Gangs
Definition Subcultural groups of persons—often
young persons—attributing allegiance to
specific territories and often engaged in illegal
activities
By the end of the 1980’s, the United States experienced a
sharp rise in crime. Simultaneously, gang activity in-
creased and became more lethal, particularly as a result of
increases in gang-related homicides and drug trafficking.
Historically, gangs in the United States have been
confined to urban areas, especially New York, Phila-
delphia, Los Angeles, and Chicago. However,
throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, gangs spread to
other urban areas and even to smaller cities in nearly
all fifty states. Gangs of the 1980’s were associated
with violence and crime. The crack epidemic of the
1980’s allowed gangs to support themselves eco-
nomically, while gang members infiltrated the drug
markets selling other hard drugs such as powder co-
caine, PCP, and heroin. African American gangs, es-
pecially the Crips and the Bloods, began concentrat-
ing on selling crack cocaine, and drug trafficking
provided young gang members with the opportunity
to make significant amounts of money.
Bloods and Crips of Los Angeles Two of the largest
gangs in America, both of which had gained “super
gang” status by the 1980’s, were the African Ameri-
can gangs the Bloods and the Crips. Both were based
in Los Angeles, California. The Crips were the first
to form, rising to power in the late 1960’s. The Crips’
members were younger than most other gang mem-
bers and were notoriously violent. They held little re-
gard for life or property and, consequently, engaged
in a wide spectrum of violent crimes. They terror-
ized entire neighborhoods, leaving residents afraid
to leave their homes after dark, and they were even-
tually blamed for the record-breaking crime rate in
South Central Los Angeles. They adopted the color
blue and began wearing blue and white bandanas to
signify their allegiance. During the 1980’s, the Crips
earned celebrity status, when rap star Snoop Dog
(Calvin Brodus) began glorifying gang life as a Crip
in his music. This type of music, which became
known as “gangsta rap,” helped spread the popular-
ity of gangs, because it portrayed gangs as offering
impoverished adolescents a chance to thrive in their
inner-city environments.
In opposition to the Crips and for self-protection,
a band of juveniles living on Piru Street in Compton,
another inner-city neighborhood of Los Angeles,
formed a gang called the Compton Piru Street Boys,
which later became known as the Bloods. They chose
red bandanas and quickly gained recognition as an
opposing force to the Crips. Other local gangs joined
the fight, and the Bloods grew rapidly, becoming a
more unified opponent for the Crips. The Bloods re-
mained a relatively small gang compared to the
Crips, but they became violent and powerful enough
to survive and even thrive as a legitimate threat to
the latter gang. By the 1980’s, nearly every predomi-
nantly African American neighborhood in Los An-
geles was dominated by either the Bloods or the
Crips, and both gangs were perceived as serious
threats to local law enforcement.People and Folks of Chicago A war similar to the
war between the Crips and Bloods in Los Angeles
erupted in Chicago. The Chicago war was between
the People Nation and the Folk Nation. By the end
of the 1980’s, nearly every other gang in Chicago
claimed affiliation with one or the other, and both
gangs gained strength, recognition, and unity as
legitimate gangs. The People Nation traced its heri-
tage back to a gang known as the Blackstone Rangers,
which first formed in the 1960’s. The Folk Nation
first began as the Black Gangster Disciples and also
formed in the 1960’s. Unlike the Crips and Bloods,
which were predominantly African American and
very resistant to admitting members of other racial
and ethnic groups, the People and Folks were much
more racially diverse. Also, many of the smaller re-
gional gangs that paid national allegiance to the
People or the Folks actually went by another name
altogether, unlike the regional gangs of the Crips
and Bloods which almost always retained their affili-
ated gang name. Thus, the People and Folks acted as
umbrellas that encompassed many gangs under-
neath them, and it was not uncommon for regional
gangs to switch allegiance from the Folks to the Peo-
ple or vice versa.
Also unlike the Crips and Bloods, which reached
nationwide, the People and Folks were located
mainly in the Midwest and the East. The Folks allied
themselves with the Crips to offset an alliance be-
tween the People and the Bloods. While the Crips
and Bloods wore blue or red to identify themselves,
members of the People and the Folks instead devel-The Eighties in America Gangs 399