Stuff You Should Know - How Street Gangs Work

Episode Date: June 2, 2015

The street gang problem in America peaked in the 1990s, but recent FBI reports find that gang membership doubled from 2006-2011. What's driving this increase, and gangs in general? Wander into gang territory with Josh and Chuck in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic

podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all. And now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's with us. And this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. Not affiliated with any gang. No, no. I would have thought that goes without saying.

Stuff You Should Know, Army. That's our gang. Yeah, I guess so. Nerds rolling around, dropping knowledge. Yeah. That's how we roll. Sure. Our symbol is the infinity. That's our gang sign. I don't think this would be our symbol. No. No, it's a perfect circle. No, I think the mic with the... You should mean our regular logo. Sure. That's a symbol. We just need to learn how to make it in spray paint. Yes. Actually, that's dated. Well, we just said, we just mentioned spray painting your gang sign. What? That's old time. People, they still do that. No, gangs have evolved so much. Yes, some people do still do it. But from what I understand, gangs have basically come to see

that as like, why would you do that? It doesn't make any sense. You're basically... You're marking your territory, right? You're marking yourself. Whereas it's better to stay out of the hands of law enforcement and not throw a gang sign or tag something with your gang symbol than to do that. So you're saying gangs are wising up and they're just not committing crimes any longer because that puts them under the police microscope? No. I'm saying that they are committing crimes still. Yeah. They're just not... I don't think they spray paint their stuff as much. They're definitely getting more sophisticated in some gangs. I've seen that mortgage fraud and identity theft and counterfeiting like are some of the... Human trafficking is one. Yeah, some of the new crimes.

So before we get started, Chuck, I want to say that throughout this reading the how stuff works article and doing research, I was plagued by this idea that we don't really have a real idea of how many people are in gangs, how many gangs are in the United States, exactly what kind of problems, like gang problem we have. Is it overstated? I suspect it might be overstated. 33,000 gangs? So the FBI compiles this report every few years. And in the original How Stuff Works article, it cites the 2005 National Gang Threat Assessment, right? Yeah. And it says there's 21,500 gangs and 731,000 active gang members. Yeah. 2011, which is the most recent one from what I could find, has not too many more gangs, 33,000, but 1.4 million gang members. Wait, 12,000 more gangs

is an 11. I guess it is. Okay. But 1.4 million gang members. The number of gang members between 2005 and 2011, according to the FBI, doubled. Yeah. Doubled. And okay, if that's the case, right? Yeah. What, why? What happened between 2005 and 2011? I don't know because the gang heyday was in the 80s and 90s. Okay. All right. So what would cause gang membership to skyrocket, to double from 2005 to 2011? I have one guess. Federal grants going to police departments that say they have a gang problem. So maybe they're inflating the numbers? Maybe. Yeah. Okay. What if they're not inflating the numbers? The thing that I think. The internet? No. The economic crisis. If you go back and look at the history of gangs and if you look at all gang activity.

Yeah. Gang banging. If you try to find the underlying cause, one of the underlying causes, if not basically the underlying cause, is a lack of access to economic opportunity. Sure. AKA nothing else to do, no job prospects. Yeah. And then already being surrounded by gangs or the possibility of gangs leads to an increase in membership. So we had this economic crisis in the United States. So if gang membership really did double, I would put my money on the idea that it was because of the economic crisis. Didn't that touch the middle and upper middle classes more though? I mean, was there a housing crisis? Oh man. Everybody got totally messed up by the economic crisis. Yeah. I mean, I knew it touched everyone, but I didn't know. It wasn't just housing.

Like housing kicked the whole thing off, but like the job market, like all of a sudden all these people, even if it did affect like say the middle class or the upper middle class, all of a sudden they lose their jobs, they start taking the lower classes job because they've got to survive. Now what are the lower classes doing? Interesting theory. If gang membership doubled in the US between 2005 and 2011, I would bet any amount of money that was because of the economic crisis. Yeah. You would stake your stuff. You should know fortune on that. Yeah. Yes, I would. All the millions. All right. Well, we may as well go and talk about why people join gangs, because you just teased it. Poverty is a huge reason. Yeah. These are usually in poor areas of

the city. Not a lot of money going on. You can make money by robbing people, by dealing drugs. It provides a financial incentive to join a gang, basically. Yeah. I've read about one study from Los Angeles that found that neighborhoods that had unemployment rates of between 14 and 16% had about 15 times more gang-related homicides than neighborhoods that had unemployment rates of between 4 and 7%. Yeah. And they say that gang-related homicides account for close to half of all the homicides in the United States right now. Yeah. That's another thing that I found. I saw also somewhere between 48 and 90%. I saw other places that are like, this is all way overstated. Yeah. That the gangs peek back in the 90s and we haven't had a real problem since

then. I don't think that's the case though. But there are some sociologists out there saying, this is overstated. Yeah. I don't think anyone's saying there's not a gang problem, though, sir. No. I don't think anybody's disagreeing that there is a gang presence. I think the degree to which there is a gang presence. Chuck, for example, you can go look at something from the Justice Policy Institute called violent children 2010, look up the youth gang violence problem as exaggerated, and it provides kind of a counterpoint to it. Because there's one thing, I'm not saying there's not a gang problem. I'm not excusing the idea that like, oh, you have low economic opportunities, so you join a gang. Totally get it. No. There's still

morality. There's still plenty of people in the same situation that aren't joining gangs. Oh yeah, like 98%. What I'm saying is like when you read articles that are just like, there's gangs everywhere and they're killing everybody. 90% of the homicide rates are because of gangs and they're immoral little kids coming out of the inner city. Your antenna should immediately go up and you should start asking critical questions about where this data is coming from, what they're basing the data on, who is giving you this data, do they stand to benefit from people being scared? Do they get funding to study this kind of stuff? You just have to ask questions like that. Yeah, they're creating hysteria. Yeah, anytime you encounter hysteria like that,

yes, you should stop for a second. If you have that amount of self-possession, stop and just start asking questions like, whoa, whoa, whoa, everybody calm down. Agreed, sir. Or just run. Because the gangs are coming for you. All right, that was it for my soapbox. All right, so back to why you might join a gang. Peer pressure, I love that that's listed because it's true. I mean, it sounds kind of like a very high school thing, but that's a lot of times is when you're getting pressure to join a gang. They seek out children. Right, that's where a lot of gangs find the roots, the crypts, the bloods, both high schools. That's right. The blue, the red, those are the high school colors.

That's right. We'll get to them later. Boredom, we talked about that. A lot of these communities there isn't a lot going on. They don't have the neighborhood pool or maybe even a neighborhood library or a neighborhood youth center or a playground that's in not in disrepair. So these shuttered communities don't have a lot going on. So kids are bored and then they fall into a sense of despair, which means maybe I don't have a father who's a role model. Maybe my father or mother or both are in prison, but I have a family right over here. This gang says they love me. They're going to get my back and now I have a sense of community finally through this gang. And some gangs actually have set up overt community programs like job training

programs, like things that basically said, we have been so neglected by the community at large that local gangs are the ones setting this up. And I mean, that's a pretty good reason to join a gang is when they're holding community outreach programs in your community and they're the only show in town. Yeah. I mean, it's not just a TV thing, the gang leader with a heart of gold that secretly funnels the money to build the playground. That stuff happens. And we're not trying to say like gang leaders are just the best. There's big teddy bears that they have been known to quietly reinvest money in their own communities. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, you don't want the place falling apart, especially if that's

your major market. Yeah. And plus also it's a really great way to ingratiate yourself with the local community. Absolutely. Sure. So let's talk a little bit about the history of gangs, if you'll indulge me for a moment. You can consider yourself indulged. I love the way, and this is by the grabster, Ed Grabinowski. He says criminal gangs have been around for as long as crime. And that makes total sense because they're strengthened numbers. And I think you've seen the movie Gangs of New York. Strike pants. Strike pants. Oh, man. Yeah, a lot of them. Did I like it? No, not really. Yeah. I went back and watched it recently. I really liked it. I did not like Cameron Diaz. Oh, I forgot she was in it. Yeah, that was,

she was missing. Did she have like a cockney accent now that I think about it? No, no. Oh, okay. It was, it was, that must have been a nightmare I had. I've had that same nightmare. I don't, I think she had to look at some sort of a weird accent. Maybe she was trying to do cockney. Maybe. You know. Yeah. I forgot she was in it. Good movie, though, I think. I really enjoyed it. I mean, I could stand and go back and see it as a, you know. I liked it. And what's this Daniel Day Lewis man? What a great character in that movie. So anyway, that movie was based on fact, because in the 19th century in New York in Five Points, you had these ethnic gangs, the Irish gangs, Polish gangs, Italian gangs, and they all fought for

territory and robbed and mugged each other and had violent fights in the street. It was pretty crazy in Lower Manhattan. Yeah, the Five Points gangs. Yeah, very, very tough. But sometimes they would band together and fight other parts of towns gangs, like the Bowery boys, that kind of stuff. Yeah. So they were just fighting all the time. Turf wars, like today. Or like, you know, what gangs they kind of have always been about turf to a certain degree. They were about turf. And that is, we'll see one of the ways that you can divide gang gangs. It's one of the definitions of gang is a turf gang. Yeah. But they are also ethnic gangs, typically as well, like Irish gangs, or Polish gangs, or Italian gangs. You might ask yourself, what happened to Polish gangs?

What happened to Irish gangs? Yeah. Do you do you want to hear my theory behind the economic crisis of the 1970s? No, no, these gangs went away. And so by the 50s and 60s, most of the gangs in the United States were Hispanic gangs and black gangs. Yeah. Ethnic gangs were like we think of as like Irish or Polish or whatever, just disappeared. And the reason why they disappeared is because the Irish and the Polish stopped being considered ethnic. And they were just white after that. And then all of the economic opportunities afforded to white people were afforded to the Irish people and the Polish people. And they had very little reason to be gang members any longer. And they became skinheads. Later on. But don't you think

that that's probably what happened? Maybe so. I couldn't find anything definitive anywhere. They were like not a disenfranchised ethnic group any longer. Right. They were just part of the white machine. Exactly. That is the United States. Yes. I could see that. I like, man, you got theories out the wazoo today. But a lot of them became like cops. That was a big thing, especially for like former Irish gang members. A lot of them moved right from Irish gang member into Irish cop. You're like, where can I still go crack heads? Right. Exactly. Right. What's strange is, as we'll see, that's kind of going on today still. Gang members moving into things like law enforcement and the military. Yeah. Oh, boy, that was frightening. Hysteria inducing,

isn't it? It is. So in the 1950s and 60s, you had what were called car clubs and they were gangs. And this is when you think of like the outsiders, like when you rumble over territory. Sure. These were the car clubs and they would get together and they would fight in a parking lot with chains and knives and things like that. Go rescue people from burning houses and up in an iron log. Stay gold, pony boy. And they began to languish in the 1960s. And then in the 1960s, a man named Raymond Washington and a man named Tuki, I say man, two boys. Yeah, they think they were high schoolers. They were 17 years old. They might have been middle schoolers even. Yeah. They were young because they originally called their gang the baby avenues. The after school specials.

That would be a good gang. The baby avenues, it was a very small gang at first. And then it later became the cribs because they were young, like baby cribs. Is that right? And then it became the cribs in South Central Los Angeles. And they were blue, like you said earlier, because Fremont High School, where they went to school, where that was their school colors. Yeah. So it is kind of funny to think that it was rooted in like, I mean, it's not like it burst out of school pride, you know. Right. But they did base their colors on their high school. And then as a result of the cribs, kind of taking over the area, Raymond Washington was murdered, by the way, in 1979. So he didn't last too long. Ten years is a pretty good run for a gang member on the, yeah. Probably so. I would

think that's longer than you would predict. And Tuki went to prison for murder. But in the 1970s, and the bloods were born as a result of the cribs and their activity, all these smaller gangs that had been, I guess, messed with by the cribs, kind of came together and says, all right, we need a rival gang. So we're going to be the bloods. And that's why the cribs formed originally. Oh, for other rival gangs? Uh-huh. It was a couple of gangs that came together. Yeah. It's banding together. Right. Which still happens today, if you believe that stuff. And they were from the high school. Centennial high. Yes. And they were red. Yeah. And they were founded by Sylvester Scott and Vincent Owens. So then you had the bloods. You had the cribs. They are still thriving

today. They do not get along. They have their, well, do they get along? So allow me to mention the 1992 Watts truce, man. The 1992 truce in Watts in south central Los Angeles. All right. The bloods and the cribs came together with Jim Brown, football legend Jim Brown. Yeah, I remember this actually. In like a, I think a YMCA auditorium or a high school auditorium, or Jim, and sat down and worked out a peace treaty based on one between, I think, Israel and Egypt that had been used. Yeah. And it, it was a peace treaty between the cribs and the bloods in 1992. And it was abided by so much so as far as I can tell, it's still going on. Oh really? Yeah. Like it was a very, it was a big deal. But that's not to say

that there's not interrelated gang violence, because now that the cribs and the bloods had this 1992 Watts truce sign, there was much more infighting among different cribs sets and different blood sets. Well, yeah, I mean, this is, I guess we should talk about the idea of nations, like the Crip Nation and Blood Nation, their bloods and cribs all over the country. Yeah, which makes them super gangs. Yeah, but they, which sounds terrifying. It does, doesn't it? The guy who did the article I read said that he thought that they would all be sort of cut from the same cloth and they would all get along. But apparently within nations, it's very much still broken down into your own neighborhood gang. And you might not get along

with the other Crip gang that's nearby even. So the Crip is the nation and the set is like the local chapter basically. Yeah. But like you said, this guy named Mike Carly PhD, he's I think from the University of Missouri or no, Missouri State, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. He, I think is a sociologist who went in and just like assimilated with gang members and hung out and ended up like writing this treatise on it. Yeah. And he said what you just said that he expected everybody to get along if you're a Crip. This is not the case because if you're a Crip, your sets territory is much more likely to butt up against another Crip sets territory than say a bloods territory on the other side of the freeway. Yeah. And if you're selling drugs on the corner and they're selling

drugs in the corner, well, you're fighting directly for the same customer's money. Yeah. So you're much more likely to erupt in violence or whatever. Yeah. And then 1980s is when the narcotics kind of came on the scene before that gangs didn't really deal a lot of drugs. It was a lot like more petty crime and like muggings and stuff like that. Yes, supposedly it was drugs that changed everything. Sure. Not only unleashed the spasm of violence that started in the 80s in Los Angeles specifically, but also I think even prior to that in the 70s in Chicago is where the idea of taking street gangs and turning them into hierarchical drug dealing businesses was formed by a couple

of guys named Larry Hoover and David Barksdale. That's the guy from the wire. It wasn't David, but that was Avon Barksdale, wasn't it? Yeah. I wonder if he's named after David Barksdale. That seems like a nod. So Larry Hoover formed the Black gangsters and David Barksdale formed the Black disciples and they were rival gangs in Chicago that eventually formed the Black gangster disciples, a super gang, and they had this idea that they would take all their gang members and just turn them into drug dealers and the crack epidemic helped that tremendously, which by the way, if you're interested in this kind of stuff at all, go listen to our crack episode. It was one of our best if you ask me. Yeah, we have a few episodes that touch on this.

I think the Hell's Angels even though the biker gangs are not quite the same, is that correct? Yeah, that's very different categorization. Those are called outlaw motorcycle gangs are seriously OMGs. Yeah, OMGs. Yeah. And then I think the one on Zoot suits. Oh, yeah, that was a lot like this. Yeah, that's a great history one that we did. You should look into. Yeah, and gangs. So, um, Bloods and Crips, um, they have this way of talking that where the Bloods won't say they'll substitute C in words for B and Crips will substitute B for C because they won't even say, you know, a word with B in it. Like, let's go to Starbucks and get a boffy. Start Starbucks and get a coffee. Yeah, because you're just hanging out in Starbucks. No,

hanging out in Starbucks, Starbucks. Um, and they also have their own way of walking, C walking and B walking, which, um, it's sort of like a little dancey sort of move, but I looked at them both and I couldn't tell much of a difference, which means that I would be a bad gang member because I would do the wrong walk. I would guess that you would pick it up pretty quick. Yeah. And of course, they also have their, um, besides the, the, uh, blue and red clothing, they have their, uh, gang symbol, which, uh, in case you ever were like, I kind of want to wear my red hat today because I'm a Los Angeles angels fan, but I don't want to get in trouble because I'm a Crip. So they still have the, the signs to rely on. Well, I would guess you would

have to be a Dodgers fan and if you're a blood, you'd be an angels fan. Yeah. But the angels, they're Anaheim. I don't think anyone in LA is really an angels fan. Oh, really? You gotta be from Orange County. Although we're going to hear from people like, Oh, living in LA, I love the angels. So that's the bloods and the Crips in a nutshell. Uh, that could be its own show, but, uh, we'll take a break here and we will talk a little bit more about gang history right for this. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately I've been wondering if the

universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Attention bachelor nation. He's back. The man

who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new tell all podcast. The most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. But I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about. For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all. And now he's sharing the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward, and letting everybody hear for me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out. I have not spoken publicly for two years about this. And I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day. Truly, every day of my life, I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most

dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Chuck, we keep throwing out the word super gangs. Yeah, it sounds like a media creation. But it does. Basically, what it describes is a franchise gang, like the Bloods or the Crips, or these larger groups, like the folks or the people. Yeah, the people nation and the folks nation. So, I think the Bloods are affiliated with the people nation and the Crips are affiliated with the folk nation. But this is basically this network of gang members who are related to one another through their gang in different cities. So, say somebody in Chicago wants to get into the St. Louis market, they'll send some people and set up a gang there. Yeah.

Easy peasy. It's called franchising. It really is. And all of a sudden, now you have an interstate gang, which makes it a super gang. I don't want to say peanuts because it's a big deal. But compared to like a transnational gang, the transnational gangs are the ones where I'm like, yeah, there's a real problem there, I think. Yeah, here's some just because, well, let's just read the names of the people nation and the folk nation, just so people know. Okay. What's going on? In the people nation, you have the vice lords, and I believe they are out of Chicago, right? The almighty vice lord nation. Yep. And they've been around for a long time too. They were one of the earlier gangs. Yeah, like in the late 60s. Yeah. The Black Pea Stones, the Latin Kings, the Gay Lords,

the South Side Popes, the Mickey Cobras, the Four Corner Hustlers, and the Almighty Saints, and affiliated with the Bloods. That's the people nation. Okay. Then the folk nation, you have Peter Paul and Mary, you have Bob Dylan. Terrible. Sorry. You have the gangster disciples, the insane Spanish Cobras. Yeah, that just sounds scary. How about a cobra that's insane? Right. You know, because a cobra is not bad enough. Right. I like cobra. What's worse than a regular cobra? Yeah. An insane cobra. Yeah. Where could it be from? Spain. Right. The Latin... I don't think Spain is what they're saying. No. Okay. I think they mean like Hispanic. Hispaniola. Yeah. The Latin Eagles, the maniac Latin disciples, the Simon City Royals, and the

Spanish gangster disciples are a part of the folk nation. All right. So we talked about ethnic gangs. It's, you know, they can be skinheads or neo-Nazis or they can be largely Hispanic or African American. Even if they are turf gangs, they're usually also divided among ethnic lines because people tend to live a segregated life still here in the United States. Like in five points, if you're an Irish gang, your Irish neighborhood gang was probably all Irish people, not necessarily just because it was an Irish gang, but because that's where everybody lived. Right. Yeah. There's also prison gangs. Most of the time they are just affiliations in the prison of the gang you ran on the outside. Right. Like there's bloods and

crypts in prison, but sometimes they form new gangs in prison that were not part of the outside world. And I love how one of these guys, one expert in the article here said, putting young gang members in prison is like sending them to criminal college. So it's not like, oh, we took a gang member, put him in jail, and then you don't have to worry about that anymore because they're in prison. Right. But lots of bad things still going on. Listen to our prisons episode for that. Man, we've covered a lot of this stuff, piecemeal, huh? Heck yeah. So there's also female gangs? Yeah, those are on the rise. Yeah. Female gangs supposedly originally started out as basically like booster gangs made up of gang members, girlfriends, and wives. Like here, hold all

these guns for us. Right. Or they're just like, we're going to do our own thing or whatever. Yeah. Then there's also female gangs that have nothing to do with other male gangs. There's also co-ed gangs. They really don't care what gender you are. Do you want to hear some of the sister gangs titles, their names? Sure. The Bad Barbies. Oh, that's a good one. The Harlem Hilton's and the Hood Barbies are some of the what they call sister gangs. Gotcha. And like you said, they originally were just sort of like helped helped up the men. But in some cases now they are like their own legit gangs who are pretty tough because they want to make a name for themselves, you know, as a gang

of women who can also be murderous, you know? Like we can do these things as well. Right. Feminism. They actually, the article I read, now it did start. The article I read said that a second wave feminism is one of the underlying things, but they said it's a very like tenuous link. I got you. You know, like that may have spurred things. Right. Like, you know, I'm a woman. I'm going to go off and do my own thing, but it's a gang after all. But that co-ed gang that I mentioned, that's an example of another type of gang, a hybrid gang. Yeah, like the juggalos. It seems like hybrid gangs are the ones that are like the ones on the rise because these, this is where I got the idea that people don't tag like they

used to. They don't wear colors like they used to because there's hybrid gangs and hybrid gangs are made up of people who might come from rival factions. They break up and reform with different membership from time to time. I don't think on any set schedule or whatever, but I think it's probably something that happens organically. They may have co-ed members. They have members of different ethnicities. They may not have colors. Right. It's just a, it's some melange of gang members that aren't cut and dried and hierarchical like the traditional idea of gangs are. And apparently these are the gangs that are around these days mostly. I can't say that. Yeah. That are maybe the fastest growing type of gang or hybrid gangs. Yeah, and they do. I was,

was not joking about the juggalos. They do list them as a hybrid gang. In four states. Yeah. What states are they? I know New Mexico's one. I think Washington is another one. Interesting. Washington state. Yeah. They said that they're not super organized and their crimes are sort of sporadic and willy-nilly, but they're increasingly violent. The crimes are. So they are worried about them. Huh. You know, you just laughing. I'm over here. Just being quiet. Gotcha. Uh, gang initiations. If you, um, go to join a gang, there is probably an initiation that you will have to go through and, um, I found some, uh, there are many different things, uh, throughout the years that have taken place to join a gang. Um, initiation by cop is you got to kill a cop.

They said that's pretty rare these days. Yeah. Understandably. Again, I really feel like we might be entering just, just urban, urban legend territory here. Oh no, dude. This was, this was a gang, uh, expert researcher. This is like from a Stanford paper. Okay. He's just making stuff up. No, I'm, I'm, I don't think he's making it up, but I wonder like how much of it is just verified or if it's just chatter. Well, he went on to say it's a rare thing. Okay. All right. So are you saying no one's ever killed a cop? No, I'm not saying that, but I think it's fine. Go ahead. All right. Uh, being jumped in or beat in, that's when you have to, you basically get wailed on by all the gang members at one time. Yeah. Um, sexed in,

that's used to initiate, uh, women into male dominated gangs where basically they have to have sex or are forced to have sex with a bunch of guys in the gang. Right. And what I read is like in a co-ed gang in particular, that's not necessarily the way that women get in. Some women get beat in. Sure. Uh, jacked in and you commit a theft. Uh, there's something called the gauntlet where you, um, basically run between two lines of gang members and you have to run the gauntlet or that while they're beating on you as well. Uh, a lot of these sounds like little games. There's one called catching a flag or a rag where it's literally like there's a rag in the middle of the thing and you got to get the rag and get out of there, you know, in one piece. Wow.

Or one where they drop, uh, freeing Hoover where they, there's six pennies that are thrown on the ground and you can't leave until you get all the six pennies off the ground. What does that have to do with Hoover? I have no idea. Huh. Hoover. I haven't, I don't know. I'm not, I don't know. That's Lincoln. It didn't say freaking Lincoln though. Uh, and then, you know, being courted in, which I thought was super interesting. This is when they invite somebody like a doctor or a lawyer who is sympathetic to, uh, their cause and like you can be invited in very nicely and it said, or electricians, which I thought was kind of funny. Weird. Yeah. I guess somebody's got to keep the clubhouse wired. Exactly. Um, I had not heard about courted in, but I did run across it

like in, indirectly with, um, talk about gangs going after, um, like military and law enforcement and lawyers or legal, um, legal field people, um, to join their gang. Yeah. The biker gangs, especially apparently are really target former military. Yeah. And that's, you know, for good reason. These people are highly trained and skilled in weapons and, uh, they would imagine be highly sought after. And, um, it's not just, uh, former military supposedly. Apparently there are also, um, like active duty military. Yeah. They said 53 different gangs are represented in the U.S. military. Yeah. That's scary. Yes. Yeah. It is because these people have access to some really high powered guns. That's right. Uh, should we take another break? I think so. All right. We'll

talk a little bit more about, um, what's going on these days in gangland right for this. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology,

my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new Tell All podcast. The most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. But I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about. For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all. And now he's sharing

the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward, and letting everybody hear from me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out. I have not spoken publicly for two years about this, and I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day. Truly, every day of my life, I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So what's an average day of a gang member like? I love Ed's description here. Yeah. They sleep late. They sit around the neighborhood. They drink and do drugs.

And later on, they meet up at a pool hall or some other local hangout and hang out and do some more drugs and drink some more. I think probably what he mentions next is what a gang member's daily life is like, is like selling drugs, depending on your hierarchy. Yeah. If you are, say, a member of M18 or MS-13, you're doing local enforcement for transnational drug cartels. Yeah. And so you may be involved in picking up a crate of humans that were shipped across from Mexico. Yeah. Or you may be involved in mortgage fraud if you're one of the sharp ones that was probably courted rather than jumped in. Yeah. There's a lot of different stuff you're going to be doing. And right about here is where it becomes clear where you should stop and ask

the question like, wait a minute. What is the difference between a street gang and just organized crime? Oh, yeah. I mean, not too much of a difference, I imagine. The answer that I could come up with, the closest thing to an answer I could come up with is a street gang is a looser association of organized crime. Sometimes, other times, it can be a very tight organization of organized crime. Yeah. But basically, they're almost indistinguishable. It's just a street gang will have more overt affiliation, and it's usually a lot more localized. That makes sense. So listen to our episode on the mafia. Yeah, which is basically street gangs that were whipped into shape and organized. Weapons these days are getting kind of scary. It's not the old days of chains

and knives, especially with the former military and the involvement and the just accessibility of these weapons these days, body armor, police gear, like high powered assault rifles, like you name it, man. Right, which is armored up. Another thing where if gangs have infiltrated the military or actively infiltrating the military or trying to recruit military or law enforcement people. Yeah. That is a real danger to that is getting their hands on like some serious guns, because it's not like these are guns that you can just buy anywhere. No. No, you have to steal them from the right people. That's right. Or get the right people to get them for you. Yeah, they're not going to the gun show. Well, yes, they are. Oh, are they? Yeah, but you can't buy, you know,

military grade weapons necessarily at all gun shows or the good stuff. Native American gangs is a thing though. Yeah. Apparently they were born in the 1980s and 90s. And one reason was sort of identity and solidarity that has been declining in Native American parts of the country over the years and protection is a big one between 1992 and 2002. Native Americans experience experience violent crimes at double the rate of the rest of the United States. And 60% of that violence was incurred on them against them by white people. Oh, yeah. So they're kind of banding together and 50% of those cases weren't even pursued by police apparently. I guess I would lead to increased gang activity. Yeah. So they're banding together and forming gangs. And I think

they're affiliating with a more Hispanic gang culture. Oh, yeah. What I could tell is a really interesting article on Al Jazeera website, which is a really good, super interesting read. We'll post that with our additional links that we're doing now. How about that? Darn tootin'. What else, Chuck? Oh, I've got it. Yakuza. We did a podcast on the Yakuza. Yeah, we did. Asian gangs. Yeah, you can go listen to that one. But what do you do if you're in a gang and you want to get out? You got to murder somebody. So there's this urban legend. I read snippets from a book called Gangs in America 3 by C. Ronald Huff. And he compiled a bunch of interviews with gang members and former gang members. And one of the things that emerged was this myth that if you

want it out of the gang, you have to kill your own mother. Oh, wow. Right. In some cases, they will, you have to get beat out. Yeah. Like you're beat in. Sure. Almost like the circle is complete. Sometimes you have way more people on you than you did when you were beat in. But more often than not, what emerged from these interviews was that they left either by moving or they stopped claiming affiliation with the gang or like they got a job or something just in their life changed. They just quit. They just, yeah, they just walked away. And there wasn't like a pursuit to the death because you can't ever leave the gang. There was a couple of people that said like they were told stuff like that. But when it came down to it in reality and practically,

they just stopped being part of the gang. The problem is, is when you leave a gang, you very frequently, um, you, you might have gang tattoos still. Yeah. And you kind of need to get rid of those. Yeah. Or else who knows what can happen because you're no longer in the gang anymore. So a lot of post gang transition groups, there's this one called homeboy industries that I ran across. Yeah. One of the things they offer is tattoo removal of gang tattoos. Nice for free. Yeah. They can get kind of expensive. Well, you could get your tattoo removed for free just tell me about that. And I'm like, I don't think they fall for it. It doesn't look like a gang tattoo. Uh, there are also lots of, um, gangs from in the United States now set up, uh, from, uh,

immigrants like Somali gangs are a big problem, uh, in Minneapolis apparently. Yeah. That's, there's some in Clarkston. Yeah. Right here in Georgia, Somali gangs. And then, you know, Dominican gangs, uh, Sudanese gangs, Caribbean gangs, Jamaican gangs, uh, every country it seems like has some sort of, uh, operation going here in the U S. I don't know how vast they are. Yes. But, um, in certain areas of the country, they're causing some trouble. Right. And again, it makes me wonder like how much of it is due to a lack of access to economic opportunity. Like, do people want to be in gangs if given the choice to not be in a gang? It seems like from everything I ran across Chuck, the answer is like, no, they would probably rather have just

a regular job or something like that because, and this is one of the reasons why gangs have become so attractive over these and stayed so attractive is they often offer like the best avenue to income around. Oh, yeah. Sure. You know, you just have to commit crime for it. Right. Um, and they, and Ed points out that is probably the most effective way to try and stop gangs is not to just have a police crackdown because I think everyone knows you shut something down on one street corner. It's just going to move to another street corner and that's probably not doing much good. Right. Um, so they have programs, uh, called weed and seed programs throughout the country now from the Department of Justice where they weed out the worst gang members. Um, and see, that's

what I think is going on. Like when you say, I think they all probably just want jobs. I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think there are the hardcore, uh, that have no interest in getting a job. Well, yeah, because they're making way more money than they could with a regular job. And it's just their lifestyle. And, um, those are the ones who are trying to weed out in favor of trying to leave the rest that they think that can be rehabilitated. And they called the second part of it seeding, uh, which means seeding the neighborhood, um, given them more stuff to do, maybe job opportunities or a rec center or a library or a pool. Because again, you're talking very largely about like juveniles here. Yeah. Fix the playground,

like little things like that, making their neighborhoods, uh, less prone to boredom. And I don't mean to sound naive. Like all gang members just want a legitimate job. So everybody go give them good jobs and the gang problem will go away. That's not at all what I'm saying. Like there's always going to be people who are like, no matter what I do, I can make way more money selling drugs than I can like trying to go get a regular job. And I'm comfortable with just selling drugs and like rolling the dice and living life that way. There will always be people like that. The only way to get rid of that most likely is to like take away the prohibition of drugs, I would guess, and then you don't have like street corner drug dealers any longer. But

from what I'm seeing in this research, if you provide economic opportunities, gang membership at large tends to dry out more. Yeah. You're always going to have organized crime, but that doesn't mean you're going to have a gang problem necessarily. Right. You got anything else? Could I possibly? Well, let's close then with the list of the FBI's most dangerous gangs. Florencia 13. You ever heard of them? No, I've heard of some of the other Latin gangs. Yeah. They're tied to the Mexican mafia. There's the barrio Azteca out of Texas and apparently they run the, they work with the Juarez cartel. So they're doing serious business. Yeah.

Yeah. The Latin King nation. You went to number four. The Latin Kings. I think so. MS13. They're definitely on the FBI most wanted list. They're from El Salvador. Yeah. And then so M18 is from Mexico. Yeah. Those tattoos on MS13, man, that's pretty amazing stuff. Yeah. It's like full facial tattoos. We did a tattoo episode too. We did. In New York, you have the Trinitarios. They were formed in the prison system in New York in the 1980s. And then there's a few more. You can just look them up. I don't think we need to go through all these. Man alive. The Mongols, they're still around. Yeah. There's a huge like

biker gang shooting in Waco and this month, I think. You know, just a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. Cops and cops shot a lot of them and they shot each other. It's a bad scene. Crazy stuff. It's Starbucks, I think, again. If you were in a gang, we would love to hear from you. So listen up for the ways to contact us afterwards. Or if you're a former gang member, whatever, we're interested. How far off the mark was I? Let me know. If you want to learn more about gangs, you're just a regular Joe. You can type street gangs in the search bar howstuffworks.com. And it will bring up this article. And since this is a search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this five year old mother. Hey guys, while working

through my two a.m. shift this morning, I was barreling through the male puberty episode for the sake of stuff you should know continuity. Chuck made a comment about the female body and how it probably couldn't handle childbirth at five years old. Of course, this is the episode where my brain decides to chime in and contribute. I'm not sure if anyone's pointed this out, but there was a peruvian girl named Lena Medina who gave birth to a baby boy in 1939 via c-section at the age of five years and seven months. Oh my goodness. And he said he snoped it too. And he said after being brought to a physician due to what her parents suspected to be a large abdominal tumor, I was discovered she was actually pregnant. If you're feeling the

ambivalence of simultaneous fascination nausea, I believe that to be the general response. Though they initially suspected her father, the identity of the man whom impregnator was never confirmed. Can I help but wonder about the developmental implications that would surely arise in such a scenario, but her son apparently lived to the age of 40, having been raised under the impression that Lena was his sister. Crazy. My goodness. And that's from Brian W. Wow, Brian. Thanks for letting us know about that. It rings the biggest bell. When was it, did he say the 1930s? Oh, no, it doesn't. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when that happened. Well, you could have remembered reading about it now. Brian. Yeah, Brian W. Thanks, Brian.

If you want to get in touch with us like Brian did, like we said, if you're a gang member, a former gang member, we want to hear from you. If you have a correction or if you just want to say hi or whatever, anybody can get in touch with us via sysk podcast on Twitter. You can join us on Facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuff podcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuff you should know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band or each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye, listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Attention, bachelor nation, he's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all. And now he's telling all, it's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have

a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.