Notorious Street Gangs of the USA Mounir Ali Elbouzaidi The First Academy, Ajman Abstract Street gangs have long been problematic for law enforcement and for community members in the United States of America. In the USA today, there are thousands of street gangs, and they all have one thing in common – they are made up of criminals who often resort to violence in terms of robberies and sometimes even murder. In this paper, I will focus on the emergence of three notorious gangs that also have another thing in common – they all were formed in lower-income neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area of California. The Crips, the Bloods, and MS-13 have all prevailed for at least the last twenty years. Although some may have started off with …show more content…
Gang violence – especially assaults, homicides, drive-by shootings and scary home-invasion robberies – accounts for one of the greatest menaces to public safety in the country. A study carried out by the Department of Justice suggests that there may be as many as 175,000 to 200,000 gang members in the state of California alone. These figures are not entirely accurate since there is no statewide, centralized database of gang-related statistics to precisely measure the number of gang members in the …show more content…
Similar to their rivals, the Crips, the founding of the Bloods is shrouded in mystery and legend. Most academics believe that the Bloods were originally formed as a confederation of smaller street gangs. Initially, the Bloods functioned as part of the Crips. However, after some time, the Bloods started to face a lot of hostilities from other Crips sets and a feud broke out. The Pirus (as the Bloods were first known) were outnumbered and chose to sever all ties with the Crips. They found their own separate gang, the Bloods, and several other gangs in the area who had been attacked by the Crips were also eager to unite with the newly formed Bloods. A group of Crips had brutally attacked a young man, Robert Ballou Jr. at a movie theater after he had refused to give them his leather jacket. The Crips beat the man to death. Hence the forming of neighborhood gangs that had been at the receiving end of violent acts by the Crips into one new gang organization was the result. These gangs became united under the name Bloods, or “red” gangs, and gained a reputation for providing protection against the dominant