Now being noticed more and more are the creation of hybrid gangs. It is not as though they haven’t been around, but they are now being noticed more often. According to Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, hybrid gangs have been around since the 1920’s. Hybrid gangs consist of mixed race or mixed ethnicity individuals. (QJJDP Pg. 1) The most well known gangs have been Crips, Bloods, Nortenos, and Surenos, but now a days it seems as though there are more hybrid gangs than that of the original known gangs.

            Working with juveniles for almost five years has given me a clear picture as to what these hybrid gangs are all about. Talking to the members it seems as though these gangs are just made up one day. Still, usually a group of people from the same “hood” like original gangs, but they now branch out and look elsewhere for members. They create what color rag they will wear and with every gang an enemy is established. Many of these sorts of gangs have popped up in the last few years and it seems as though it will continue to grow.

 

“A new breed of street gangs has arrived in Las Vegas and cities across the nation, with violent results. Squad Up, one of the newest Las Vegas gangs, was formed by smaller gangs, some of the rivals, which band together to form a larger hybrid gang.”(Ortega and Calderoni) As found in a piece of an article above, this is not just a local or a California problem, it has become nation wide. Handling the original forms of gangs has plagued law enforcement for years, but with more added to the table were do they turn.

    
Ortega, Francisca, and Valeria Calderoni. "Hybrid Gang' Violence Sweeping Nation." Www.policeone.com. Police One, 30 Sept. 2007. Web. 8 May 2011. <http://www.policeone.com/gangs/articles/1359371-Hybrid-gang-violence-sweeping-nation/>. 

Starbuck, David, James C. Howell, and Donna J. Lindquist. "Hybrid and Other Modern Gangs." Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2001): 1 

Prison Gangs Two: Black Guerilla Family V. Aryan Brotherhood

            Another major gang rivalry that takes place in our prison system is that of the Black Guerilla Family and the Aryan Brotherhood. The clash between these two well know prison gangs is strongly in part because of the different races. It is well know that prisons are full of segregation, most of the inmates stick strictly to their own race in order to ensure a higher level of protection. The case between these two prison rivals is similar to that of the Mexican Mafia and the Nuestra Familia.

             A former member of the Black Panthers, George Jackson, formed the Black Guerilla Family, or BGF, in 1966. (Fleisher & Decker Pg.1) The BGF is considered one of the most political and revolutionary minded prison groups; which scares the prison management and even the public. (Fleisher & Decker Pg.1) The Black Guerilla Family aligns with Nuestra Familia to protect themselves from the Whites and Mexicans.

            The opposition for the Black Guerilla Family is the White group that goes by the Aryan Brotherhood. According to, InsidePrison.com, the Aryan Brotherhood was formed from a 1950’s prison gang “The Blue Bird Gang” in San Quentin State Prison in 1967. The Aryan Brotherhoods main concerns are, supreme white power and protection against enemies like the BGF and NF. To assist them with this protection they have aligned with the Mexican Mafia.

"Aryan Brotherhood: Prison Gang Profile." Inside Prison - inside Prison Life, Prison Stories, Prison Conditions. Web. 21 Apr. 2011. <http://www.insideprison.com/prison_gang_profile_AB.asp>.           

Fleisher, Mark S., and Scott H. Decker. "An Overview of the Challenge of Prison Gangs." Corrections Management Quarterly 5.1 (2001): 1.

Prison Gangs One: Mexican Mafia V. Nuestra Famila

            The streets are not the only place that you will find gangs, it is the prison yards that further entrench you into the gang life. For some gangs you have not made it until you have put in your time in prison. Many of the younger gang members who have been involved in gang activity for most of their life strive to, one day, go to prison like their older gang counter parts. To gang members it is a way to earn their “stripes.”

The first California prison gang was believed to have been established in 1957 at the Duel Vocational Institution (DVI); the gang that formed was the Mexican Mafia. (Hunt, Riegel, Morales, &Waldorf Pg.399) The members of the Mexican Mafia were Hispanics and were mainly from the Southern part of California. A street gang, know as the “Surenos," are linked to the Mexican Mafia to carry out business in the streets. This is a very dangerous gang, so much so that even the members themselves are not safe from the rules of the Mexican Mafia.

For years the Mexican Mafia terrorized the Hispanics from the Northern area of California. Finally the Hispanics from the North formed their own prison gang. The gang became known as Nuestra Familia, formed in the mid 1960’s, in a correctional facility in Soledad, California. (Valdez Pg.41) As their rivals, Nuestra Familia also has a link to a street gang. The “Nortenos,” while also a prison gang, are Nuestra Familia’s link to the streets.

As the history between these two rival prison gangs grows, alliances were formed. The Nuestra Familia aligned with another prison gang, by the name of the Black Gorilla Family, and the Mexican Mafia aligned with The Aryan brotherhood. (Valdez Pg.41) The violence and the hate between these groups will continue to grow, along with the number of recruits.

    Hunt, Geoffrey, Stephanie Riegel, Tomas Morales, and Dan Waldorf. "Changes in Prison Culture: Prison Gangs and the Case of the "Pepsi Generation"" Social Problems 40.3 (1993): 399

Valdez, Alfonso J. "Prison Gangs 101." Corrections Today (Feb 2009): 41

Youth in Gangs

“There are an estimated 23,388 youth gangs with 664,906 members in all 50 States. These numbers are probably conservative estimates because many jurisdictions deny, often for political and image reasons, that there is a problem, especially in the early stages of youth gang development in a community.” (Huff p.1) This is an outrageous number of youths involved in such a dangerous way of life and it is not something that can be ignored. No matter how much the people of power within a city ignore the problem it won’t just go away. Not all of these young individuals do this simply because they have nothing else in life, however, the majority do. When looking at the numbers above just think if many of these youths had people there to support them and making them feel accepted without going down the path of a criminal life style. The question is, what factors lead to youth turning to the gang life?

            Many people feel as though our youth choose to become wrapped up in this life style, most of the time that is not he case. I have had some experience working around troubled youth that have taken the road to gang life, but the only way to understand it is to listen to what they have to say. In many instances these kids join a gang because they were raised into the lifestyle, it has been a part of their family since before they were born, and gang lifestyle is all they know. Another contributing factor is that the individual’s parents might not be home often; do to work schedule and only one form of income. These kids then turn to the neighborhood gangs for that acceptance.  “There seems to be a large number of single parent families or “latch keys” kids. By some estimates 27%, or 18 million, of America’s children are raised in single parent homes. It appears that 1990’s parents have little or no time to spend with their children.” (Valdez p.493)

            There are youth gangs in most of the cities throughout the United States, but the majority are in places stated in the following quote out of an article called, Youth  Gangs: Continuity and Change, by Irving A. Spergel. “Contemporary youth gangs are located primarily in lower-class, slum, ghetto, or barrio communities; it is not clear, however, that class, culture, race, or ethnicity per se primarily account for gang problems. More likely, they interact with community characteristics like poverty, social instability, and failures of inter-agency organization and social isolation.” (Spergel p.211)  With consideration from the literature discussed, the contributing factors seem to lead youths to the involvement and acceptance of gang affiliation.

    

Huff, C. R. "Comparing the Criminal Behavior of Youth Gangs and At-Risk Youths." Nation Institute of Justice: Research in Brief (1998):p. 1

Spergel, Irving A. "Youth Gangs: Continuity and Change." Crime and Justice 12 (1990): p. 211

Valdez, Al. Gangs: a Guide to Understanding Street Gangs. 3rd Edition ed. San Clemente, CA: Law Tech Pub., 2000: p. 493

Street Gangs

There are a variety of ways that “Street Gangs” can be defined. So to get a little idea of what a street gang is let's focus on one of those definitions. According to the California penal Code 186.22, a street gang is defined as "any ongoing organization, association, or group of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, having as one its primary activities the commission of one or more of the criminal acts enumerated in paragraphs (1) to (8), inclusive, of subdivision (E), which has a common name or common identifying sign or symbol, whose members individually or collectively engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity." (Klein p. 17)

Where I grew up there was no real concept of gangs. You herd of them on movies and television, but never really saw the impact or understood why people would want to join a gang. When I started to learn more and more about gangs it becomes very clear as to why people join these gangs. “A police sergeant in Miami commented during an interview that gangs fulfill members’ needs for identity, recognition, protection, love, and understanding (perhaps missing at home), status, money, and opportunity.” (Conly p. 18)

When you think of street gangs, what is the first thing that comes to mind? To me it is a variety of different ethnicities that come from the same demographic that turn to each other for acceptance. When street gangs first were documented it wasn’t always like this. According to a piece written by James Diego Vigil, “prior to the 1970’s gang violence was still popularly associated with white ethnic enclaves in the cities of the Midwest and East, and gang incidents were typically brawls involving fists, sticks, and knives.” (Vigil p. 225) This excerpt from Vigil is a far different picture these days, “Gangs exist in all ethnic categories. Although African American and Hispanic members are predominate there are also gangs with white and Asian members.” (Conly p. 16) Not only is there more of an ethnic variety, but the violence and weapons have become more sophisticated as well.

Conly, Catherine H. "Chapter 2." Street Gangs Current Knowledge and Strategies. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, 1993. 16-18.

Klein, Malcolm W. "Section #2." Chasing after Street Gangs: a Forty-year Journey. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. 17-18.

Vigil, James D. "Urban Violence and Street Gangs." Annual Review Of Anthropology Vol. 32 (2003): 225.