A growing gang threat?
USA | Sunday, 14 January 2007 | Views [1787]
On 11 January 2007, over 5,000 people marched on New Orleans City hall to protest against a wave of violent crime that has engulfed their city since Hurricane Katrina devastated it in August 2005. Although the famous city’s population dropped by half after the cyclone, to around 235,000, the city’s crime rate has exploded. The 165 murders in the city in 2006 give New Orleans a per capita murder rate that rivals those of Sao Paulo, San Salvador and Johannesburg. The deterioration in New Orleans’ security environment can be attributed largely to an influx of criminal gangs. While the city’s police force has struggled to recover from the effects of the hurricane, gangs have flooded the city, looking to exploit the opportunities generated by the post-Katrina reconstruction effort. Such large-scale building projects bring with them the potential for extortion and intimidation scams and illegal labour, drug and prostitution rings. Turf wars between new and existing groups have broken out and long-standing rivalries between established gangs in the city have been ignited. However, New Orleans’ struggle with gang crime is not unique – it is mirrored throughout much of the US and is part of a clear national trend. Although nationwide crime rates have fallen consistently over the past few years, gang-related criminality has actually increased over the same period, with cities such as Los Angeles, Baltimore, Detroit, St Louis and Washington DC all suffering gang-related violence on a daily basis.
The presence of gangs in the US’s major cities is not a new phenomenon. Since the 1800s, the impoverished inner cities of the US and the country’s prison system have provided fertile breeding grounds for gangs. Many of these groups grew out of migrant populations and along ethnic lines in response to threats posed by others in neighbouring areas or in prison. Irish, Chinese, Jewish, Italian and, more recently, El Salvadoran, Russian and Vietnamese gangs have all emerged out of American’s disadvantaged city centres and its brutal penal establishments. Throughout history, these gangs have consistently evolved from defensive entities into criminal ones. However, despite some similarities in their development, there is no such thing as a typical gang. Some gangs are localised and may only comprise three or four individuals whose sole ambition is to control drug sales on their corner. Others gangs may have thousands of members and much larger ambitions. In total, the FBI estimates that there are now over 30,000 gangs across America, and over 800,000 gang members.
Not only are many of these gangs large in number, but they are also increasingly sophisticated and powerful. Although most gangs start out by initially exploiting their ethnic enclave, involving themselves in low-level criminality such as extortion, robbery, burglary, drug dealing and prostitution, some gangs have evolved into more sophisticated criminal entities with a much longer lifespan and a much greater reach. Gangs like the Crips and the Bloods, African-American criminal groups, have spread from their home town of Los Angeles and are now found in communities throughout America. Some gangs, like the Mexican 18th Street gang (Calle 18) and El Salvadoran gang, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-18), have a transnational capability, with members and operations throughout the US, Canada and Central America. These gangs are involved in the large-scale smuggling of narcotics, weapons and human beings. They have established hierarchical structures, dividing operational areas and holding multi-factional meetings in which the gang leadership assign territory, coordinate criminal activity, share intelligence on law enforcement efforts, resolve disputes and mete out punishments. They are diverse, dispersed and dangerous.
Many of these gangs have prospered in the post 9/11 environment, as federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies have focused almost exclusively on America’s well-publicised counter-terrorism mission. Although the FBI has begun to devote more time and resources to tackle organised crime over the past year, it is still well below the level needed to tackle adequately a problem of this magnitude. Compounding the FBI’s problem is the fact that gang membership in the US is currently flourishing. Although they remain principally city centre organisations, there has been a rapid increase in gang membership in suburban and rural areas as gang members try to escape law enforcement pressure in urban areas or attempt to seek less competitive, and more lucrative, drug markets. Furthermore, rural areas have traditionally provided a haven for skinheads and young members of the Aryan Nation, as well as of other white supremacist groups, before they moved some or all of their activities to the city. Gangs today are reaching across geographic, ethnic and racial boundaries, and are displaying an ability to change and evolve. Some of their traditions and identifiers have been distorted and diluted as they have moved across the US, and many gangs no longer match their media stereotypes.
The frightening rise in gang-related violence and criminality in New Orleans, as well as the rise in gang warfare that has recently blighted Los Angeles, where two girls, aged nine and 14, were killed in gang-related violence in the past month, has led police and politicians across the country to promise a tough crackdown on gangs. City and state authorities have promised to increase law enforcement in neighbourhoods affected by gang violence. They have stated that they will arm police officers with court injunctions forbidding gang members from assembling in certain areas, with lawsuits aimed at shutting down gang hangouts, and with probation orders barring gang members from returning to their neighbourhoods after their release from prison. The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) will reportedly also be encouraged to utilise federal legislation like the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations (RICO) and the Violent Crimes in Aide of Racketeering (VICAR) statutes to smash gang entities. This crackdown, however, is unlikely to work. America’s social, economic and cultural environment is such that gang activity is almost impossible to curtail completely. The poverty and social alienation of the country’s city centres mean that gangs will always have a ready supply of willing recruits and that they will always be too large and too intimately connected to the US’s urban set-up to be totally eliminated. The US government and its state and local allies may occasionally succeed in taking out key players and groups, but there are always tougher, more ruthless and highly-motivated personalities waiting in the wings to take their place. Taking a realistic view of the situation, America’s gangs are unlikely to be destroyed, merely contained.
Tags: The Planning Phase
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