Urban gangs. Please explain.
October 6, 2010 9:04 PM Subscribe
Urban gangs - please explain.
I'm in DC and I feel ignorant because I really know very little about gangs but I want to learn more. All I could tell you is what little coverage I've seen in The Washington Post. Is there like, gangs for dummies? I've had a pretty sheltered life so I've never dealt with gangs. How do they work? What's the point? Why so much violence? Is there anything someone can do about them?
I'm in DC and I feel ignorant because I really know very little about gangs but I want to learn more. All I could tell you is what little coverage I've seen in The Washington Post. Is there like, gangs for dummies? I've had a pretty sheltered life so I've never dealt with gangs. How do they work? What's the point? Why so much violence? Is there anything someone can do about them?
This is going to sound kind of lame, but you should consider watching The Wire. The first season will give you a crazy (albeit fictionalized) perspective on this. Plus, The Wire is awesome. win-win.
posted by samthemander at 9:28 PM on October 6, 2010 [5 favorites]
posted by samthemander at 9:28 PM on October 6, 2010 [5 favorites]
"Banding together for mutual support" is pretty much what people do. Fraternities, trade associations, sports fans, service clubs . . . street gangs. All pretty much the same impulse.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 9:38 PM on October 6, 2010 [4 favorites]
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 9:38 PM on October 6, 2010 [4 favorites]
Angels' Town is another excellent book, also on Chicago gang life.
Also, it's worth considering something about groups that resolve disputes with violence. Gangs are often cultures of honor that exist in areas with minimal legal protections and outside societal respect. Resources are low and stakes are high. To quote from an interesting article (albeit one about the Southern code of honor):
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:43 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
Also, it's worth considering something about groups that resolve disputes with violence. Gangs are often cultures of honor that exist in areas with minimal legal protections and outside societal respect. Resources are low and stakes are high. To quote from an interesting article (albeit one about the Southern code of honor):
"A key element of cultures of honor is that men in these cultures are prepared to protect with violence the reputation for strength and toughness. Such cultures are likely to develop where (1) a man’s resources can be thieved in full by other men and (2) the governing body is weak and thus cannot prevent or punish theft."I blatantly got that article from googling "culture of honor," but you catch my drift.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:43 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
Gangland is a very interesting TV series that profiles all types of gangs.
posted by puritycontrol at 10:01 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by puritycontrol at 10:01 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
At their root, gangs start because a kid doesn't feel safe on the street without a bunch of pals around him. Maybe he has to cross unfriendly territory to get to school, or a store. So you get groups that band together for basic protection in these situations.
A little further on these gangs start to gain identities, and criminal behavior is tolerated as a code of silence develops. This is approximately the evolutionary stage seen in (for example) West Side Story and some semi-exploitation films of the 1950s.
Then you get a stage where they are full-blown, top-down criminal enterprises. This is what you'll see in The Wire for the most part. There are local gangs, groups of friends, but they need to work for/ally with a true gangster to do anything like sell drugs.
The gangs operate somewhat by fear and street versions of honor, but also by very deep protection that extends into prisons and assists family members when a breadwinner does time. There are also networks of access to lawyers and bribed officials to consider.
Almost every neighborhood gang is affiliated with a larger gang network, and at the top level, in the US, are the two groups known as Folks and People, which have largely become identified with the LA gangs (respectively) Crips and Bloods. It also helps to know some broadly well known gangs such as the Gangster Disciples; when the stop sign on my corner was spray-painted GDK, I knew that it was being tagged as unfriendly territory for that gang, because that means (seriously or not) "Gangster Disciple Killer". There are gangs with ethnic associations like the Latin Kings, but today those labels are not as meaningful because of often very localized affiliation changes. Incidentally, the Wire character Avon Barksdale shares a name with the GD founder (in Chicago) David Barksdale.
As for doing something about them, decades of direct criminal approaches have mostly failed, alongside the closely-related drug war. Federal prosecutions have occurred, but they take years and while they can take down an individual organization they may do little about the municipal dynamics that support gangs in an area. One thing that's considered important nowadays in law enforcement is gang intervention. This presumes that the person in a gang does not have access to resources such as employment that would eliminate their need to be in a gang (e.g. because they sleep at night instead of roaming the streets). Within the last year my local PD began a program of regularly meeting face-to-face with identified gang members in their homes and basically talking with them about what they needed in life and why the gang was their solution.
The National Gang Crime Research Center is a professional site crossing criminology with some sociology. There's a list of gang profiles.
The DOJ operates the National Gang Center
Here's some of that recent sociology.
posted by dhartung at 10:41 PM on October 6, 2010 [26 favorites]
A little further on these gangs start to gain identities, and criminal behavior is tolerated as a code of silence develops. This is approximately the evolutionary stage seen in (for example) West Side Story and some semi-exploitation films of the 1950s.
Then you get a stage where they are full-blown, top-down criminal enterprises. This is what you'll see in The Wire for the most part. There are local gangs, groups of friends, but they need to work for/ally with a true gangster to do anything like sell drugs.
The gangs operate somewhat by fear and street versions of honor, but also by very deep protection that extends into prisons and assists family members when a breadwinner does time. There are also networks of access to lawyers and bribed officials to consider.
Almost every neighborhood gang is affiliated with a larger gang network, and at the top level, in the US, are the two groups known as Folks and People, which have largely become identified with the LA gangs (respectively) Crips and Bloods. It also helps to know some broadly well known gangs such as the Gangster Disciples; when the stop sign on my corner was spray-painted GDK, I knew that it was being tagged as unfriendly territory for that gang, because that means (seriously or not) "Gangster Disciple Killer". There are gangs with ethnic associations like the Latin Kings, but today those labels are not as meaningful because of often very localized affiliation changes. Incidentally, the Wire character Avon Barksdale shares a name with the GD founder (in Chicago) David Barksdale.
As for doing something about them, decades of direct criminal approaches have mostly failed, alongside the closely-related drug war. Federal prosecutions have occurred, but they take years and while they can take down an individual organization they may do little about the municipal dynamics that support gangs in an area. One thing that's considered important nowadays in law enforcement is gang intervention. This presumes that the person in a gang does not have access to resources such as employment that would eliminate their need to be in a gang (e.g. because they sleep at night instead of roaming the streets). Within the last year my local PD began a program of regularly meeting face-to-face with identified gang members in their homes and basically talking with them about what they needed in life and why the gang was their solution.
The National Gang Crime Research Center is a professional site crossing criminology with some sociology. There's a list of gang profiles.
The DOJ operates the National Gang Center
Here's some of that recent sociology.
posted by dhartung at 10:41 PM on October 6, 2010 [26 favorites]
Dropped in to recommend (for a second time today, by coincidence) Always Running: Mi Vida Loca: Gang Days in LA. While this is about LA gangs in the 60's & 70's, the motivations for joining and leaving remain much the same, sadly.
posted by smirkette at 10:51 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by smirkette at 10:51 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
I think a simple answer is that they work by offering protection and income in violent, low-opportunity neighbourhoods by controlling, often, the drug trade.
This is all true but it overlooks the very real emotional aspect. Gangs provide a sense of comraderie, belonging, and pride that is very powerful and difficult to find for young men in those neighbourhoods. In much the same way that their other avenue of escape, the military, does.
posted by Justinian at 1:19 AM on October 7, 2010
This is all true but it overlooks the very real emotional aspect. Gangs provide a sense of comraderie, belonging, and pride that is very powerful and difficult to find for young men in those neighbourhoods. In much the same way that their other avenue of escape, the military, does.
posted by Justinian at 1:19 AM on October 7, 2010
http://www.hulu.com/search?query=Gangland&st=1
This link goes to "Gangland" clips on Hulu.
posted by noonknight at 2:41 AM on October 7, 2010
This link goes to "Gangland" clips on Hulu.
posted by noonknight at 2:41 AM on October 7, 2010
Is there like, gangs for dummies?
There is, actually. I still have my (supremely outdated) Gangs manual from working in the New York district attorney's office, but I haven't dared to put it online and most of the information is publicly available anyway.
Historically, you'd probably start with the Five Points Gangs. Then you move to "voting gangs" like Ragen's Colts, minority gangs such as Cosa Nostra, the tong organizations like the triads or Latin Kings (and arguably, the KKK and certainly the Aryan Brotherhood), highly localized gangs like the Piru Street Boys (Bloods) and Cribs (Crips), various motorcycle gangs (Angels, Pagans, Bandidos and Outlaws) which, while not strictly urban, do tend to orbit large urban home bases.
A good summary:
There is, actually. I still have my (supremely outdated) Gangs manual from working in the New York district attorney's office, but I haven't dared to put it online and most of the information is publicly available anyway.
Historically, you'd probably start with the Five Points Gangs. Then you move to "voting gangs" like Ragen's Colts, minority gangs such as Cosa Nostra, the tong organizations like the triads or Latin Kings (and arguably, the KKK and certainly the Aryan Brotherhood), highly localized gangs like the Piru Street Boys (Bloods) and Cribs (Crips), various motorcycle gangs (Angels, Pagans, Bandidos and Outlaws) which, while not strictly urban, do tend to orbit large urban home bases.
A good summary:
1. Secret Societies, like the Mafia, Camorra, and Triads; 2. Gangs of the Wild West and the tradition of highwaymen; 3. Racist gangs, like the KKK, which persisted from the end of the civil war to today;; and 4. Voting gangs, began in NYC and taken to violent heights in Chicago.posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:17 AM on October 7, 2010
From this discussion, we can conclude that gangs then and now roughly fall out into four categories. 1. There are gangs of oppressed groups, which form because of lack of opportunity, and often take it by outlaw means (original Mafia; western outlaws); 2. There are gangs which are used by dominant or rising groups to enforce their power by violence or terror (KKK, voting gangs; some Triad and Mafias); 3. There were gangs which lasted only a short time, usually until the leader is killed or grows up (James Gang; most social athletic clubs and urban gangs) and 4. Those gnags which persist for decades, and sometime longer (Triads; Mafios; Chicago’s SACs, the KKK). These gangs are said to have institutionalized, or taken permanent form.
Gangs are the intersection of organized crime, hoodlums and disaffected youth.
posted by gjc at 4:55 AM on October 7, 2010
posted by gjc at 4:55 AM on October 7, 2010
Gang violence exploded in Chicago after the feds busted the unified organized crime group (run by adults) that was controlling the drug trade. Now you had many small, competing, much-less-organized crime organizations running drugs, primarily using teenagers in their operations (though typically controlled by at least young adults).
"Gangs" of youth engaging in at least low-level violence against one another or hoodlum-ism have been around for a very long time; these hyper-violent drug-affiliated organizations are newish.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:40 AM on October 7, 2010
"Gangs" of youth engaging in at least low-level violence against one another or hoodlum-ism have been around for a very long time; these hyper-violent drug-affiliated organizations are newish.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:40 AM on October 7, 2010
Not to pile on with the Chicago gang books, but I really enjoyed My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King and its follow-up, Once a King, Always a King: The Unmaking of a Latin King both by Reymundo Sanchez. While the former delivers with everything you'd expect to find in a gang memoir, the latter is rather striking as it details Sanchez's struggles in "real life" after getting out of the Kings. Always reminded me of the "spaghetti and ketchup" detail at the end of Goodfellas.
posted by SpiffyRob at 6:18 AM on October 7, 2010
posted by SpiffyRob at 6:18 AM on October 7, 2010
Aaron Sorkin, speaking through Charlie Young on West Wing has a great insight into why gangs are so seductive:
Gangs give you a sense of belonging, and usually, an income. But mostly, they
give you a sense of dignity. Men are men, and men’ll seek pride. Everybody here’s got
a badge to wear. You think bangers are walking around with their heads down, saying, “Oh man, I didn’t make anything out of my life. I’m in a gang.” No, man! They’re walking around saying, “Man, I’m in a gang. I’m with them.”
When working with at risk youths I've found this to be particularly true.
posted by Saminal at 7:31 AM on October 7, 2010
Gangs give you a sense of belonging, and usually, an income. But mostly, they
give you a sense of dignity. Men are men, and men’ll seek pride. Everybody here’s got
a badge to wear. You think bangers are walking around with their heads down, saying, “Oh man, I didn’t make anything out of my life. I’m in a gang.” No, man! They’re walking around saying, “Man, I’m in a gang. I’m with them.”
When working with at risk youths I've found this to be particularly true.
posted by Saminal at 7:31 AM on October 7, 2010
If you're a type who enjoys maps, New York magazine recently published this map of the new gangs of New York, showing where they operate and their trademarks. http://nymag.com/news/features/establishments/68516/
posted by oreofuchi at 8:39 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by oreofuchi at 8:39 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
Lots of really good resource selections above. Here's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Street Gangs (but didn't know whom to ask). It's an interview with Sudhir Venkatesh, who lived with a gang, carefully documenting their economic and social systems, and whose subsequent study was featured in Freakonomics.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:27 AM on October 7, 2010
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:27 AM on October 7, 2010
If you're looking for social scientific treatments (that are also very readable), there are a couple of other good bets in addition to the Venkatesh books everyone is citing here:
Philippe Bourgois's In Search of Respect, about crack dealers in Spanish Harlem in the early 1990s, is a well-regarded anthropological account of gangs and drug dealing.
Like Venkatesh, Loïc Wacquant comes out of the University of Chicago's long history of urban sociology. He provides a structural account of urban crime and poverty in Urban Outcasts that's a very readable and persuasive (if rather repetitive) antidote to accounts that explain urban crime and poverty in the US with reference to "cultures of poverty." He also wrote Body and Soul, a very well-regarded ethnography of boxing clubs in the South Side of Chicago and their relation (partly as an alternative, a location for "controlled violence") to urban poverty and crime.
posted by col_pogo at 11:20 AM on October 7, 2010
Philippe Bourgois's In Search of Respect, about crack dealers in Spanish Harlem in the early 1990s, is a well-regarded anthropological account of gangs and drug dealing.
Like Venkatesh, Loïc Wacquant comes out of the University of Chicago's long history of urban sociology. He provides a structural account of urban crime and poverty in Urban Outcasts that's a very readable and persuasive (if rather repetitive) antidote to accounts that explain urban crime and poverty in the US with reference to "cultures of poverty." He also wrote Body and Soul, a very well-regarded ethnography of boxing clubs in the South Side of Chicago and their relation (partly as an alternative, a location for "controlled violence") to urban poverty and crime.
posted by col_pogo at 11:20 AM on October 7, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks, all! I should have mentioned that I have watched The Wire and couldn't get into it. But I'll check some of this other stuff out.
Any guesses as to why so much of this research comes out of Chicago? I realize that Chicago has gangs but I would think of NY or LA as places with gang problems before Chicago (which may be ignorant of me but what else is new).
Thanks again!
posted by kat518 at 1:56 PM on October 7, 2010
Any guesses as to why so much of this research comes out of Chicago? I realize that Chicago has gangs but I would think of NY or LA as places with gang problems before Chicago (which may be ignorant of me but what else is new).
Thanks again!
posted by kat518 at 1:56 PM on October 7, 2010
Crips and Bloods: Made in America really goes into the whys and wherefores, and the history, of gangs.
posted by Ouisch at 2:14 PM on October 7, 2010
posted by Ouisch at 2:14 PM on October 7, 2010
Since nobody has answered "why Chicago?" yet, I'll give it a stab:
The sociology department at the University of Chicago is one of the top in the world and the first in the United States, and has long put a lot of effort into studying its home city; it has also always been on the leading edge of the discipline.
Hull House provided unusually broad access to the poor and their concerns, by university-educated women who helped found the discipline of social work, created many welfare programs familiar to us today, and were effective advocates for laws relating to the poor on the state and national levels. They were instrumental in constantly keeping issues relating to the poor front and center in Chicago and in educating the elite about them. (If you read the Wikipedia article, you'll see they were instrumental in everything from establishing playgrounds for the betterment of children to the branch library system so the poor could get to the library to the first juvenile court to child labor laws to worker's comp.)
The glamor of Al Capone still hangs over the city today (As a Chicagoan abroad, the two things people are most likely to know about your city remain "Michael Jordan" and "Al Capone, bang bang!" ... seriously with the bang bang, people like to make finger-guns all over the world); the popularity of Capone as a topic of study and popular books probably led to a broader interest in gangs, organized crime, drug/rum running, etc., in the Chicago journalistic and literary worlds.
But I'm just throwing out some ideas; these are the most-repeated things I see people talk about when I read the little "how I got interested in studying Chicago gangs" blurb by authors or "why this important study on gangs in Chicago occurred" bits of news stories. I'm sure there are people with more comprehensive answers.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:14 AM on October 8, 2010
The sociology department at the University of Chicago is one of the top in the world and the first in the United States, and has long put a lot of effort into studying its home city; it has also always been on the leading edge of the discipline.
Hull House provided unusually broad access to the poor and their concerns, by university-educated women who helped found the discipline of social work, created many welfare programs familiar to us today, and were effective advocates for laws relating to the poor on the state and national levels. They were instrumental in constantly keeping issues relating to the poor front and center in Chicago and in educating the elite about them. (If you read the Wikipedia article, you'll see they were instrumental in everything from establishing playgrounds for the betterment of children to the branch library system so the poor could get to the library to the first juvenile court to child labor laws to worker's comp.)
The glamor of Al Capone still hangs over the city today (As a Chicagoan abroad, the two things people are most likely to know about your city remain "Michael Jordan" and "Al Capone, bang bang!" ... seriously with the bang bang, people like to make finger-guns all over the world); the popularity of Capone as a topic of study and popular books probably led to a broader interest in gangs, organized crime, drug/rum running, etc., in the Chicago journalistic and literary worlds.
But I'm just throwing out some ideas; these are the most-repeated things I see people talk about when I read the little "how I got interested in studying Chicago gangs" blurb by authors or "why this important study on gangs in Chicago occurred" bits of news stories. I'm sure there are people with more comprehensive answers.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:14 AM on October 8, 2010
I don't know much on the subject, but the movie The Warriors, like the aforementioned West Side Story, seems like a realistic, balanced view of modern gang life in New York.
posted by Michael Pemulis at 10:18 AM on October 8, 2010
posted by Michael Pemulis at 10:18 AM on October 8, 2010
I thought these two links were pretty enlightening about DC gangs:
http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2009/01/an-extensive-list-of-dc-gangscrews/
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Who-Was-Jamal-Coates-104344718.html
posted by Skwirl at 12:15 PM on October 22, 2010
http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2009/01/an-extensive-list-of-dc-gangscrews/
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Who-Was-Jamal-Coates-104344718.html
posted by Skwirl at 12:15 PM on October 22, 2010
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posted by mhum at 9:09 PM on October 6, 2010 [5 favorites]