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.Recently, ICE has expandedits Operation Community Shield to other street gangs, arresting 1,502 memberstotal as of October 2005 (including 746 MS-13s).These other targeted gangs,which include Sureños, 18th Street gang, Latin Kings, Vatos Locos, Mexican Mafia,La Raza gang, Border Brothers, Brown Pride, Norteno, Florencia 13, Tiny Rascal,Asian Boyz, and Jamaican Posse, do not have ties to traditional international terroristorganizations.Yet others contend that the War on Terror is actually drawing attention awayfrom the older War on Gangs and the War on Drugs (Campo-Flores, 2004).What is actually happening? Do gang members have increased or decreased scrutinysince 9/11? According to the 2005 National Gang Threat Assessment, only 5.7 percentof police forces polled claimed that gangs were connected with terrorist organizationsin their area (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2005).Thus, the connection betweengangs and terrorism does not appear to be widespread, despite reports of relationshipsbetween gang members and terrorist networks (Hagedorn, 2005).Furthermore,most of these terrorist groups identified as having local gang connections are notinternational Islamic extremists, but rather white supremacist domestic terrorist groups (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2005).Though the War on Gangs and the War on Terrorism may be, at face value,separate wars, there is enormous potential for members of disparate street organiza-tions to be also swept up under the latter.It is possible that this is because the waron gangs is an old battlefront and is now getting a cosmetic makeover in order toincrease the fear and win back support.Either way, it is important to see if there is adistinction between terrorists and gangs, and furthermore, see how the shiftingpolicies are (or are not) effective in controlling gang-related crime.Major Policies of the War on Gangs The war on gangs, like the war on drugs and the war on crime, developedduring the early 1980s as a result of the perceived increase of gangs, and the accom-panying political pressure for police agencies to respond (Weisel and Shelley, 2004).Specialized police gang units such as California s Community Resources AgainstStreet Hoodlums (CRASH) were utilized to monitor gang crime specifically.Thismonitoring of gang members by using proactive intelligence makes assumptionsabout their sophistication, and predisposed involvement in crime.It assumes thatcertain individuals, because they are gang members, are cohesive enough to commitstrategic crimes that require the police to use intelligence just like the militarywould in a regular war.Because of the war-like setup of the units, it resulted incorruption: The success of CRASH, however, came at a price.Officers developedan independent subculture that embodied a war on gangs mentality in which theends justified the means.They resisted supervision and control and ignored depart-ment procedures and policies (Los Angeles Police Department, 2000).After peak-ing in 1993, many CRASH units were disabled, likely due to the same politicalforces that formed them in the first place.Thus, functionally, the War on Gangs atleast appears to be slowing.On the legal end, a parallel effect developed: in one 1995 study, 30 percent ofprosecutors in large jurisdictions formed gang units using vertical prosecution to TERRORISM AND GANGS 251focus on gang members (Johnson, Webster, and Connors, 1995).These policies ofprosecuting gang members were supported by numerous state and local laws (Garcia,2005).Even more important, the application of the term terrorists to members of streetorganizations occurred a decade before 9/11 redefined America s perception of ter-rorism. In 1988, the California Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act(STEP) was enacted, shortly followed by STEP Acts in Florida, Illinois, Georgia, Lou-isiana, and Montana (Johnson, Webster, and Connors, 1995; Montana Street Terror-ism Enforcement and Prevention Act).The application of the title thus inscribed inthe language of law the image of gang members as terrorists (Conquergood, 1996).Perhaps even more telling is the trend of federal legislation being used againstgang members.Federal legislation is much more stringent.the legal reach isbroader than the power of local and state authorities (Evering, 2005).The image ofa highly organized militias has fueled the utilization of the Racketeering Influencedand Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) against gang members.RICO, traditionallyused for organized crime syndicates, also stretches the image of the gang to fit asimilar image.RICO not only applies to an entire organization, but also is used to remove the leadership and the most dangerous members of violent street gangs andseize their assets. Inherent in the application of RICO is the idea that gangs are acohesive unit similar to organized crime.Nor does this increasing image of terror appear to be slowing post-9/11, wherethe image of the home-grown terrorist has been solidified with the proposed GangDeterrence and Community Protection Act of 2005 (the Gangbusters Bill).One ofthe co-sponsors, Representative Frank Wolf, has commented that the GangbustersBill is a remedy to terror: no one should have to live in fear (Evering, 2005)
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