Gangs in the United States include several types of groups, including national street gangs, local street gangs, prison gangs, motorcycle clubs, and ethnic and organized crime gangs.[3] Approximately 1.4 million people were part of gangs as of 2011, and more than 33,000 gangs were active in the United States.[4]
Many American gangs began, and still exist, in urban areas. In many cases, national street gangs originated in major cities such as New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago; they later migrated to other American cities such as Philadelphia and Miami.
or are they part of TRUMP's VERY FINE PEOPLE?
White gangs are less covered by the media, and less punished – even though 53% of gang members in Mississippi are white
by Donna Ladd
Thu 5 Apr 2018 06.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 5 Apr 2018 15.36 EDT
When he was 13, three white teenage boys beat Benny Ivey. They aimed for his chest as his back pressed against the wall of his friend’s house in Florence, Mississippi. The skinny blond adolescent had to show he was tough enough to become a Black Gangster Disciple.
It was 1989, the height of the crack era, and many white kids wanted to join black gangs that did not welcome them, so they initiated each other into home-grown copycat versions.
Ivey lived in a trailer park, and the thought of wearing the gang’s colors – black and blue – made him excited to be part of something beyond his chaotic family.
None of them knew the first thing about being in a gang, and yet many kids lusted after it, even some who “lived in nice homes with their families”, Ivey says now. Others grew up like he did: the child of poor crack and opioid addicts, ripe to be ensnared by a world promising brotherhood, loyalty and respect.
Ivey’s future was not in a black organization, however – it was in one of the oldest and largest white gangs in the US, the Simon City Royals.
“A lot of us were raised in the pits, and that’s where almost all gang life begins,” he says.