Maintaining Security When Gang Members Visit Your ER

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Making Sense of Gang Culture

Most gangs are structured in the same manner as many large businesses. Gangs are generally organized in a typical pyramid structure, with the leadership at the top and the rank and file soldiers at the bottom.

Gangs provide their own boundaries and levels of discipline for violations of the membership code, up to and including a sentence of death.

Gangs may identify themselves through wearing certain colors, through symbols, tattoos and graffiti. Bandanas and sports apparel of a specific color is often the clothing of choice. Blood members often wear Chicago Bulls jerseys. Crips will often wear Dallas Cowboys jerseys and MS-13 members may be seen in a Dan Marino #13 Miami Dolphins jersey. Gang members will never wear the colors of a rival gang.

To better understand the gang culture you need to comprehend how a gang member thinks. Reputation, Respect and Retaliation are the 3 Rs of gang life.

  • Reputation is crucial for the continued existence and achievement of any gang-banger. Additionally, gang reputation is critical in the endurance and promotion of the gang as a viable criminal enterprise. The fear of reprisal and violence is created through reputation. Members gain status by their acts, as well as their willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve gang objectives.
  • Respect is a dominant desire for all gang members. Gang members seek respect and demand respect for themselves and their gang. They insist that rival gangs respect their territory, their colors and their fellow members. They are often willing to risk s
    erious injury or death to ensure that this occurs.
  • Retaliation: When gang members believe that they or the gang have been disrespected or their reputation has been violated, they will retaliate, often very harshly.

Disrespect by rival gang members can often lead to open gang violence. The Bloods and the Crips have been violent rivals since the 1960s and have had many violent episodes. They often disrespect each other through graffiti, tattoos and attire.

Graffiti is placed on buildings, sign posts, streets, sidewalks or basically wherever visible to show that the community belongs to a particular gang and that criminal activities in this territory are only to be conducted by members of this gang. Gang members enter rival gang communities and spray paint their gang colors over the existing adversary gang graffiti as a sign of disrespect.

Tattoos on gang members may also be a sign of disrespect of rival gangs. For example, Blood members might tattoo the initials “CK” on their bodies, which signifies “Crip Killers.”  Crip members might tattoo the word “SLOB” on themselves as a sign of disrespect to the Bloods.

Attire worn by gang members may also be a sign of disrespect to rival gangs. Blood members have been known to wear Calvin Klein (CK) jeans, again to mean “Crip Killers.” While Crip members often wear Dallas Cowboys jerseys as a sign of disrespect to the Bloods. In the Crips’ world Cowboys stands for “Crips on wheels blasting on young slobs.”

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