Gangs and Terrorism
In the United States, criminal street gangs are part of the fabric of our everyday society that has been accepted as a known criminal element. What may not be so familiar are the similarities and connections that gangs have with terrorists today. It is hard to imagine that terrorist organizations can mirror traditional gangs, but an overview shows us how these two criminal entities are quite similar.
Gangs and terrorist organizations are non-state actors that operate outside the legal system and in the fringes of society. There have been exceptions, like Hamas, who operates within the Palestinian government, but to operate within legal political establishments is rare. Recruits to gangs and terrorist groups are drawn to the organizations for various reasons, including boredom, pursuit of a cause, wanting to belong, or a belief in a political or religious cause. The persons recruited into these organizations come from the same pool of teens and young men that feel disenfranchised and frustrated with their current situation in life. Some are drawn to the gangs for a sense belonging, while others are drawn to terrorist organizations with the hope of effecting change.
Terrorist organizations can be found to operate locally, regionally, and internationally. Gangs are also found to operate in these same spheres, with drug cartel operations working in different countries. Both gangs and terrorists employ the use of committing crimes to further their activities. In law enforcement, gangs are monitored for the activities they conduct to further their cause. These activities include the sale of narcotics, extortion, human trafficking, smuggling of weapons, and more recently identity theft. Terrorist organizations commit these same crimes, but they are precursor crimes to their intended terrorist activity. Terrorists commit these crimes to raise funding or to prepare for an attack planned in the future.
As we look to our security in the homeland, it is important to note the similarities in actions of gangs and terrorists to understand the impact of the activities being conducted. Those charged with the safety and security of their hometown need to recognize when an investigation uncovered activities of a gang are for their profit or power, but do not extend beyond being criminal acts. When an investigation reveals that the activities being conducted are in support of a potential terrorist act, those charged with hometown security must be able to develop a broader picture of how the pre-cursor criminal activities of a terrorist group can potentially lead to uncovering of a terrorist plot and affect homeland security.
JIS Case Study
Los Angeles Police Department’s Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau
“Counter-Terrorism and Crime Fighting in Los Angeles”
This case was an excellent example of the prison radicalization process, the nexus between street-level crimes and terrorism and how homegrown terrorists are often inspired by ideology and events overseas but have no affiliation with a larger terrorist organization. It also illustrated how local police are the key to identifying terrorism suspects who would not be on the federal law enforcement radar otherwise.
Kevin Lamar James, the leader of this cell, was a former Hoover Street Crip gang member who founded a group while in prison called Jam’iyyat Al-Islam Al-Saheeh, or JIS. While serving a 10-year sentence for robbery and possession of a weapon in prison, James converted a fellow inmate who, once released in 2004, was instructed to recruit others for terrorist operations against the U.S. and Israel. This convert did and, in 2005, the four-person cell actively started researching targets such as military installations, Israeli offices and synagogues and funding their operations through a series of gas station robberies — all orchestrated by James from behind prison walls. It was one of these robberies that led to the cell’s discovery and capture by local police in the summer of 2005. The search warrant that resulted from the robbery of a Torrance, California, gas station led to the discovery of jihadi propaganda and the overarching conspiracy to wage war against the United States. The four men involved were indicted on October 2006. Three of the four, including James, have pled guilty. The fourth was found mentally unfit to stand trial and is in a federal prison facility under psychiatric care. One of the four — the man whom James sent out to recruit others — was the first to be sentenced and received a 22-year federal prison term in
June 2008. During his sentencing hearing, Levar Haney Washington told the judge that the members of JIS waged war against their own country because they opposed U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and stated that calamities affecting the Muslim world had influenced his outlook. The cell had robbed gas stations because oil is a political symbol, he said.
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