National Gang Intelligence Center   National Gang Threat Assessment 2009   January 2009

Gang Members in the Military

Members of nearly every major street gang as well as some prison gangs and OMGs have been identified on both domestic and international military installations. Deployments have resulted in gang members among service members and/or dependents on or near overseas bases. Additionally, military transfers have resulted in gang members, both service members and dependents/relatives, moving to new areas and establishing a gang presence.

Gang members with military training pose a unique threat to law enforcement personnel because of the distinctive military skills that they possess and their willingness to teach these skills to fellow gang members. While the number of gang members trained by the military is unknown, the threat that they pose to law enforcement is potentially significant, particularly if gang members trained in weapons, tactics, and planning pass this instruction on to other gang members. (See Table 1.) In addition, gang members currently serving in the military sometimes take advantage of their positions to engage in criminal activities such as trafficking weapons and drugs.

Table 1.  Gangs Reported to Have Military-Trained Members

Source: National Gang Intelligence Center.

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Gang Relationships With DTOs and Other Criminal Organizations

Some larger gangs have developed regular working relationships with DTOs and other criminal organizations in Mexico, Central America, and Canada to develop sources of supply for wholesale quantities of illicit drugs and to facilitate other criminal activities. According to law enforcement information, gang members provide Mexican DTOs with support, such as smuggling, transportation, and security. Specific examples include:

• Some prison gangs are capable of directly controlling or influencing the smuggling of multihundred kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine weekly into the United States.
   
• Texas-based, regional-level prison gangs cooperate with Mexico-based DTOs to smuggle wholesale quantities of cocaine and marijuana and illegal aliens into the United States from Mexico. Additionally, these gangs extort money from drug and alien traffickers transiting the Southwest Border.
   
• Some national-level Hispanic street gangs have close associations with Mexico-based DTOs. Hispanic gang members reportedly obtain cocaine and marijuana from the DTOs and transport the drugs to primary U.S. drug market areas for further distribution.
   
• Canada-based Chinese and Vietnamese DTOs and criminal groups maintain close working relationships with Asian gangs operating in Canada and the United States. Canada-based DTOs are the primary suppliers of multithousand-tablet quantities of MDMA and multihundred-pound quantities of high-potency marijuana to Asian gangs operating in the United States. The DTOs also use Asian gang members for other aspects of drug distribution operations in the United States.

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Cross-Border Gang Activity

U.S.-based gang members are increasingly involved in cross-border criminal activities, particularly in areas of Texas and California along the U.S.-Mexico border. Much of this activity involves the trafficking of drugs and illegal aliens from Mexico into the United States and considerably adds to gang revenues. Further, gangs are increasingly smuggling weapons from the United States into Mexico as payment for drugs or to sell for a significant profit. Examples of such cross border activities include:

• Street and prison gang members have established networks that work closely with Mexican DTOs in trafficking cocaine and marijuana from Mexico into the United States for distribution.
   
• Some Mexican DTOs contract with gangs in the Southwest Region to smuggle weapons from the United States to Mexico, according to open source information.
   
• Street gang and OMG members are trafficking cocaine and firearms from the United States to Canada and marijuana and MDMA from Canada to the United States; this is a growing concern to U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officials, particularly as Canadian law enforcement officials report that street gang-related gun crimes in Canada are often committed using firearms that are illegally smuggled into the country from the United States.

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Gang Activity in Indian Country

Most street gangs active on reservations are local gangs, typically composed of Native American youth. Many of these local gangs have little or no direct ties to national-level street gangs; however, several Native American gangs, specifically Native Mob, have expanded beyond Indian Country on and off the reservations. Native Mob is one of the largest and most violent Native American street gangs operating in the United States. Native Mob is most active in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The main source of income for the gang is the retail-level distribution of illicit drugs, primarily marijuana and methamphetamine. Gang members also commit other crimes such as auto theft, assault, carjacking, drive-by shootings, extortion, homicide, and robbery.

Some urban and suburban gangs are expanding their drug operations onto Native American reservations. These gangs pose a significant threat to Indian Country because of their drug distribution activities and violent tendencies as well as the disruptive effect that they have on Native American communities. Gang members occasionally are employed by or work in conjunction with Mexican DTOs and criminal groups to distribute illicit drugs within Native American communities.

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Female Involvement in Gangs

Female involvement in gangs continues to increase and evolve as females assume greater responsibility in gang activities and grow more independent from their male counterparts. Though gangs are still primarily male-dominated, research indicates that female gang membership is on the rise. In 2006 the National Youth Gang Center stated that "youth gang membership among girls has been more widely reported by law enforcement than in the past." In May 2008 the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) found that in high-risk, high-crime neighborhoods, 29.4 percent of girls and 32.4 percent of boys claimed gang membership when self-definition was used as a measure. The majority of respondents to a 2007 Florida-based study reported that female gang members accounted for less than 15 percent of gang members. However, a small portion of respondents placed female gang membership as high as 26 to 50 percent. In concurrence with each of the above studies, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency ranked "young females as the fastest growing offenders in the national juvenile justice population."

Although female gang membership in male-dominated gangs is increasing, the prevalence of predominantly female gangs continues to be a rare phenomenon. In addition, although all-female gangs do exist, they are infrequently the focus of law enforcement. Traditionally, female gangs have received less attention from researchers and law enforcement, and most efforts have focused on intervention programs designed to provide an alternative refuge for girls attempting to escape abusive environments. Furthermore, law enforcement officials are less likely to recognize or stop female gang members, and they have experienced difficulty in identifying female involvement in gang-related activity.

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