Jammie Garca

SBS 318.15
Dr. Lopez
April 9, 2011

Crips

The original Crips gang was made up of primarilyAfrican

American gang members, but not exclusively. The founders of the Crips
were Raymond Lee Washington and Stanley Tookie Williams. They
formed the gang in Los Angeles, California in 1969. Washington and
Williams were originally members of two different gangs from the east
side and west side of South Central Los Angeles. The two decided to
unite their local gangs in order to battle neighboring street gangs.
The name Crips was not originally the name that they had
chosen for their gang. They first started off by being known as the
Cribs. That name was originally chosen from three different options.
The three options included the Black Overlords, the Assassins, and the
Cribs. They chose Cribs because it reflected the young age of most of
the gang members. The name Cribs was changed to Crips because the

gang members started carrying around canes to show how they were
pimps. There after, people in there neighborhoods started calling
them cripples. Which was later shorten to Crips, which is now the
name the go by. At the time when the gang was founded most
members were 17 years of age. Now the age of members ranges from
young teens to sixty years olds.

The Crips are one of the largest and most violent associations of
street gangs in the United States. It is estimated that there are 30,000
to 35,000 members and associated members. The states with the
highest estimated number of Crips cliques are California, Missouri,
Oklahoma and Texas. As stated before most members of the gang
typically consist of young African American men, but now some
members are white, Hispanic and Asian. Since the gang has spread out
to different states it has also become more diverse.

The gang is known for its gang members use of the color blue in
their clothing. Williams, in his memoir, stated that the blue bandanna
was first worn by one of the founding members Buddha. Buddha wore
blue in some type of combination in his wore drove on a daily basis. He

would wear blue Levis, a blue shirt and dark blue suspenders. When
Buddha was shot and killed on February 23, 1973, the members of the
Crips wore a blue bandanna in tribute to him. Thereafter blue became
the color in association with the Crips.
Although the most significant distinction between the Crips and
other gangs is that they always wear some sort of blue accessory, they
also have gang tattoos that represent the Crips. As you can see in the
pictures on the pages towards the back, members of the gang tattoo
themselves with their clique name or the nickname that they have
been given. The tattoos may vary depending on how long youve been
part of the gang to what role you play in the gang. For instance if you
are known for drive-bys, theyll tattoo a car on themselves or different
types of gangs. Some of the tattoos that are more common are those
of fallen members. The names of those members that have passed
away sometimes tattooed on other members that were close to them.

Membership into the Crips is similar to those of other gangs.

Usually they get jumped-in, which means they get beat-up by a
number of members. Another way they get in the gang is by
committing some sort of crime to show the determination of wanting to

be in the gang. Most members, once they join the gang they never
leave. Most say that the only way to get out is in a box. Referring to
a box as a coffin, in other words they have to stay in for the rest of
their lives. There are members that have been part of the gang for
most of their lives and recruit people from their family to join as well.
Some feel as if being part of a gang is being part of a family so the
generations continue into the same gang.
Some of the most famous gang member of those suspected to
being in the Crips include Snoop Dogg, Eazy-E and Ice-T. These are
famous rappers that have always shown in some way or another their
solidarity to the gang by wearing blue numberous amounts of times
and rapped about being part of the gang. Ice-T, for instance, began his
rapping career in being part of the Crips. His first audiences were Crips
and he was then known as Tray or Tracy, which is his gang name.

There are many cliques in the Los Angeles area that are
associated with the Crips, especially in the city of Compton. In the city
of Compton alone there are about 25 different cliques all associated
with the Crips. Although a common gang connects all these cliques,
they dont always get along with each other.

One of the cliques that was very controversial in 1971 was the
Piru Street Boys. This cliqued was a gang on Piru street in Compton.
After two years of becoming a clique of the Crips, a huge feud began
between the Piru Street Boys and the other Crip cliques. It became
apart that even though they were all part of the same gang they just
couldnt all get along. Fights, shootings, and murders continued among
the clique for two years, until the Pirus decided to brake off all
conectings to the Crips and started a new gang that would later be
called the Bloods, which is a street gang infamous for its rivalry with
the Crips.

The Crips have many rivals. Not only with other gangs such as
the Bloods, but rivals amongst there own cliques. A person that is not
part of any gang, such as myself, would assume that members from a
gang got along with each other but in reality they dont. In this case it
seems as if the Crips fight among each other more than with other
gangs. Some of the feuds among the cliques are between the Rollin;
60s and 83rd Street Gangster Crips, which have been rivals since 1979.
Another set of feuds is among the Grape Street Watts Crips and the P
Jay Crips. These two cliques hate each other so much that the P Jay

Crips have teamed up with Bloods cliques to fight against the Grape
Street Crips.
One way that the cliques distinguish amongst themselves is with
graffiti. If you look at the graffiti in the pictures that Ive provided you
can see the different types of Crips tagging there are among the
cliques.
To a certain point it seems almost funny to me that cliques that
are from the same gang cant get along. If they cant get along with
each other, how can they get along with others?

Crips participate in many different types of criminal activities. The

criminal activity varies from drug trafficking, robbery, extortion,
murder, burglary, and identity theft. In the 1980s the Crips began to
produce and distribute phencyclidine, also known as PCP. They also
began distributing marijuana and amphetamine in the Los Angeles
area. Although they saw a lot of revenue from distributing and
producing these drugs, there largest profits came from crack cocaine.
Crack cocaine was produced and distributing in huge amounts, which
lead the Crips to establish new markets in other cities and states and
therefore recruited more members, which is what lead the Crips
become such a massive gang. In 1999, there were more than 600 Crip

cliques throughout the United States, with more than 30,000 members
producing and distributing drugs.

The Crips are made up of manly male members. There are no

female members in the Crip gang. There are some females that
associate with the Crips according to what they wear and what tattoos
they have, there are no huge female Crip cliques.

No matter what way you look at it gangs are not good for our
society. In order for gangs to stop thriving, we dont have to look at
making more arrest or getting more aggressive on gangs. We have to
find ways to make children into more productive human beings. We
can do this by creating more opportunities for them to do something
meaningful instead of joining gangs.

Work Cited
Williams, Stanley T. Blue Rage, Black Redemption. Simon &
Schuster.
pp. xviixix, 9192, 136. June 2007.
Compton City. Crip Gangs. Street Gangs Resource Center.
http://www.streetgangs.com