All gangs from around the world.
Brief History, Gang in Los angelas:
In conducting research on the proliferation of the contemporary gangs in Los Angeles, I did extensive archival and ethnographic research on the history of gangs and conflict in Los Angeles to get a better understanding on the present scope of gang activity in Los Angeles.
Suprisingly there is little written about the historical background of Black gangs in Los Angeles, therefore I devoted an entire chapter to this topic in my manuscript entitled Territoriality Among African-American Street Gangs in Los Angeles which later became the focus of a documentary produced by Robert Stack on Los Angeles gangs which was part of his comprehensive documentary series that profiled global organized crime in 13 parts entitled Lords of the Mafia.
All crip gangs in Los angelas:
All Crip Gangs in Los Angeles County
There are 88 incorporated cities and dozens of other unincorporated places in Los Angeles County (LAC). In doing this research on the proliferation of gangs within Los Angeles, each of these places were visited in an attempt to not just identify gangs active in Los Angeles, but to determine their territories too.
Through several weeks of field work and research there were a total of 274 Black gangs in 17 cities and five unincorporated areas in Los Angeles County. In this research, both the cities and unincorporated areas are identified as "places," a term that the U.S. Census uses.
There are no Blood gangs in the Athens area of Los Angeles. An area east of Athens known as Rosedale is home to the Athens Park Blood. According to Thomas Bros. Maps, this area, which was once known as Athens, is identified as Rosewood, and unincorporated area of Los Angeles.
Blood Gangs in Compton, California:
Butler Block Piru
East Compton Piru
Elm Street Pirus
Fruit Town Pirus
Holly Hood Pirus
Leuders Park Pirus
Lime Hood Pirus
Tree Top Pirus
Neighbor Hood Pirus, 145
Cedar Block Pirus
Cross Atlantic Pirus
East Side Pirus
Original Block Pirus, 151
West Side Pirus
900 Block Bloods
Bibliography on Gangs
D-ray:
During the last few years of doing research, I have compiled the most thorough bibliography pertaining to gangs on several aspects of gang activity. If you are interested in doing research on gangs you can save yourself plenty of research time by consulting my bibliography.
The bibliography is over 100 pages long and it is divided into 25 sections which are listed below. There are over 1000 listings covering over 90 years of gang research including Frederic Thrasher (1927), to the current research of Klein, Howell, Spergel, Vigil, Fagan and many others. If you are serious about gang research, this resource will provide you with all the work that has been completed on gangs up until 2002.
Also included in this bibliography are all doctoral dissertation and masters theses that have covered the subject of gangs. This comprehensive bibliography includes it all. It is divided this reference guid into the following section listed below.
Audio Visual * Asian Gangs * Black Gangs * Chicago Gangs * Community * Drugs * Education * Family * Female Gangs * Graffiti * Hispanic/Latin Gangs * Historical * Homicides * Intervention/Prevention * Los Angeles * Mafia * Migration * National Overview * New York Gangs * Prisons * *Other Places * Schools * Theory * White Gangs * Young Adult reading * Misc.
GANG MIGRATION:
The purpose of this section is to examine the process of gang migration; that is how do gangs based in particular regions over time appear in other parts of the United States and sometimes other counties. Most of the time we see Crips, Bloods, Surenos and Nortenos in other parts of the US it is not the result of a physical migration but more a cultural migration via mass media images, television, movies, and music. But there is clear evidence that Los Angeles based gang members have transported gang identies to other cities, but there is very little research on this topic.
I will develop this section on migration soon but here is one published report entilted Street Gang Migration:How Big a Threat? by Cheryl Maxson et al. in 1996
GRAPHITI & GANGS IN L.A:
 I have examined gang graffiti and have testified about its meaning in several court cases. It is often used to communicate territoriality, identity and sentiments by a variety if different writing conventions.
I also identified several differences between various types of graffiti forms that require a separate method of interpretation. There are several cultural differences between Blood, Crip, Hispanic, and White gang graffiti. Here I will provide a window into understanding their meanings more thoroughly.
The paper below provides a framework for understanding and identying several types of graffiti, and here you can view nine examples of the following types of graffiti: Blood, Crip, Hispanic, Tagging, Piecing/Bombing, and Existential type graffiti. I will also borrow some White Supremacist and Asian examples of graffiti. If you send in your pics they will also be posted in the gallery.
Below is a paper that I originally presented at the Western Geography Graduate Conference at San Diego State University in 1998 about graffiti forms. In it I discuss five major types of graffiti that are extremely popular.
I have done several presentations on gangs, graffiti, hip hop, and gangs. Here are the slides from one of my graffiti presentations. I originally presented this in 1998 but I have updated it with more recent photos as I have continued to lecture on the topic.
Alonso, Alejandro A., 1998, Gang Graffiti on the City Landscape (PDF 548 K), Paper presentation, Western Geography Graduate Conference, San Diego State University, February 14.
If you have any graffiti photos of any type of graffiti that you would like to see on this web site mail your pics to:
Streetgangs.com Graffiti Pics
PO Box 18238
Los Angeles, CA 90018
MAPPING FO GANGS:
 Blood and Crip gang territories of Compton and surrounding unincorporated areas of Willowbrook, Athens, Rosewood and the areas of Carson, Lynwood and N. Long Beach. Notice how the northern part of Compton is dominated by Blood gangs while the southern portion of Compton has a greater Crip presence.
Hmmacided in l.a:
 I was trying to determine if Black aggressive gang graffiti, which was more prevalent on the boundaries of gang territories, would coincide with the places of Black gang homicides by examing a section of Los Angeles. As the map reveals, a significant number of gang related homicides actually occurred in the interior areas of gang territories, an area that is nearly absent of the most aggressive type of gang graffiti.
ALOT OF GRAFITI IN L.A:
 I surveyed all the gang graffiti and identified the places where aggressive graffiti was the most prevalent. I designated an address for each occurance and matched it to a street file of South Los Angeles. I categorized each location as either boundary, near boundary, or interior.
This analysis explored the extent to which aggressive graffiti messages are found on the boundaries of gang territories more so than the interior. Special attention was given to the hypothesis put forth by geographers David Ley and Roman Cybriwsky stating that the most aggressive graffiti is found at the boundaries of gang territories (1974). This map reveals that the same pattern was found among Los Angeles gang graffiti written by Black gangs.
 This map reveals that gangs with significant territories are concentrated on the Westside portion of the city. On the Eastside, which consists of Watts, and the City of Compton have significantly smaller territories. I determined that the size variation had little to do with population density, but more to do with the temporal aspect of gangs in a particular area. The older more original gang territories were smaller and those gangs that developed in the newer "unclaimed" areas, where able to develop larger territories. This notion is very similar to how the United States developed individual states over time. The older original colonies are significantly smaller than the West coast states that joined the union later.
 In South Los Angeles I divided the area into 13 areas from the Mid City/West LA area to Long Beach. The Mid City/West LA, Westside, and Eastside, are within the City of Los Angeles. Athens, Florence, Rosewood, and Willowbrook are unincorporated places policed by the Los Angeles Sherrif's Department.
 In Los Angeles the 18th Street gang is considered the largest gang in Los Angeles County. It is estimated that there are close to 20,000 members in Los Angeles County. Most of them are Mexican and Chicano with some Salvadorean membership and a few Blacks. Some estimates of the 18th are as low as 8,000, but this low estimate still makes them the largest gang in the county if you include all their barrios as one.
The 18th Street Gang is actually a collection of several smaller gangs, making them the most fragmented gang in the County also. The individual factions can number from 50 to several hundred members each. Factions of the 18th Streets are dispersed throughout the county in San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, the South Bay, South Los Angeles, and Downtown Los Angeles just to name a few. Their strong hold and their oldest barrio is located east of the Staples center between the Harbor 110 Freeway (east) and Hoover Ave (west). There are also two significant size 18th Street Barrios in South LA, one between Vernon (north) and Slauson (south) along Vermont Avenue and second one being between Florence (north) and 91st Street (south). To say that the 18th Street is the largest gang in LA is a bit misleading, because what makes them so big is a collection of about 20 different gangs. The largest single Hispanic gang interms of turf size and membership would be one of 18th Street's main rivals, the Florencia 13 gang that has a turf that stretches from Western Ave (west) to Compton Ave (east).
The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has three gang injunctions against the 18th Street Gangs; two in the Rampart Division and one in the Southwest Division of the LAPD. The 18th Street gang in the Southwest division was implicated in the murder of an LAPD officer in 1998. The Rampart injunctions were under review and temporarily halted in September of 1999. In 2002 these injunctions were refiled by the City Attorney's Office.
Certain factions in South Los Angeles are fueding with Black gangs, such as the Black P Stones from the West Adams area and the Black P Stones from the Jungles of Los Angeles. They have also been fueding with the NeighborHood Rollin 20s Blood.
Gang Injunctions & Civil Abatement in Los Angeles:
A gang injunction in Los Angeles is when the City Attorney's Office with approval from a judge issues a restraining order against specific gang members of a particular gang. With information gathered from police officers and the public, the judge will grant a restraining order against identified members of a gang, in essence suing them. In the lawsuit, the actual gang members are mentioned, and they are forbidden to engage in a host of activities, some of which are already illegal such as selling drugs, vandalizing property and possessing weapons. Other activities that they are restricted from doing have included congregating in groups, being out after a particular time, being in possession of a pager or a cellular telephone, or riding bicycles. Each gang injunction must define a geographic area where these activities are restricted.
Los Angeles first started experiencing with gang injunctions in the early 1980s in Pomona, West Covina, and E. LA, but the injunction against the Play Boy Gangster Crips in 1987 is when these civil abatement strategies first gained national attention. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the constitutionality of the injunctions and city attorney James Hahn was forced to modify his lawsuit. Since then, several injunctions have been implemented in LA County including in Inglewood against the Crenshaw Mafia Bloods, in Los Angeles against 18th Street and the Harpys, and in Norwalk against the Orange Street Locos to name a few. There have been just over 30 injunctions in LA County. The ACLU has continued to take the position gang injunctions violate civil rights and in a report published in 1997 the ACLU has claimed that they are not that effective in abating crime.
The popularity of the injunctions have seen places such as San Diego and San Jose, California, San Antonio, Texas, and Chicago, Illinois to adopted similar strategies against their gangs. Although the California Supreme Court ruled that the city of San Jose may implement gang injunctions when it overturned a 1995 appellate court decision in People v. Acuna, because of the vague language of Chicago's 1992 anti gang ordinance, the US Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that it was unconstitutional and challenged individual freedoms (see Chicago v. Morales). In the San Diego injunction, the California appeals court stated that gang members can keep their pagers and cited that restricting pagers for any purpose violates ones freedom of speech.
T-dot gangs:
G.T.B= greater toronto bloods
F.O.C= forty ounce crips
M.T.B= not displayed
I.B.I=irish black italian (mafia)
G.T.G=greater toronto gangsters
P.P=persain pride
YELLOW BANDITS=self explanitory
1.8.7=killers/bloods
7.30=crazy
N.Y.C=north yourk crips
Y.B= not displayed
N.I.C=niggaz in charge
S.O.B=shades of brown
N.B.K=natural born killaz
Luny Tunes=self explanitory
Dusters=self explanitory
Most known gang is g.t.b |
