We are all familiar with the rough, tough and anti-social people that are actually social within in their own group...gangs.
Today they seem to have improved with the times somehow. Instead of tattoos, baggy pants and tank tops they are switching to blazers and university recruiting.
This is happening in Central America where the government has been cracking down on their activities and the citizens have been banding together and so the gangs have decided to become less noticeable.
In Central America they were known for cutting off their enemies head and using symbols of graffiti and tattoos everywhere. Now by recruiting at colleges they essentially upgrade from minor robbery to large scale prostitution, theft of cars, kidnapping and extortion.
Gangs were first noted in Los Angeles, California in the 1980's when they got into trouble here. Being from El Salvador and then got them deported due to committing the crimes. They have continued their ways in their home of Central America.
They seem to number at about 100,000 which is spread over Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Also, gangs number about 30,000 in the United States.
Our gangs here in the States do a lot of nefarious activity to fund their actions. Selling drugs and easy access to firearms to buy are the biggest part of what they do. There are three types of gangs which are:
- Hedonistic, which are the partiers? They may commit crimes but only to buy drugs to have that high!
- Instrumental gangs, which are the thugs that steal your car or break into your house.
- Predatory gangs, which are the bad boys dealing in the drugs and killing, sometimes as drive-bys.
The History channel has done programs about gangs in prison. I will be sure to watch for a repeat of that those. It would have been great to have a few excerpts from that program in this article. There are also books written on this subject, as I noticed when searching online for how popular this topic was.
I read somewhere that the FBI defines gangs as "a group of three or more individuals bonded together by race, national origin, culture, or territory; which associates on a continual basis for the purpose of committing criminals acts." That seems to be a broad description to me.
Here is a site where you can find all sorts of information about gangs. Even research results of what has been studied. I am amazed, yet should not be, since there are websites aplenty for all sorts of topics and people. The world is indeed becoming smaller online.
Knowgangs.com is another site with information about more widespread areas for news of gangs and the actions taken in dealing with them.
Since gangs may be the only family type of situation that these people have, it is good that they are capable of sustaining this; however, it would be great to see a world where this is not necessary since we would be well connected in a healthy way with one another.
