How many crips are there in the us

The Bloods-Crips rivalry has become so heated that it has even become widely featured in movies, rap songs, and television. In the early s Crips sets began to distribute crack cocaine. The gang continued to grow in the s and today they are one of the largest street gangs in the country.

Although it is difficult to estimate the exact number Crips in the country because of their loose organization, United States Department of Justice claims there are currently upwards of 35, members divided between sets in 48 states. Documentary films. Feature films. Nonfiction films. On these mean streets over the past 30 years, more than 15, people have been murdered in an ongoing cycle of gang violence that continues unabated.

Here is where America's most bloody and costly outbreaks in civil unrest erupted - not once, but twice, 27 years and just three miles apart. Combines archival footage with in-depth interviews. Item Description: Documentary.

Physical Description: 1 videodisc ca. Ask Us: Live Chat. In , members of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in lower Manhattan complained to the city about the gangs of white, working class youths who harassed churchgoers, according to the book, "Gotham" by Edwin G.

Burroughs and Mike Wallace. By the 's, the authors explain, young men "swaggered about the city after work and on Sundays, staking out territories, picking fights, defending the honor of their street and trade.

Until the mid's, a majority of gangs in America were white, composed of boys from various European backgrounds. The postwar gangs in the 's's were primarily "turf" gangs who defended their areas against neighboring ethnic groups and new immigrants. In his recent book, "Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings," Eric Schneider presents Postwar gang life as a world of switchblades, zoot suits, slums, and bebop music.

While youth gangs were often seen as "violent, short-lived, disorganized collections of misfits whose main purpose was thrill seeking and immediate gratification," says Schneider, they provided a social structure for working-class boys that provided a sense of identity, place, and masculinity. By , about four-fifths of gang members were either African-American or Hispanic. And the late 's and early 's saw the growth of West Coast gangs like the Crips and the Bloods, although most experts dispute the notion that the gangs actually migrated across the country.

Instead they are local, non-centralized gangs that go by the same names and wear the same identifying colors. They are groups that span ethnicity, race, and neighborhoods. First, the influx of illegal drugs--first heroin, then cocaine, and then crack cocaine--changed street gangs from social groups to economic enterprises.

Instead of fighting over the geography of turf, gangs began to wage war over corners used to sell drugs. The institution of the Rockefeller drug laws in and stiffer prison penalties for adults, had a bitterly ironic result: Drug dealers began to recruit minors to do much of their selling on the streets.

While gangs have become a significant part of the drug trade a recent study that gangs are involved in about a quarter of the drug arrests , most researchers argue that youth gangs are not major drug traffickers. The second and perhaps the most devastating change is the availability of guns.

It is estimated that gang related homicides increased nearly five times between and The nature of the violent act has changed from the fist, stick, and knife to the gun. To visit the offices of the Gang Unit at Riker's Island is to visit a virtual museum of gang paraphernalia. The walls are covered with photographs of gang member tattoos , red and blue bandanas from the Crips and the Bloods, and rosaries with black and yellow beads used by members of the Latin Kings.

There is a display of home-made weaponry: knives made from pocket combs, razor blades fashioned from bottle caps, and even a small gun made from a toilet paper roll and rubber bands. The members are mainly African Americans, but also have Latinos, whites and Asian Americans with them.

The members are generally teenagers or in their early twenties. But some are also in their late twenties or even thirties. When the Crips started to grow in size, they also started targeting other gangs.

This is when some non-Crip gangs came together and established an alliance of their own in order to fight against the rising influence of the Crips. The gang that emerged from it got to be known as the Bloods. The Bloods do not have a known official leader. It is therefore divided into sets that have a leadership structure based on hierarchy.

The rivalry of the Crips and the Bloods is still the same. They occasionally fight each other and engage in illegal and criminal activities rest of the time. Specifically in the US, these gangs have occupied a permanent place of their own.