Frequently Asked Questions About Gangs and Urban Violence by Ann Byers

Author:Ann Byers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc

Following riots and beatings by police in Los Angeles in 1992, several large sets of the Bloods and Crips in that city declared a truce. Two former enemies display their colors in clutched hands to show they stand united against police brutality.

A bonus to some sports clothing is that the initials can be related to the gang. The BK in British Knight shoes can represent Blood Killer, and the CK on Calvin Klein shirts can refer to Crips Killer. The DB of Denver Broncos is a backward reading of Black Disciples. Latin Kings proudly wear L.A. Kings jerseys.

Some gang members wear their pants low on their hips; this is called “sagging.” The practice might have originated from pictures the young people received from their relatives in prison. Prison officials usually took prisoner’s belts away from them to prevent violence and suicides. In the pictures the prisoners took, their pants sagged, and the boys at home copied their heroes.

Young people who wear certain colors, like clothing from professional sports teams, or sag their pants are not necessarily in gangs. Hip-hop artists, rappers, and videos have made some of these styles popular with a lot of teens. However, innocent people have sometimes gotten hurt because gang members looking to pick fights with their rivals could not tell the difference between real gangbangers and look-alikes.

Numbers and Symbols

In addition to colors, gangs use numbers as a kind of code. Often numbers replace letters. Members of the Vice Lords sometimes write the gang name as 2212; 22 is for V, the twenty-second letter of the alphabet, and 12 is for L. A Black Gangster Disciple is a 274, code for BGD. Sureños use the number 13 to represent the letter M; it stands for the initials of its parent gang, the Mexican Mafia. Norteños use 14 in place of N, for Nuestra Familia. Sureños may write the number as 13, XIII, or X3, or they may simply use three dots. Likewise, Norteños identify themselves as 14, XIV, X4, or with four dots. Mara Salvatrucha goes by MS-13, placing the number 13 after the gang’s initials because it was formed in Southern California, Sureño territory. The Tiny Rascals Gang uses the number 7126 because the numbers can be written in a way to look like the initials TRG.

Gangs also adopt certain symbols that distinguish them from others and link them to the groups with which they are associated. People Nation gangs use symbols that originated with the Vice Lords, one of the founding gangs. Considering themselves lords, the early members used as their symbols a crown, a top hat and cane, and a martini glass. Gangs in the People Nation also draw a star, a star and crescent, a die (one of a pair of dice), and a bunny head. They identify with the number five, so the crown and the star each has five points, and the die has five dots. Rival gangs of the Folk Nation use the number six. They have a star with six points and a die with six dots.

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