Research Paper on:
America's Latino Gang History

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
entered their new communities, schools and work environments. Racial violence, more so than violence due to the drug trade, is found to be the cause of the intense violence found  in Latino gangs today. Recently however, inter-racial communities have begun the process of combating discrimination and violence in their areas and the major participants involved in these solutions have been  affiliations of Latino gangs. The origin of the formation of gangs across the United States has been prevalent for about the past forty  years or so. In 1992, a Survey by the National Institute of Justice found that police knew the existence of at least 5,000 gangs with over 250,000 members in 79  of Americas cities (The Economist, 1994). Chicago is a typical example of the formation and foundation of gang trends seen across the country. In Chicago, police estimate that there is  about 40 big gangs but four main gangs consisting of two black gangs, the Gangster Disciples and the Vice Lords, and two Hispanic gangs, the Latin Kings and the Latin  Disciples, who are particularly influential (The Economist, 1994). The four main gangs of Chicago have existed for about thirty years and account for over half of the citys 50,000 active  gang members. Over their history they have also been known to unite as in the 1980s when the Gangster Disciples and Latin Disciples united as the "Folk" gang, and the  Vice Lords and Latin Kings united as the "People" gang. Expansion continued throughout the 1980s as the drug trade grew significantly and these "corporations" grew to meet the demand (The  Economist, 1994). Although the drug trade expansion and the increase in the number of gang related murders corresponded to the same time period, not all gang related murders are affiliated