Mnemosyne, I completely agree with your analysis as to the reason behind the rise of gangs. In times of flux, whether positive or negative, there seems to be a rise in so-called deviant behavior. When people are presented with the possibility of the unknown, they turn to the absolute for stability. (This is pulled from what I remember from a college class so if it reeks of privilege, don’t hesitate to call me out on it.)

Gangs aren’t just the most available, they are the “coolest.” They give you an image, a sense of self (however false and messed up it may be). If your brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, mom and dad are in gangs, exactly why shouldn’t you be?

My parents are still pissed I didn’t marry a good Jewish boy (sarcastic, but not really, but still a bit).

love reading you all!

They are suspected as being behind all the recent pot-growing homes that were busted in places like Diamond Bar.

Yet another reason to legalize marijuana — cutting off gang funds.

There is quite a few Asian gangs in So Cal, too. Some of them are quite sophisticated and funded from outside the country.

They are suspected as being behind all the recent pot-growing homes that were busted in places like Diamond Bar.

Many of the gangs in So. Cal have a long, multi-generational history and they self-perpetuate. When my father was growing up in East LA in the 30-40′s, there were gangbangers. However, the one thing that has changed has been the access to easy mobility that modern life has brought, so Los Angeles gangs are now even influencing East Coast gangs.

So much of gang activity really runs under the radar because most of it isn’t reported in newspapers. The LATimes article yesterday on the Florencia 13 gang, which is engaged in “ethnic cleansing” of blacks from the Florence-Firestone area of So Cal, was both unusual and maddening. Unusual because they actually did a fairly lengthy article and maddening because it didn’t really get into how widespread gang activity is and how a lot of it is getting very sophisticated.

A lot of female gangbangers are not just used for sex, but if they are “clean” (no rap sheets, no gang tats) they will be directed to get jobs where they have access to information useful to the gang … such as credit card/personal info that can be used in identity theft crimes. They even try to place these girls within police/judicial civilian jobs so they have access to court/criminal records.

Fortunately a lot of So Cal police agencies are meeting together with prosecution staffs to share info, trends, problems and strategies.

What I read from that is the general dehumanization that happens in gangs. Individuals’ wants and dignity are meaningless before the what the group (or the group’s leadership) wants. The violation of your body, by beating or gang sex, is the symbol of initiation. And given the culture of violence and widespread misogyny, it isn’t surprising that women end up on the bottom of the power structure, taking one for the team on a regular basis as “part of the show.”

I’m worried that what these girls want has little or nothing to do with getting pregnant. How much control over their bodies do that have in this situation?

You certainly didn’t say that women are the only losers in gangs, so I’m not calling you out here for framing the gang issue in exclusively feminist terms. It seems to me, though, that there are larger problems with this entire phenomenon, in which women are some of the worst-but-not-only losers.

Ultimately, what you’re writing about strikes me as entirely a consequence of dehumanization. Misogyny? Not so much.

And pretty much every immigrant group forms gangs: in my area of California, we’re dealing with Armenian gangs, because that’s the largest immigrant group where I am. Up north, they have a lot of Asian gangs. Plus we have the already-existing Mexican and African-American gangs.