate meanings== * A gang is the collective noun for elk. Gangs

Gang

CSB Articles The previous information was completely erroneous. It claimed the Norte�os and Sure�os were offshoots of the Crips and Bloods concept. The exact opposite is true however. For reference and more in depth information refer to the following information by Al Valdez, a District Attorney Investigator for Orange County, California. Valdez has a total of 21 years of experience with a special emphasis on narcotic and gang investigations and prosecutions. Currently, he is assigned to the North County T.A.R.G.E.T. (Tri-Agency Resource Gang Enforcement Team) Gang Unit for Orange County. http://www.nagia.org/Hispanic_Gangs.htm Joshua Castillo 1:50 pm 6/19/03 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Gangs are a universal phenomenon. This article focuses mostly on Mexican-American gangs in California. This is quite interesting. Perhaps this could be part of an article on "Pachuco/Cholo" subculture (title it what you will), and a broader article on gangs can be made. -- Samo ----- Removed from article: Two of the largest street gangs in America are the Norte�os and Sure�os, the Sure�os claiming blue and identifying themselves by blue clothing, and the Norte�os wearing red, identifying themselves with red clothing. Norte�os and Sure�os are Mexican American gang members who identify with either the northern or southern part of California, with the imaginary line being somewhere around Bakersfield, California or Fresno, California. However, Norte�o and Sure�o gangs have established 'satellite gangs' as far north as Canada and as far south as Chile. These rival gangs formed as a result of a rivalry between northern and southern California Mexican American inmates at San Quentin, a state prison in northern California. The murder of Hector Padilla, a northerner, solidified the rivalry between both groups, both in the prison system and on the street. The Mexican Americans from northern California formed Nuestra Familia (NF), a prison gang, in response to the conflict. NF was formed to protect the northern Californians from La Eme, whose membership was made up primarily of southern Californians. Street and prison gang members from northern California began to use the number 14 as an identifier. It represented the 14th letter of the alphabet, the letter "N." The letter stood for Norte�o, the Spanish word for northerner. The term norte was used to show that a person was from the north. Individuals from southern California were automatically considered rivals, inside and outside the prison system. Southern California gang members began using the number 13 as an identifier. The 13th letter of the alphabet is the letter "M," and the word for this letter in Spanish is " Eme." Southern California gang members started using words like Sure�o, which means "southerner." Often, this term was abbreviated as sur/SUR. Gang members also started to tattoo themselves with the number 13 and with the terms Sure�o or sur along with the name of their gang, to signify their origin in southern California. Inmates in the state prison system were given bandannas in a railroad print, and could select from two colors: red or blue. Mexican American street and prison gangs from northern California claimed the color red to identify themselves. They used this color because most of the southern California Mexican Americans in state prison had chosen to wear a blue-colored railroad handkerchief. The Crips and Bloods were not the first gangs to use red or blue to identify. :Much of this is taken directly from the above mentioned source. It may also have copyright issues. And the source it is taken from makes no mention of African-American gangs or comparison to African-American gangs to Hispanic ones. User:Rmhermen 01:48 30 Jun 2003 (UTC) ---- This is still pretty minimal, isn't it? I think this deserves a lot more content, but I'm not sure I'm knowledgable enough to write it. Having listened today to a talk by Benjamin Melendez at the EMP Pop Conference, I just wrote a short article about the Ghetto Brothers. I'm kind of amazed that we have nothing on the Young Lords or the Savage Skulls, names that were known to everyone in New York 30-odd years ago. There would be a lot to say about the very different roles of females connected to the different groups (speaking of which, the article currently has ''nothing'' on girl gangs, and no mention of the fact that the gangs referred to in the article are nearly all all-male institutions). Also, there is nothing on the very complex interaction between gangs, more socially acceptable neighborhood associations, politics, the emergence of rap music, etc. I hope this is suggestive of some of where we might take this article. -- User:Jmabel 06:30, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC) ---- This website [http://www.streetgangs.com/] contains useful information that can be added to this article. -- User:J3ff 23:10, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) ==Possibly questionable addition== Recently & anonymously added: "Inland Empire Onterio SurX3 Black Angel gang". # Is this correctly spelled ("Onterio" vs. "Ontario")? # Is this actually a significant enough gang to merit mention? I've never heard of it, but this would be 1,000 miles from where I've ever lived. Does anyone have a citation to back its notability? User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 17:53, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC) :This could be referring to Ontario, California and the Inland Empire (California) in California. — User:J3ff 23:20, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC) ::Clearly, sorry, I thought that was a given so I didn't mention it; a gang name could contain a deliberate misspelling so (even if this gang is notable at an encyclopedic level, which I doubt) the spelling of the town wouldn't necessarily tell us the correct spelling of a gang. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 06:24, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC) == Including a link == Most prison gangs are now referred to as "STG"'s, or Security Threat Groups. I don't have an account yet, but I'm a correctional officer involved with STG activity, so I'm going to add a link to STG next to the section involving "Prison gangs." I also included in there some basic information on white and hispanic gangs, mostly because those two STG's do most of the name changes in prison, whereas most african-american STG's retain their street names. FYI, this is me. User:DavisMason 18:23, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Another questionable addition == Recent anonymous addition: "The Philadelphia based Yale Street Gangsters". The article Yale Street Gangsters is a substub; I've never heard of them; does anyone know if they are actually significant enough to merit mention in the article? -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 04:41, May 5, 2005 (UTC) :It's gone now. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 20:06, May 7, 2005 (UTC) == Norte�os & Sure�os == A recent anon edit turned "Some offshoots of the original Norte�o (gang)/Sure�os concept include Crips and the Bloods, African American gangs" into just "Some very well known gangs are the Crips and the Bloods." I don't really know anything about Norte�os & Sure�os, and there is no citation, so I am not reverting this apparent removal of material, but if someone else knows what's going on here they may want to step in. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 22:00, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

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