Gangs in America are taking new directions with the global financial crisis.
According to the FBI's 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment, there are 33,000 officially designated gangs in the United States. The gangs' 1.4 million members represent a 40 percent increase in gang membership since 2009. More to the point, the report says the gangs are now going white collar and they're infiltrating the military.
According to the FBI, gangs are now turning to such crimes as identity theft, computer hacking, and phishing schemes. "We've seen it, but we've seen them doing it even more now and we attribute to the fact that the likelihood of being caught is less, the sentences once you are caught are less, and the actual monetary gain is much higher," Diedre Butler, a unit chief at the National Gang Intelligence Center told Reuters.
The FBI report reveals that US gangs are also now getting into the military. "Through transfers and deployments, military-affiliated gang members expand their culture and operations to new regions nationwide and worldwide, undermining security and law enforcement efforts to combat crime. Gang members with military training pose a unique threat to law enforcement personnel because of their distinctive weapons and combat training skills and their ability to transfer these skills to fellow gang members,'' the report says.
"Some members are joining the military to get away from the gang life," Calvin Shivers, FBI assistant section chief of the Violent Criminal Threat Section, told ABC News.
Still, old habits die hard. If these reports are right, gang culture will seep into the US military.
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