![]() “Gangbanging gangs,” on the other hand, are usually relatively small gang sets-most members being in their teens-and the main goal is to gain “clout,” meaning credibility within their immediate social networks and among the larger community, by killing rival gang members. It may seem odd that a war fought over a personal dispute could be seen as an “investment.” However, as I and other researchers have found when talking to current and former gang members, fighting a war that begins over a personal dispute can increase the security of a gang by revealing the extent of their power to potential enemies. In either case, however, the duration of the war is likely to be determined by whether the “investment” corporate gangs make by fighting will produce positive returns in terms of drug revenue. Still, some wars do begin due to personal disputes. Many of the wars fought by this type of gang begin with the intent to increase drug revenue by conquering a rival’s territory or gaining direct access to drug suppliers. “Corporate gangs” are those whose main goal is to increase revenue primarily through drug dealing. At the most general level I identified two types of gangs in Chicago. It seems that the strongest explanation for variation in duration of gang wars and how the conflict ends is the main function if the gang itself. I also gathered stories of gang wars from newspapers and books and academics who have worked directly with Chicago’s gangs for decades. To do so I gathered stories of gang wars from those directly involved, either as gang members, mediators or police. To be clear, I try to identify patterns explaining why some gang wars are extremely long, and only end in attrition - i.e., arrests and killings - while others are relatively short and end in truces or attrition. This leaves us with a vexing question - what explains the variation in gang wars in Chicago? To my surprise, no academic, policy institute or even law enforcement agency, have attempted to answer this question. But during the height of Chicago’s crack epidemic in the early 1990s, most gang wars were relatively short and violent and ended in either a truce or the destruction of one or both gangs. This type of truce and the short duration of the battle, is atypical of Chicago’s current gang wars. According to the officer, the leaders called the truce because the violence was decreasing their drug revenue. The war had been going on for about a week when one leader called the other and brokered a truce. Another CPD officer from a gang unit told me of a conversation he listened to between two leaders from the Conservative Vice Lords, or CVL, and the Traveling Vice Lords in 2013. The video ends there, but the war is not over.Īccording to the CPD officer from the gang unit that showed me the video, the war between the Two Feet and the Mafia Insane faction is likely to continue to rage until enough members are killed or arrested.īut not every gang war in Chicago is the same. ![]() A few shots are fired into the flailing bodies, then the gun disappears and the door closes. The door opened and the barrel of a gun entered the frame. The teenagers scurried to the floor, all piled up on one another against the door to the gas station, violently kicking as if they might be able to scurry away from the shooter. However, once they realized they were spotted, their ages became apparent. The Two Feet members trapped in the gas station lobby initially looked like soldiers in a war, each keeping a lookout for their enemies. These wars almost never end in truces, and typically feature periodic assassinations, according to two member of a specialized gang unit in the Chicago Police Department. This is how many, if not most, of the current gang wars begin in Chicago. The war between the gangs began two years earlier in 2014, when a Mafia Insane set posted a video to social media featuring some members smoking a blunt on the grave of a deceased member of the Two Feet gang. Unarmed and locked out of the gas station, they are being hunted by members of a Mafia Insane Vice Lords faction. The video began with three members of the Two Feet faction of the Four Corner Hustlers gang standing in a gas station lobby alongside a security guard.
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