Criminal Justice Research Papers

This article examines Nuestra Familia, a major Latino prison gang in the United States and one of the earliest of such groups to develop in California. Prison gangs vary widely in their characteristics, but they form and operate in the penitentiary system, usually along racial or ethnic lines; maintain a vertical chain of command; obey a code of conduct; and require a lifetime membership. Inmates create these groups for reasons of self-protection in a hostile environment and commit or order crimes for their own economic support. From behind bars, prison gangs even direct street gangs to enforce their orders, perpetrate crimes on their behalf, and deposit their profits in return for protection during their own jail time. In the United States, prison gang affiliation has steadily increased since the 1950s, but the paucity of official documentation, the secrecy of these groups, and limited external access to these groups mean that little research-based data are available on the nature and reach of prison gangs. These groups formed and gradually spread throughout the U.S. prison system as inmate populations grew larger, younger, more ethnically/racially mixed, and more violent. This article considers the purpose, evolution, and nature of Nuestra Familia, reasoning that the organization adapted its structure to curtail internal corruption and has proved resistant to law enforcement efforts. Origins and Development Nuestra Familia arose in response to aggressions by the Mexican Mafia, today a leading prison gang that formed in the Deuel Vocational Institution at Tracy, CA, in 1957. Los Angeles-based Chicanos had created the Mexican Mafia to defend themselves against other inmates but soon started abusing and extorting nonaffiliated Latinos, including Mexican American farmworkers from Northern California’s agricultural Central Valley. Nuestra Familia laid its groundwork in Soledad State Prison but was formally born in San Quentin State Prison in 1968 when a Mexican Mafia member stole the shoes of a non-associated Chicano who was stabbed to death when confronting the thief. This episode, known as the shoe war, boosted Nuestra Familia’s membership and led to the establishment of its headquarters in Pelican Bay State Prison at Crescent City, near the California–Oregon border. In 1973, the group commenced operations in the streets as members on parole were tasked with setting up street regiments. These crews were required to generate funds for incarcerated members, weapons purchases, and the drug business. With Bakersfield dividing the territories of the Mexican Mafia and Nuestra Familia, the latter extended its influence over the West’s agricultural towns, notably Salinas, and detention facilities in other parts of the United States. Affiliation with Nuestra Familia is symbolically expressed through the color red, the number 14 (which stands for Norteño or Northern California), and tattoos that may show a sombrero with a blood-dripping dagger or denote the various career stages in the group. Vision and Objectives Nuestra Familia aims to be a strong and self- supporting organization that works for the betterment of its members and enables them to retain their cultural identity as Chicanos. Its best interests go before everything […]

Ñeta is an international Puerto Rican prison and street gang. Although there is not a consensus on how to identify prison and street gangs, Ñeta features several identifiers that a gang typically possesses: Its members engage in criminal behavior inside and outside prisons, it has an organizational hierarchy and strict rules, and it uses several types of symbolic colors and words to illustrate membership. This article on Ñeta provides an overview of the association, including information on its history, meaning of its name, symbols and rituals, organizational structure, and ends by reviewing some law enforcement criticisms of the association. Ñeta, also known as Ñetas, Asociación Ñeta in Spanish, or “Association Ñeta” in English, began as a prison gang that evolved into a street gang and continues to grow and spread throughout the world as a criminal enterprise. It has been characterized as a prisoners’ rights group, an inmates’ rights movement, and a pro-inmate rights association, even identifying as Asociacion Pro-Derecho Al Confinando, which translates to the “ProRights Association.” In addition, as a Puerto Rican group, it is known to be sympathetic to ideas of political independence for Puerto Rico and political recognition from the U.S. government. However, the National Institute of Corrections and the National Gang Crime Research Center have identified Ñeta as a security threat group, which is typically defined as a group of at least three people who conspire to engage in fear, intimidation, and disruptive and criminal acts. Although Ñeta’s membership originated in Puerto Rico, it is now global; its membership is estimated at tens of thousands of members in Puerto Rico and in the United States and approximately 10,000 members in other parts of the world including Asia and Latin America. As is typical of gangs, tracking definitive membership numbers is difficult because the association is secretive about members, and there is a sophisticated vetting process for recruits. In the United States, Ñeta primarily resides in the Northeast, including New Jersey, New York, and the rest of New England. History Ñeta was formed in the late 1970s by Carlos Torrez Irriarte, also known as La Sombra, or the Shade and Maximum Leader, and other Puerto Rican prisoners in Oso Blanco Maximum Security Prison, which is located in Rio Piedras, San Juan, and Puerto Rico. In the 1970s, the Oso Blanco prison system was understaffed and overcrowded. Early members of Ñeta claim the group was born out of the necessity for survival in the violent prison environment. Because of a lack of guards, prisoners governed themselves, and survivability rested on the formation of gangs for protection. Before Ñeta was founded, the Puerto Rican prisons were controlled by Grupo 27 (Group 27). Ñeta formed to combat Grupo 27 (whom it called Insectos) and the abuses of non-gang-affiliated prisoners. In other words, Ñeta’s formation was intended to provide a mutual protection group against Grupo 27. Members of Ñeta united against Grupo 27 because Grupo 27 became powerful and preyed on new prisoners. Irriarte and others were threatened and disagreed […]

The Mexican Mafia is a prison gang, being the first such gang to establish extralegal governance over prison inmates as well as criminal street gangs conducting gang-related criminal operations outside prison walls. It achieved this power and control by offering protection services to incarcerated gang members in return for payment of taxes (percentages of criminal profits) and extralegal jurisdiction over the allied street gangs. This umbrella of protection was first offered for incarcerated gang members but was later extended to include protection services for the allied gang itself, including protection for any allied gang member, regardless of whether the gang member was inside or outside prison walls. Any failure to pay taxes or follow Mexican Mafia orders results in issuance of a green light to assault, batter, or kill any and all members of the noncompliant gang. Through psychological and physical coercion, the Mexican Mafia prison gang became one of the strongest and most feared prison gangs in the United States. More than 400 allied criminal street gangs willingly pay taxes and submit to extralegal governance by the Mexican Mafia. This jurisdiction includes the authority of the Mexican Mafia to resolve issues such as turf ownership, dispute resolution, control of drug trafficking operations, or other gang-related criminal activity. As a result, the Mexican Mafia controls more than 21,000 Hispanic and Mexican American gang members operating in the United States, Mexico, and parts of Central and South America. After reviewing the history and the structure of the Mexican Mafia, this article explores the gang’s extralegal governance and its ability to maintain solidarity. History of the Mexican Mafia In 1957, the Deuel Vocational Institution housed some of the worst youthful offenders in California. The inmates would align along racial, ethnic, cultural, or religious ties and prey upon less organized Hispanic and Mexican American inmates. In response, inmate Louis “Huero Buff” Flores founded the Mexican Mafia prison gang. Designed after the Sicilian Mafia, the Mexican Mafia provided social support and protection for the less organized Hispanic and Mexican American inmates. But the goal was more than mere protection and social support: Flores’s stated goal was to create an elite prison gang of gangs that not only aligned prison inmates but also served to align Hispanic and Mexican American criminal street gangs operating outside prison walls. The premise was simple. Drug dealers and most gang members realize that they are likely to get caught committing gang-related crimes and are likely to serve time in prison. Once incarcerated, they become prey for more organized groups of prisoners and prison gangs who are often armed with homemade prison weapons. Because of this vulnerability, the street gangs are willing to align with the Mexican Mafia prison gang, pay taxes, and follow orders issued by the Mexican Mafia in return for protection services. Organizational Structure of the Mexican Mafia The Mexican Mafia does not have a rank and file. In prison, each Carnal (i.e., full pledged member) has one vote, with each vote being equal. This organizational structure […]

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Mexican drug trafficking groups, commonly called cartels, pose the greatest criminal threat to the United States. These groups dominate the production and trafficking of most of the illicit drugs that come into the United States. Mexico is a major producer of heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine and, since the late 1980s, serves as the main transshipment route for South American cocaine reaching the U.S. market. Mexico’s drug cartels have diversified into other criminal activities, but many analysts contend that the largest portion of their profits continue to be derived from the lucrative drug trade. Competition between cartels and armed resistance to a Mexican government crackdown resulted in an estimated 100,000–150,000 organized-crime style homicides in Mexico since 2007. Are They Cartels? In the 1980s, the cartel moniker was used to describe the large Colombian drug trafficking organizations. Popular usage extended the term to all major drug trafficking groups outside the United States. Some of Mexico’s organizations, in their heyday of the 1980s through the mid-2000s, controlled defined territories, enforced monopoly control over transport routes to the United States called plazas, and reduced market competition through bribery and violence. Although they never fixed prices, formally acting as oligopolies, Mexico’s drug cartels attempted to insulate themselves from government law enforcement operations to ensure their businesses could flourish in impunity. Mexico’s drug cartels have steadily diversified into other types of crime and extended their activities to some 60 countries across the globe. The larger Mexican cartels are now important actors in transnational organized crime. Background on Drug Trafficking in Mexico Mexican trafficking of marijuana and heroin (from opium poppies grown in Mexico) into the United States began early in the 20th century. Mexico’s drug cartels became entrenched during the one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party between 1929 and 2000. Alcohol smuggling during the U.S. prohibition was an early criminal activity of the organizations that became the cartels. The Guadalajara cartel was founded in 1980 by Miguel Angel Félix Gallardo, a former police officer from Sinaloa state. His organization spawned a network of traffickers that eventually battled one another and vied to exploit the cocaine trafficking business from Colombia to the United States. The major Mexican cartels, such as the Gulf cartel, the Arellano-Felix organization, the Beltrán Leyva organization, the Juárez cartel, Los Zetas, and the Sinaloa crime group, sometimes produce and traffic multiple drugs. Some cartels or regional wings of a larger crime group may specialize in a particular drug, such as the now-decimated group called La Familia Michoacana that specialized in methamphetamine production in southwest Mexico, although a new transnational criminal organization, the Cartel Jalisco New Generation, has become prominent in the methamphetamine trade. Since 2006, because of intensified conflicts, these groups have merged or more frequently splintered and have been in a state of almost constant flux. The number of fragmented groups (cartelitos) is estimated in 2015 to have grown to between 60 and 200 groups. In 2015 and 2016, the more prominent new organizations […]

The Mara Salvatrucha 13 gang was formed by Ernesto Miranda and Julio Cesar in 1980 as a means of defense against Los Angeles street gangs. Today, the Mara Salvatrucha 13 gang is known as the MS-13 gang and is recognized as a growing transnational, organized gang whose territory stretches across the United States and into Central America and is one of the most dangerous gangs in the United States. The MS-13 gang name originates from the street La Mara in San Salvador and the Salvatrucha guerillas who fought in El Salvador’s Civil War (1981–1992). During the Salvadorian Civil War, children as young as 14 years of age were inducted either into the Salvatrucha guerilla or government forces. Some of the children inducted into the Salvatrucha guerillas went on to establish the MS-13 gang. As of 2017, MS-13 is active in 42 U.S. states as well as El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. Membership When MS-13 was first established, membership was strictly limited to El Salvador, Ecuador, Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemalan citizens. Now, membership is open to all Latinos. Membership in MS-13 gangs is predominately men who range from ages 11 to 40 years. However, two key characteristics of MS-13 gang members are their ethnicity and all must speak Spanish. These two key characteristics help to ensure a sense of protection for the members because it lessens the chances for infiltration by other gangs and law enforcement officers. In some East Coast MS-13 groups, females are permitted membership, but it is not common to see female members within the Los Angeles–based gang. Unlike other Hispanic gangs, MS-13 members are spread across the entire United States, with the Southeast and Northeast regions seeing the greatest increase in memberships. MS-13 members have found that the best way to increase and maintain membership is through migration. When traveling to other areas or claiming new territory, MS-13 members prefer to openly show their colors (blue and white). Similar to their desire to migrate, MS-13 gang members are also known for easily adapting to other avenues of criminal activity. Having a short learning curve for new tactics or situations allows the gang to quickly adapt to new conditions, opportunities, or threats. Initiation, Recruitment, and Rules To ensure that members are worthy of being an MS-13 gang member, prospective members are required to go through an initiation process. Male prospective members are beaten for a period of 13 seconds by current MS-13 gang members. Prospective female members are either beaten by or have sex with a current MS-13 gang member. Once an individual becomes a member of the MS-13 gang, he or she is required to adhere to the gang’s “code of silence.” Refusal of orders handed out or missing a gang meeting is not allowed unless given permission by that specific MS-13 gang boss. Those caught breaking the MS-13 code of silence or working undercover as an informant for other gangs or law enforcement will be murdered. In the eyes of MS-13 members, membership is for […]

One of the significant issues confronting the global community in the 21st century is the increasing frequency and spread of human trafficking. The United Nations (UN) Office on Drugs and Crime as part of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime defined human trafficking in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons. According to Article 3(a) of the protocol, human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Included in the definition are acts of sexual exploitation, prostitution, forced labor and/or services, slavery, practices similar to slavery, servitude, and the removal of organs (including surrogacy and ova removal). Forced marriage has also come to be considered a form of human trafficking. Internationally, there are few countries that are not affected by human trafficking problems— whether their citizens and communities are involved in the acts of trafficking of humans or whether they use the services of humans who have been trafficked. In addition, few segments of societies, involving both adults and children, are affected by human trafficking issues in some way. Despite growing international efforts to control and reduce human trafficking, it continues to threaten the foundations of human rights. This article further defines human trafficking and discusses various avenues for addressing it. Human trafficking is not the same as human smuggling. Human smuggling, while it involves the transport of humans across transnational borders, involves victims who have given their consent to be smuggled into a country, are released upon reaching their destination, and make payment for the services rendered to smuggle them. For example, thousands of people from Central America and South America are smuggled into the United States each year. A common scenario of human smuggling involves a victim paying a person (coyote) to get him or her across the border. Coyotes can release the victim upon payment on either side of the border. Some coyotes may release victims in Mexico and simply point north, requiring victims to find their own way. Others actually transport victims across the border. In some cases, an accomplice of the coyote will be waiting on the U.S. side of the border and transport the victims to other parts of the United States. There can be overlap between human trafficking and human smuggling, which can blur the distinction between the two. For example, coyotes may get the victim across the border for promise of payment—and then, when in the United States, keep the victim captive and force the victim to engage in trafficking activities until payment is made in full. To keep the victim engaged in trafficking activities, the coyote might take actions to ensure that the payment is never received […]

Drug trafficking can include the sale, large-scale purchase, cultivation, manufacture, processing, and transportation of illegal, addictive, and sometimes mind-altering drugs. Drug trafficking is often thought of more specifically as the illegal transportation of narcotics for profit, often from one country to another, but also within a country. It is highly profitable, in part, because governments prohibit or heavily regulate drugs. This makes them more difficult to acquire (reduces supply), thus increasing price and profits for drug traffickers. Drug trafficking is risky because law enforcement hunts for traffickers and their wares and enforces stiff penalties on those it catches, and this serves to further increase drug trafficking profitability. Organized crime groups often carry out drug trafficking. Those that make a bulk of their profits from it are referred to as drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). Drug trafficking is relevant to the study of criminal psychology because it is a major and highly profitable criminal activity in which criminals with various psychological motivations engage. This article delves into the motivations for drug trafficking, trafficking methods, the role of organized crime in drug trafficking, and government strategies to combat it. International Drug Trafficking The United Nations has three treaties with international support that lock nations into an international drug prohibition regime. The chief United Nations body addressing drug trafficking is the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. Drug trafficking has expanded with globalization. To give a sense of the size and scope of drug trafficking, the 2011 United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime report Estimating Illicit Financial Flows from Drug Trafficking and Other Organized Crime estimated that, in 2009, drug and transnational organized crime activities amounted to more than $870 billion or about 1.5% of total world gross domestic product. The report further specified that drugs accounted for 17–25% of all crime proceeds, half of all organized crime proceeds, and 0.6–0.9% of world gross domestic product. According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans spent approximately US$100 billion annually on cocaine, meth, heroin, and cannabis between 2000 and 2010. Types of Drugs The World Drug Report is United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime’s annual report. The 2016 report identifies various drug types, including opioids, amphetamine-type substances, cocaine, cannabis (marijuana), and new psychoactive substances. New psychoactive substances include synthetically produced drugs (sometimes called designer drugs) that may be so new that they are not technically prohibited until law enforcement can detect them and work within legal frameworks to prohibit them. Drug Smuggling Versus Trafficking The term drug smuggling is often used interchangeably with drug trafficking. George Diaz argues in his book Border Contraband that a drug smuggler is one who smuggles prohibited goods (specifically, petty amounts for personal consumption) and a drug trafficker is one who smuggles professionally and at commercial scale. Other legal definitions describe drug smuggling as avoiding paying state tariffs, customs duties, and taxes, while trafficking is the more expansive term relating to any activity involving prohibited drugs. Again, the terms are often used interchangeably. […]

The Crips is primarily, but not exclusively, an African American gang (i.e., a durable, street-oriented youth group whose involvement in illegal activity is part of its group identity) formed in Los Angeles, California. What was once a single gang has evolved into a loosely connected network of individual sets. The gang is known for its members’ affinity for the color blue and notorious for its ongoing feud with the Bloods, who associate with the color red. Crips gang members are implicated in murders, robberies, drug dealing, sex trafficking, and other serious crimes. This article summarizes the history of the gang, its symbology, and its evolution over time, especially in relation to rivalry with the Bloods and reference to popular culture. Origins and Early History South-Central Los Angeles in the 1960s was an area that exemplified the bleakness of poor urban places. The Watts Riots of 1965 left an indelible mark on the city, and an entire generation of young Black men were searching for identity and respect, hanging out together in nascent gangs for protection in the violent streets. Undermined by the government and labeled a threat to national security, the Black Power movement and its various forms of self-advocacy were waning. It was out of the crisis of Black leadership that marked the end of the Civil Rights era that the Crips emerged. In 1969, 15-year-old Raymond Washington, who had absorbed much of the Black Panther rhetoric of community control of neighborhoods, fashioned his own quasi-political organization in the Panther’s militant image. Washington, who had a reputation for street fighting, assembled his friends to start a gang near his 76th Street home, initially called the Baby Avenues to pay homage to the Avenues, an older local gang. The Baby Avenues later renamed themselves the Avenue Cribs, shortened to simply Cribs, a play on the slang term for home, but also the group’s youthful composition (i.e., a baby’s bed). Just how Cribs became Crips is disputed. Some argue that a drunken gang member repeatedly mispronounced the b as a p and it stuck. Others claim that because the gang’s founding members would carry walking canes as an affectation, their victims would characterize their assailants as crippled. Still others say it was a typo in the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper. Etymology aside, 2 years after Washington founded the Cribs on the city’s east side, a young bodybuilder with an affinity for street fighting named Stanley Tookie Williams was establishing himself across town on the west side. In 1971, Washington’s East Side Crips and Williams’ West Side Crips banded together to defend against other South Central gangs that were harassing them. In doing so, they created the Crips, a backronym for Community Revolution in Progress. As the name implied, Washington and Williams intended to create a resistance movement for Black empowerment, but immaturity and inexperience meant that they failed to apply their vision of neighborhood protection into a broader progressive strategy. Instead, the group’s membership became preoccupied with protecting themselves from marauding […]

The Bloods is a street gang that originated in South Central Los Angeles, CA, in the early 1970s. Bloods are identified by the red color worn by the members of the gang and are known for their long-standing rivalry with another street gang Crips, who are identified by the color blue. Along with the Crips, the Bloods are one of the most notorious street gangs in the United States. This article reviews the Bloods’ history, symbology, rivalry with the Crips, and involvement in the drug trade. Early History In the 1960s, the political organization the Black Panthers inspired Black youth to seek out unity and respect. After the Black Panthers were weakened in 1969, a group of young Black men in Los Angeles—looking for protection and belonging— created the Crips. The Crips grew rapidly, using force and violence to secure their dominance in the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. In an effort to strike back against the Crips and the violence the Crips were unleashing within Los Angeles neighborhoods, a rival gang, the Bloods, was created. In 1972, Sylvester “Puddin” Scott and Vincent Owens formed the Pirus Group out of Centennial High School in Compton. The Pirus Group was originally associated with the Crips. However, after facing hostility from several neighboring Crips sets (the specific chapters or divisions of the gang), members of the Pirus Group severed all ties with the Crips and formed their own gang—now known as the Bloods. The name, the Bloods, was reference to Blood, the nickname for street gangs who were not affiliates of the Crips. The members of the newly formed gang adopted the color red to differentiate themselves from the Crips—who wear blue. Later, Tuemack “T” Rodgers, founder of the Black P Stone Bloods, set out to combat the Crips’ expansion within Los Angeles neighborhoods. He called a meeting, at Manual Arts High School, where four gangs agreed to join together, believing there would be safety in numbers. Smaller gangs in the area, such as the Brims, Athens Park, and the Black P Stone Bloods, merged with the Bloods with the intention of protecting their neighborhoods and their families from the Crips. The Bloods’ membership was much smaller than that of the Crips and continues to be so. As a result, the Bloods rely on a sense of unity and loyalty among members. Once a person joins a Bloods set, he is in that set for life; a person cannot get out or flip (switch) to another set without his blood being shed (a saying referred to as blood in, blood out). Because of its strong rivalry with the Crips, the Bloods evolved into a gang involved with violence, drugs, and lives of crime. As of 2018, there are roughly 70 sets in the city of Los Angeles as well as a significant presence of Bloods sets in New York City, known as the East Coast Bloods (or the United Blood Nation), which originated in the early 1990s. The sets are often differentiated by […]

Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang is one of the most politically revolutionary prison and street gangs in the United States. It has evolved into a highly sophisticated criminal enterprise that not only controls criminal activities inside prison walls but also controls street gangs operating outside prison walls. It is one of the most violent, federal racketeering enterprises in the United States. This article reviews the background, evolution, and philosophy of the BGF. Background The BGF emerged in 1966 at San Quentin State Prison in California. The BGF’s founder, George Jackson, organized the gang as a show of opposition to the prison’s injustice toward Black inmates and as an effort to provide protection for Black inmates from other prison gangs such as the Aryan Brotherhood. He recruited prison gang members, advocating that their crimes were merely acts of survival in a White-dominated, capitalistic society. He further argued that the legal system was stacked by a White capitalistic government in an attempt to suppress and keep black at the bottom of the socioeconomic status levels. As of 2017, approximately 500 BGF prison gang members oversee an estimated 50,000 members of allied criminal street gangs throughout the United States. Prior to incarceration, Jackson was a member of the violent Black Panther Party. In prison, he specifically recruited gang members from the Black Panther Party, the Black Muslims, and the Republic of New Africa to join what was then called the Black Family or the Black Vanguard. In the 1960s, the Black Family merged with the Black Panther Party and the Black United Movement to form what is now called the BGF. Revolutionary Political Philosophy The BGF is anti-White and considers law enforcement, correctional officers, and the U.S. government as enemies. All BGF members must be African American. As one of the most politically oriented prison gangs in the United States, the BGF subscribes to a blend of Karl Marx’s and Vladimir Lenin’s political ideology. Marxism is an economic, social, and political philosophy that advocates revolution and forceful overthrow of class structures to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat workers called socialism. Through this class struggle, Marxists believe that society will develop from bourgeois oppression under capitalism to form a classless, socialistic society. This socialistic society governs without a governing class or structure to ultimately create the foundation for a communistic society. Similarly, Leninism advocates the democratic organization of a revolutionary vanguard party that will advance a dictatorship of the proletariat class as political prelude to the establishment of socialism. Its founder, Vladimir Lenin, advocated political insurrections, the overthrow of capitalism, and establishment of a socialistic society that would ultimately evolve into communism. As stated by Lenin, “The goal of socialism is communism.” He was a Russian communist revolutionary who led the Bolshevik revolution and later became Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In that the BGF prison gang subscribes to a blend of Marxist–Leninist revolutionary philosophy, it openly advocates the use of violence in […]