These various gangs are categorized as:

Street Gangs which consist of organized criminals who operate throughout the Nation.

Prison Gangs which are described in the NTGA as: “Prison gangs are criminal organizations that originated within the penal system and operate within correctional facilities throughout the United States, although released members may be operating on the street. Prison gangs are also self-perpetuating criminal entities that can continue their criminal operations outside the confines of the penal system.”

Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMGs) Also described in the NGTA as: “OMGs are organizations whose members use their motorcycle clubs as conduits for criminal enterprises. Although some law enforcement agencies regard only One Percenters as OMGs, the NGIC, for the purpose of this assessment, covers all OMG criminal organizations, including OMG support and puppet clubs.”

Neighborhood/local Gangs: This category simply refers to the localized groups who have formed and generally remain in the same neighborhoods. They often try and imitate the larger criminal gangs. Although not always, their principle activities are those of drug sales and distribution.

We will present here some numbers and statistics which help to show the extensiveness of this increasing problem.

There are approximately 1.4 million active members of the four categories listed above. That is more than our stateside military count and far more than most countries military force. These members comprise some 33,000 gangs!

Gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crimes in most areas and up to 90 percent in some of the others.

Gangs are not only growing in numbers but are broadening their areas of activity, getting more and more involved in higher income businesses such as alien smuggling, human trafficking, and prostitution. When you ad to this, counterfeiting, identity theft, and mortgage fraud, etc., you begin to see much resemblance to that of olt time organized crime. And, indeed many of their activities are the same. These criminals are costing the taxpayers many dollars in law enforcement expenses and yet are thriving and growing. We do have to give our FBI and the other similar agencies credit for a concerted effort in trying to eliminate them. With their determination and increasing technology, there should progress along these lines in the not too distant future.

For a very lengthy and detailed report on these criminal activities and the government’s expanding efforts to control them, Click Here.

Mob mentality refers to the behavioral tendency of people
(or other social animals) to act in unison with the group of which they are a
part. (Brainz) It is used to
describe social behavior when it is characterized through ignoble consensus,
and directed to achieve a purpose that is usually hurtful in nature

An early example comes from Robert Graves’s book I Claudius.
Depictions of chaos illustrated how early Roman society was in disarray after
the death of Marcellus and people started riots on the streets, while demanding
a renewal of the Republic. (Graves) It was then shown on
a larger scale by Western Civilization Beyond Borders (fifth edition) as the
crusades of 1096 were started by Europe’s religious hierarchy when they sent “an
army of Christian knights from Europe to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslim
infidel.” Blanketing their violence under the pretexts of a “holy” cloak—these “signed
by the cross” warriors killed many in the name of God. (Noble)

Supremacists, street gangs, activist groups, community
private sector groups, and even public sectors of civil service have been shown
to participate in mob mentality. The L.A. riots were an more recent example of
how mob mentality violence—led to more mob violence as; a small group of
uniformed police officers (acting on violent tendencies) created conditions for
an even bigger mob of citizens to carry destructive energy on the streets of
Los Angeles.

Mob mentality in the area of racial and ethnic group
relations can be seen when dominating groups in society oppress other less
privileged groups, out of fear that they will lose control of the system of
divided prosperity they established. Their need for social, economic, or
political power drives them to create imbalances in society which ultimately
lead to human suffering and lack of opportunity.

It can be difficult to understand why normal appearing
people would take part in mob behavior. Perhaps a good explanation to this
comes in the area of peer pressure and the need to conform to social
expectations. In an article by Education Horizons about the Columbine tragedy
Deborah Meier explains “a lack of awareness or intentional indifference to kids
being tormented by other kids.” Attempting to understand the conditions before the
massacre a report by the Washington post describes “pre-massacre Columbine as
filled with social vinegar.” “The high school was dominated by a “cult of the athlete.
“In this environment of favored jocks—who wore white hats to set themselves
apart—consistently bullied, hazed, and sexually harassed their classmates while
receiving preferential treatment from school authorities.” (Gary K. Clabaugh)

Aside from the fact that bullying in that school proved to
be rampant, unchecked, and tolerated by administration, the two young men
involved were wrong in killing others even though their roles as social
outcasts made them targets for abuse.

Social stigma plays a major role in bullying others. The
disapproval of personal characteristics or beliefs which are viewed as being
contrast to cultural norms, can lead to hatred against people. Mr. Erving
Goffman said stigma to be “the process by which the reaction of others spoils
normal identity.”  (Goffman)When
stereotyping leads to labeling, an individual can have changes in self
perception. This can have concurrent and further damaging effects on a person—but,
perhaps that is exactly what the bullying behavior is intended to achieve.

In conclusion, mob mentality has negative impact on perpetrators
and society; it creates conditions of forward momentum of destructive energy
that consumes all in its path. Fueled by abstruse conflicts in the collective conscious—and
usually vented in anarchy; it does little more than contribute to patterns of
social regression in an already failing system that we struggle with today.

Bibliography

Brainz. “What is mob mentality.” Brainz.org
(2009-2010): 1.

Gary K. Clabaugh, Ed.
D. & Alison A. Clabaugh, Ph.D. “Bad Apples or Sour Pickles?
Fundamental Attribution Error and the Columbine Massacre.” Education
Horizons Vol. 83, no.2 (2005): 1.

Goffman, Ervin.
“Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity.” Wikipedia
(1990): 1.

Graves, Robert. I
Claudius. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.

Noble. Western
Civilization Beyond Boundaries. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co, 2008.

The money earned by the people who sell that drug within our Country has and continues to finance other criminal activities. Those members of the hundreds of violent street gangs within our Country are the biggest vendors of the drug and they also sell deadly weapons, extort money from local business people, and rob innocent citizens within our society on a daily basis.

Besides our “War on Arab Terrorists,” our “War against Drugs” must also be won for the future well being of our children who, in most cases, become addicted to cocaine and destroy any chance of being a responsible adult within our society.

As a matter of fact, those violent gang members also sell other deadly, illegal and addictive drugs to any person who has money. They are directly responsible for making all of those coca growers and processors in South America as powerful and as filthy rich as they are. That is, until law enforcement either kills them or puts them in jail for the rest of their lives.

The production and sale of coca leaves always was big business within the Countries of South America, since just chewing a coca leaf will give any person a high. As such, millions of people within South America chew coca leaves just like millions of “We People of the United States of America” chew gum. So too, coca leaves are legally sold in every market place in South America, just like other herbs and spices are sold. Thousands of people within South America earn a living by growing and/or selling coca leaves.

As such, it is almost impossible to stop the growing of coca plants. However, it is possible to destroy the factories that refine those coca leaves into cocaine. It is also possible to put each and every violent street gang within the United States of America out of business.

In regard to the growing of those poppy plants in the Arab World, particularly Afghanistan, you should know that U.S. military forces have done nothing to destroy the record crop of poppy plants that were or are in the process of being harvested. The British Army in Afghanistan made a futile attempt to destroy some of the poppy plants that are just a small part the thousands of acres of poppy plants that will be refined into heroin and sold to drug addicts within every Country on Earth. Heroin is big business in China and you better believe that some Asian people are filthy rich from the pain killing products derived from the poppy plant.

Drug companies within the United States of America legally buy and make pain killing products from those poppy plants, and I’m sure that thousands of now dead people are grateful for having such drugs to stop the pain caused by their terminal illness. So too, it’s those violent street gang members who take those products from drug stores and force doctors to write prescriptions for drugs that are eventually sold to our children or  some truly drug addicted person within our society.

Here again is another source of crime within our Country. Many of those drug addicted people can’t afford to buy those drugs. So, they resort to taking the property of others, as a means to buy more addictive drugs.

Then again, the use of shared needles to inject those drugs into their body has resulted in the continuing spread of the A.I.D.S. Virus. As a matter of fact, those people who are infected with the A.I.D.S. Virus caused the cost of health care insurance to rise higher than a kite in a hurricane.

As it happens, there are millions of illegal aliens hiding within our Country and you better believe that some of those illegal aliens are members of those violent street gangs. In fact, illegal aliens are actively recruited by almost every violent street gang in our Country.

It’s a chance to make a whole lot of money in a very short time. Then again, those illegal aliens might also be wanted criminals within their Country of origin, which caused them to seek another place to live and continue their criminal activity.

It is sad but true that tens of thousands of people within our Country have died form drug overdoses. Worse yet, each and every person has, directly or indirectly, been victimized by those who grow, process and/or sell each and every deadly, addictive and illegal drug within our Country.

If the brave soldiers within our military would have been as aggressively deployed to combat the entry of those deadly, addictive and illegal drugs into our Country, as they are now fighting the “War against Arab Terrorists,” thousands of good people would be alive today. This issue is no less serious than the activity of Arab Terrorists.      

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Oh repeat offender

Why do you persist

To act as if kindness does not exist

Why do you commit these crimes

Even in the best of times

Know you not the error of your ways

The risks you take, not unlike a maze

Where the safety you seek, after the dirty deed is done

Can be a battle not always won

Know you not  that if you do the crime

Eventually you must do the time

What motivates your cryptic mind

To brave a risk to which others are blind

Why dare to dream that you can get away

From the Justice that will seek you out some day

Ah…but I see the answer in your eye

It answers fully these questions why

You say you are the possessor of a sharper mind

That you provide the evidence time after time

When you sneak around the Justice created by man

Claiming you can win the race to the top again and again

By braving the path cowards refuse to take

By ignoring Justice for gains sake

For it takes a clever mind to outwit

All the lambs (devoured) which you the wolf has bit

And that is why you commit these crimes

Because you and your friends (all the playaz) have divined

That you possess the most clever minds

To gain new advantages or secure new wealth

Without the work which life has dealt

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Gangs typically start with youth within a community whom intermingle and form bonds. As these youth venture through their neighborhoods, they set up social companionships and defensive boundaries to protect themselves from any person or group who intrudes into their realm of domain. Some gangs will be duped to do anything to defend their territories, thus the level of violence any gang executes depends on the toleration of the gang’s leadership and what the community will bear. New gangs have migrated into the United States from Central America, Caribbean Islands, and from other nations of the world. The conflagrations of their violence are sensationalized almost every day by the media. The damages to individuals, their families and our society are being done every day. Yet, the reason why gang violence has mounted to what it has is because communities and institutions have allowed it so. Let me explain.

As mentioned earlier the existence of gangs goes back to our prehistoric times when we were building societies. The control or lack of control of gangs has always been at the discretion of civilization of which gangs belong. Civil leadership has and always will control the outcome of what is tolerated.

Today’s escalation of gang violence can be traced back to Los Angeles County in the early 1970’s. Prior to 1972 the gangs in Los Angeles County were confined to racial divides long established by government. To identify some of the diversity of gangs during that era, there were White gangs in the Inglewood and Hawthorne cities, Black gangs in Watts, Compton, South and Southwest Los Angeles, Asian gangs in Monterey Park, and Mexican gangs in East Los Angeles. These gangs rampaged throughout their own communities then and certainly had the propensity for violence; there had always been gang shootings, but these incidents were only known to the victims, witnesses, and people within the communities. Little recognition was given to their existence except for the justice system which often had to regulate these activities. Inadvertently it was the justice system and later the media which propelled gangs to the forefront of becoming a social stigma.

Up until now no one has pointed the finger, but during the administrations of the Los Angeles Police, the County of Los Angeles Sheriffs, and the Los Angeles County judges of that and precedent eras, an unethical practice was allowed to mitigate among many of the representatives of the local justice system. The local justice systems turned their backs on the violence and the traffic of drugs which were happening within the racial communities of which the crimes were being enacted. Their attitudes were rooted in bigotry and they facilitated the violence of allowing the races to victimize and even kill their own kind; allowing acts of self-destruction and potential genocide. As apprehensible as it seems, members of the justice systems allowed known killers of their own kind to be re-inserted back into their communities to kill again. This secret pact remained intact and hidden from the social microscope until one brutal murder changed everything.

In the spring of 1972 a high school football player, Robert Ballou, was viciously beaten to death in Hollywood. Ballou’s father was a Los Angeles assistant district attorney and was given immediate media attention. Within a few weeks the assailants were arrested. They admitted to being members of one of the L.A. Black gangs, the Crips. To further sensationalize this terrible incident, most of the killers were star high school athletes, one of which had set world high school track records. Suddenly, the existence of the Crips had been brought to the front page of newspapers and the main story on local television and radio news. All of a sudden one of L.A. County’s street gangs had acted outside of their segregated territory and received too much attention; the pact of the local justice system was forever disrupted and eventually dismantled with more sensational events to follow. Soon other gangs wanted to get attention and establish identities. The struggle for territories became more violent when the sale of drugs, especially when rock cocaine was introduced into the region. Gangs acquired more guns and more shootings became prevalent as the fight for dominance of boundaries escalated. Soon several movies sensationalized gangs even further and later the introduction of “rap music” and “hip hop” set their lifestyles as icons.

How do I know many of these things? I know because I was there to witness much of what occurred. I was there when the Crips were initially being formed; I personally knew many of them including Stanley “Tookie” Williams. I was there at some of their excursions. I was there when one of the founders of the Crips, Raymond Washington and his band of hoodlums on a particular Friday night in the spring of 1972 drove to homes in the Black community where people were actively partying and he shot through their windows with a 22′ rifle. Fortunately no one was killed that evening, but he would not have cared if someone did. He had already murdered 3 human beings before; he had no concern about killing another one. I was there when he was eventually detained by L.A. County Sheriffs that same night; I did say “detained” because he was released by the following Monday.

As I was told by a friend whose father was in law enforcement, he was released so he could kill more Blacks. I was there when many of the killers who killed Ballou talked about going to Hollywood on that fateful night. I did not go with them. I was there when the news broke out about what had happened and when the killers were nowhere to be found. I did not know they were involved, but later found out after they were arrested. I was not a Crip, but had associated with and were friends with many of them (Stanley Williams and Raymond Washington were never friends of mine). Those who I did associate with I shared the common bond of having to be tough in the confines of a racist society we were indoctrinated into. I pursued education and they were overcome by their vices. Though I befriended some of them, there is no justification and excuse for what they have done and what they have as a result caused. But I must demand that they are not alone to blame.

Lastly, I must say I do not believe the productions of gangs are because of the “survival of the fittest”. Rather, the terrorism gangs currently suppress upon our society is an unexpected result of the bigoted fascists of our past. While attempting to control the races, those in dominance created a cast of monsters. As discussed in “Don”t Go Ape, Darwin!’, it is not in the natural behavior of life forms including humans to steer away from social boundaries. Anti-social behavior was nurtured into gangs by unethical leadership, who never realized the possible outcome of what they did and who have never admitted to this day their roles in what was done.

Gangs become what they are because our institutions and communities mold them in such a way. In the early days all the havoc gangs have caused could have prevented if different approaches to the problem they pose had been implemented instead of that of segregation, complacency and internal genocide. Our society will take a long time to recover from what the institutions had passed onto us. A concerted effort must be made by all institutions and the communities from which these gangs thrive, to convert these gangs from destructive tendencies to productive ones. Once under control, we can not afford to let what happened before happen again. This destructive behavior can not be allowed to ever recycle. After all, if some our civilizations were established by groups of people, “a gang”, with a common cause, then many of these gang members may alter their reasoning to become apart of our society and not anti-social to it. In future writings I hope to suggest some potential remedies.