Research Paper on Los Angeles County's Criminal Street Gangs

Introduction

South Los Angeles is one of the poorest sectors of the city, and its population of 750,000 inhabitants is made up mostly of Hispanics (57%) and African-Americans (38%), who in similar percentages make up the entire gang membership of area. In recent years, although in another part of the city, a racial confrontation was evidenced when the Hispanic gang Big Hazard attacked with Afro-American residents of Ramona Gardens with Molotov cocktails to drive them out of that public housing complex (Bellair & McNulty, 2009). Sergeant Alfredo Ibanez, head of the anti-gang unit at the LAPD Newton station, explained that gang rivalry in South Los Angeles is not a question of races. The territoriality that gangs fought in the past was because of the sense of belonging to a group or neighborhood, but now it is linked to the drug business, he explained. "This is a problem that has to do with the lack of employment and opportunities, because of the poverty in which they live," said Sergeant Ibanez (Goldschein, 2012). The four police stations that serve South Los Angeles, of the 21 that the LAPD has throughout the city, registered these homicides in the first six months of 2016:

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• Newton: 9
• Southeast: 13
• Southwest: 17
• 77th Street: 24

The Gang Map

Figure 1: Map showing gangs of Los Angeles (CalGang, 2013)

South Los Angeles stands out painted red on the map of the crime of the city by the number of homicides that are committed, 60% of them related to gang shootings and in which innocent victims have fallen (Brantingham, Tita, Short, & Reid, 2012). In South Los Angeles, it is common to see painted walls that mark the territories of each of the gangs, and when in that pint the number 13 appears, the reference is clear to the society that has the Mexican Mafia, as referred to in Thomas Ward, professor of anthropology at USC and expert on the subject of gangs (Caldwell, 2010). The Mexican Mafia is a criminal organization that from the prisons orders the members of the street gangs to carry out executions, extortions and the collection of "right of the floor" for the sale of drugs. Sergeant Alfredo Ibanez, head of the anti-gang unit at the LAPD Newton station, explains that the territorial struggle of the gangs that are concentrated in South Los Angeles is not so much because of the sense of belonging to a certain area, but rather to maintain control of the sale of drugs.

"The zones of conflict (hotspots) by gangs change frequently, right now we have problems in South Park, in the Central Avenue corridor, from Washington to Slauson, and they are both Hispanic and African American gangs," he said (Unsustainable California, 2018). The rivalry, he said, is as much of Hispanics against Hispanics, as of African-Americans against African-Americans. "It is not a racial conflict, although it has happened, it is not permanent," he added. Alex Sanchez, director of Homies Unidos, agreed that the racial aspect of Hispanic and African-American gangs is not a systematic problem that unleashes violence. "It is not a question of a racial war," said the gang controller, agreeing that the shootings are derived from the control they want to maintain in the distribution of drugs (Sugarmann & Diaz, 2009).

The phenomenon of gangs in the United States continues to be an important problem that the authorities must attack, as part of their plan to achieve this they launched the Community Shield program, which has been able to capture about a thousand members of 239 gangs in several cities in the U.S (The Gang Enhancement in California, 2018). Many were members of bands like the Surenos, Mafia Mexicana, and Bloods. However, the problem is much more spread in California, Los Angeles. According to data from the National Gang Center of the United States, until 2015, 45.5% of the members of a band are of Hispanic origin, followed by 39.0% of African-Americans and 9.7% of whites. Some of the well-known gangs in L.A include (Mather, Kate, et al. 2018):

MS 13: Also known as Mara Salvatrucha, MS 13 could have about 10 thousand members. It is considered one of the most violent and dangerous bands and is present in 40 cities in the United States. Its origin dates back to the 80s by Salvadoran immigrants settled in Los Angeles. Drug trafficking, extortion, and murder are some of their activities. Its reach is already international.

Barrio 18: The presence of this band, also known as M-18, covers not only the United States but also Central America and Canada. The sale of drugs, murder for hire, prostitution, and extortion are some of their activities. Although in its beginnings the members of this band were mainly of Mexican descent, now they can be of several nationalities. They are enemies of the MS 13.

Aryan Brotherhood: According to data from The Richest.com, this band has a strong presence within the prisons in the country. It is also known as AB or One-Two.

Since its inception, Nazism has had its central theme, so as an inflexible rule to belong to it, they must murder an African-American or a Hispanic. According to the FBI, this gang would have more than 10,000 members both inside and outside the prison.

The Mongols Motorcycle Club Its beginnings were in California in 1970. They specialize in the distribution and transportation of drugs, money laundering, and extortion, as well as armed assaults.

Chicago's Splinter Gangs: The violence on the streets of Chicago, a product of gangs, is a problem that does not seem to go down. This gang is another of the most dangerous in the country.

The Bloods: The Bloods gang dates back to 1960 in Los Angeles, and by the 1980s it had already spread to Texan territory, now it is already in several parts of the United States. This gang that is characterized by red has become an influential criminal enterprise resulting from its predominant violence.

The Mexican Mafia: This band has deep roots in the US prison system, although Arizona, Texas, Florida, and mainly California is where most of its members are present. It is also known by the names of MM or Emeros. To belong to The Mexican Mafia, it is necessary to abide by its strong code of ethics within the gang. Among its activities is the sale of drugs, extortion, murders for hire and fraud.

The Mexican Mafia was born in the decade of the 50s within the prison system of California with the purpose of protecting Latino prisoners against other inmates and officials. The group endorsed the concept of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, from which it imitated some of its symbols. It is currently the most powerful gang in California, has control of dozens of prisons in the south of the state, and its influence extends to other states such as Arizona, Texas, and Florida. It has about 30,000 members throughout the United States.

Rollin '60 Neighborhood Crips: It is considered one of the largest gangs operating in Los Angeles, most with a presence in the neighborhoods of Westchester and Crenshaw. They are charged with crimes of bank robbery, vehicle theft, armed assaults, murder, raids, and rapes.

Barrio Azteca: Also known as Los Aztecas, this street gang operates in the southern states of the United States, mainly New Mexico and Texas. About 5,000 of them are located in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Its violence derives from being linked to the Juarez Cartel of Mexico. The gang has been implicated in cocaine trafficking, assassinations, and even prison massacres.

Trinitarios: It is a band that was formed in New York, composed mostly of Dominican immigrants. It is considered as one of the bands with the fastest growth in the country. Its presence now extends to New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio. They are very active in the traffic of marijuana, crack, cocaine and other types of narcotics.

The government has tried several ways to curb this problem. In addition to increasing social services in schools and communities, police forces have also requested greater resources to create gang task forces at the local level, improve the exchange of police intelligence between communities, and increase the number of prosecutors in regions with a high presence of gangs, as well as improving the evaluation processes of those who sponsor unaccompanied minors, and improve follow-up procedures to sponsors employed by social workers (McCarthy, 2005). No police chief or public safety officer who has had to deal with the problems of the street gangs has requested an increase in deportations during the legislative hearings held to date.

Motivations for Children, Girls, Adolescents and Young People to Enter a Gang

According to Tita and Radil (2011), there are two orders of resources, some structural and others personal for the admission of adolescents and youth to gangs.

Structural motivations. The contemporary society of "full market" is based on the dispossession of the social. Gone is the society that thought compelled to include every one of its citizens; now, the imaginary of mobility and exclusion is imposed. This dispossession of the social operates from three major processes.

The symbolic drift:

Despite the permanent availability of signs in globalized information chains - from the television to the Internet - never, as now, has the construction of some sense to order life been made so complex. The symbols circulate but devoid of density and roots with social practices.

The destruction of the link:

The forms of belonging are "dissolved" since the inclusive wholeness capable of connecting individuals with each other (nation-state, social class, and partisan militancy) has disappeared. The social mediations responsible for socialization have been lost.

The degradation of the public:

The public sphere has lost its role as guarantor of citizenship, reduced to a mere institutional apparatus of representative democracy; the power is degraded subject to the private appetites of illegal actors of all the wedges - the devastating character of the drug trafficking on Latin America would be enough to show it.

Personal Motivations: Each adolescent is urged of identity, affection and a power capable of conferring approval and recognition. Family, school, work and community activity are not able to meet those needs. The inclemency of poverty harasses the need for identity and sense of urgency, the search for affection tightens. The gang offers a group outside of norms, powerful and armed with loyalty (Weiss, 2012). During adolescence, adolescents face the search for their identity and, in this process, try to integrate them as part of their personal image the diverse roles that as an individual play in a social group (child, brother, student, etc.), having as reference model roles and peer pressure.

When the precariousness of the environment (structural motivations), the real threats due to violence and crime and the pressure of a consumer culture are added, the possibility of approaching the gangs to cover two or more of the needs of the moment is promoted: identity and protection (own and for the family), immediate pleasure and absence of limits for action. This allows the adolescent to be accepted as an equal among his peers, to be protected from external forces that threaten his integrity and to have other needs met through the lifestyle of gangs and gangs. In their search for independence, the adolescent considers the gang as their space, without adult intervention, with expressions that are specific to that stage of life and without limits. The type of relationships they establish is solidarity, fraternal, loyal and of much camaraderie, contrary to the experiences they have experienced within their dysfunctional family nucleus (Winton, 2005). These factors concur within a framework of not postponing the needs of the adolescent, of immediate gratification and lack of clarity in the vision of the future, which pr...