Prison Gangs In The United States
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Prison Gangs In The United States
A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system, that has a corporate entity, exists into perpetuity, and whose membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Political scientist David Skarbek argues the emergence of prison gangs are due to the dramatic increase in the prison population and inmate's demand for safety. Skarbek observes that in a small, homogeneous environment, people can use social norms to interpret what behavior is acceptable, but a large, heterogeneous setting undermines social norms and acceptable behavior is more difficult to determine. Prison gangs are geographically and racially divided, and about 70% of prison gang members are in California and Texas. Skarbek suggests prison gangs function similar to a community responsibility system. Interactions between strangers are facilitated because you do not have to know an individual's reputation, only a gang's reputation. Some prison gangs are ...
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Prison Gang
A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system. It has a corporate entity and exists into perpetuity. Its membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Prison officials and others in law enforcement use the euphemism "security threat group" (or "STG"). The purpose of this name is to remove any recognition or publicity that the term "gang" would connote when referring to people who have an interest in undermining the system. Origins Convict code and informal governance of prisons Before the rise of large, formal prison gangs, political scientists and researchers found that inmates had already organized around an understood "code" or set of norms. For example, political scientist Gresham Sykes in ''The Society of Captives,'' a study based on the New Jersey State Prison, claims that "conformity to, or deviation from, the inmate code is the major basis for classifying and describing the social relations of pr ...
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Puerto Rican People
Puerto Ricans (), most commonly known as Boricuas, but also occasionally referred to as '' Borinqueños'', '' Borincanos'', or '' Puertorros'', are an ethnic group native to the Caribbean archipelago and island of Puerto Rico, and a nation identified with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico through ancestry, culture, or history. Puerto Ricans are predominately a tri-racial, Spanish-speaking, Christian society, descending in varying degrees from Indigenous Taíno natives, Southwestern European colonists, and West and Central African slaves, freedmen, and free Blacks. As citizens of a U.S. territory, Puerto Ricans have automatic birthright American citizenship, and are considerably influenced by American culture. The population of Puerto Ricans is between 9 and 10 million worldwide, with the overwhelming majority residing in Puerto Rico and mainland United States. Overview The culture held in common by most Puerto Ricans is referred to as a Western culture largely deriv ...
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Crips
The Crips are a primarily African-American alliance of street gangs that are based in the coastal regions of Southern California. Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969, mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams, the Crips began as an alliance between two autonomous gangs, and developed into a loosely connected network of individual " sets", often engaged in open warfare with one another. Its members have traditionally worn blue clothing since around 1973. The Crips are one of the largest and most violent associations of street gangs in the United States.U.S. Department of Justice, ''Crips''. With an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 members in 2008, the gangs' members have been involved in murders, robberies, and drug dealing, among other crimes. They have a long and bitter rivalry with the Bloods. Some self-identified Crips have been convicted of federal racketeering. Etymology Some sources suggest that the original name for the alliance, "Cribs", was narr ...
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United Blood Nation
The United Blood Nation, also known as the East Coast Bloods, is a street and prison gang active primarily in the New York metropolitan area. It is the east coast faction of the California-based Bloods street gang. Their main source of income is the trafficking and sale of illegal drugs. History The United Blood Nation was formed on July 16, 1993, when incarcerated gang leader Leonard "OG Dead Eye" McKenzie allied several gangs to protect members from the dominant Crip gangs. The UBN was established as the New York branch of the California-based Bloods, to which its members are loosely affiliated with, and the gang spread along the East Coast as members were released from prison. The UBN became the dominant gang on the East Coast during the 1990s, outnumbering the rival Crips. The gang's meteoric rise to the top of the gang hierarchy was halted in 2001, however, when founder Omar Portee was arrested and later convicted of federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization ...
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Black Guerrilla Family
The Black Guerrilla Family (BGF, also known as the Black Gorilla Family, the Black Family, the Black Vanguard, and Jamaa) is an African American black power prison gang, street gang, and political organization founded in 1966 by George Jackson, George "Big Jake" Lewis, and W.L. Nolen while they were incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California. Philosophy and goals The Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) was founded by George Jackson in San Quentin State Prison during the Black Power movement. Inspired by Marcus Garvey, the BGF characterizes itself as an ideological African-American MarxistLeninist revolutionary organization composed of prisoners. It was founded with the stated goals of promoting black power, maintaining dignity in prison, and overthrowing the United States government. The BGF's ideological and economic aims, collectively known as "Jamaanomics", are laid out in the group's ''Black Book''. The group has been described as one of the most polit ...
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Crips
The Crips are a primarily African-American alliance of street gangs that are based in the coastal regions of Southern California. Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969, mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams, the Crips began as an alliance between two autonomous gangs, and developed into a loosely connected network of individual " sets", often engaged in open warfare with one another. Its members have traditionally worn blue clothing since around 1973. The Crips are one of the largest and most violent associations of street gangs in the United States.U.S. Department of Justice, ''Crips''. With an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 members in 2008, the gangs' members have been involved in murders, robberies, and drug dealing, among other crimes. They have a long and bitter rivalry with the Bloods. Some self-identified Crips have been convicted of federal racketeering. Etymology Some sources suggest that the original name for the alliance, "Cribs", was narr ...
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Bloods
The Bloods are a primarily African Americans, African American street gang which was founded in Los Angeles, California. The gang is widely known for Crips–Bloods gang war, its rivalry with the Crips. It is identified by the red color worn by its members and by particular gang symbols, including distinctive hand signs. The Bloods comprise various subgroups known as "Set (gang), sets", among which significant differences exist, such as colors, clothing, operations, and political ideas that may be in open conflict with each other. Since the gang's creation, it has branched throughout the United States. History The Bloods gang was formed initially to compete against the influence of the Crips in Los Angeles. The Crips–Bloods gang war, rivalry originated in the late 1960s when Raymond Washington and other Crips attacked Sylvester Scott and Benson Owens, two students at Centennial High School (Compton, California), Centennial High School in Compton, California. As a result, ...
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Houston, Texas
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of Harris County, Texas, Harris County, as well as the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the List of Texas metropolitan areas, second-most populous in Texas after Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Dallas–Fort Worth. With a population of 2,314,157 in 2023, Houston is the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most populous city in the United States after New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and the List of North American cities by population, sixth-most populous city in North America. Houston is the southeast anchor of the greater megaregion known as the Texas Triangle. Comprising a land area of , Houston is the List of United S ...
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El Paso, Texas
El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of United States cities by population, 22nd-most populous city in the U.S., the most populous city in West Texas, and the List of cities in Texas by population, sixth-most populous city in Texas. Its metropolitan statistical area covers all of El Paso and Hudspeth County, Texas, Hudspeth counties in Texas, and had a population of 868,859 in 2020. El Paso stands on the Rio Grande across the Mexico–United States border from Ciudad Juárez, the most populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua. On the U.S. side, the El Paso metropolitan area forms part of the larger El Paso–Las Cruces, Texas–New Mexico combined statistical area, El Paso–Las Cruces combined statistical area with Las Cruces, New Mexico, which has a ...
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Barrio Azteca
Barrio Azteca (), or Los Aztecas (), is a Mexican-American street and prison gang originally based in El Paso, Texas, USA and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The gang was formed in the Coffield Unit, located near Tennessee Colony, Texas by Jose "Raulio" Rivera, a prisoner from El Paso, in the early 1980s. It expanded into a transnational criminal organization that traded mainly across the US-Mexico border. Currently one of the most violent gangs in the United States, they are said to have over 3,000 members across the country in locations such as New Mexico, Texas, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania as well as at least 5,000 members in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. In 2008, Barrio Azteca formed an alliance with La Línea, the armed wing of the Juárez Cartel, to fight off the forces of the Sinaloa Cartel, who were attempting to take over the drug smuggling routes in the area. Control of the routes in Ciudad Juárez, known as the "Juárez plaza," is vital for drug trafficking or ...
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Hispanic
The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnicity, ethnic or Meta-ethnicity, meta-ethnic term. The term commonly applies to Spaniards and Spanish-speaking (Hispanophone) populations and countries in Hispanic America (the continent) and Hispanic Africa (Equatorial Guinea and the Territorial dispute, disputed territory of Western Sahara), which were formerly part of the Spanish Empire due to colonization mainly between the 16th and 20th centuries. The cultures of Hispanophone countries outside Spain have been influenced as well by the local Pre-Columbian era, pre-Hispanic cultures or other foreign influences. There was also Spanish influence in the former Spanish East Indies, including the Philippines, Marianas, and other nations. However, Spanish is not a predominant language in these ...
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Latin Kings (gang)
The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation (ALKQN, ALKN, or LKN, also known as simply Latin Kings) is a gang active primarily in the United States. The gang was founded by Puerto Ricans in Chicago, Illinois, in 1954. The Latin Kings are one of the largest Hispanic and Latino street gang, street and prison gangs worldwide. In the United States, the Latin Kings operate under two umbrella factions—the King Motherland Chicago (KMC) faction headquartered in Chicago, and the Bloodline faction based in New York City, New York. The KMC faction consists of 60 structured chapters operating in 158 cities in 31 U.S. states, with a membership of between 20,000 and 35,000. The Bloodline Latin Kings have a membership of 2,200 to 7,500, and operate several dozen chapters in 15 cities in 5 states. The gang also has a significant presence in the prison system. The Latin Kings are involved in a wide variety of criminal activities, including drug dealing, assault, burglary, homicide, identity thef ...
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