From Barrio Street Gangs to Transnational Criminal Organizations: AQualitative Analysis of Eighteenth Street and Mara SalvatruchaI. Research Topic. Recently, the F.B.I. and other local government agencieshave become particularly watchful of international criminal organizations, whichdrew their origins from domestic street gangs. Two, in particular, have expandedtheir status toward that of transnational criminal organizations. They are theEighteenth Street gang (Calle Dieciocho) and the Mara Salvatrucha gang. Bothare originally from Los Angeles, California, an area most commonly known as thePico-Union area. But today, “cliques” (subsets of member gangs) can now befound anywhere between the U.S., Mexico, and Central America (Vigil, 1998,p.92). This expansion has resulted, predominantly because of immigrantdeportation, but also due to the gangs’ recruitment policies and drug smugglingactivities. The sudden growth of these local street gangs into global networkscontinues to undermine authorities as to their power and most importantly, theinfrastructure within the gangs. The consequences which may result from thispower growth lie anywhere between an increase of narcotics trafficking, to thecreation of another global terrorist threat. In order to decipher futureconsequences of these gangs, further analysis must be made as to how theyonce began. II. Background. In the sixties, the Eighteenth Street gang was founded in LosAngeles, California. The initial reason for creating Eighteenth Street stemmed outof the racism Latinos held for each other. Before Eighteenth Street came to be,the central gang in the area, the Clanton Street gang, only allowed themembership of Mexican-Americans. Many illegal immigrants who wanted to joinwere unable to because Clanton wanted only second generation Mexicans.Consequently, when the Eighteenth Street began, it was composed of both illegalimmigrants as well as Mexican-Americans. Members recruited into this ganghave been known to be within their pre-adolescent years. Further, the gangutilizes fear tactics in combination with camaraderie to keep their members fromleaving the gang. Two decades later, during the eighties, Eighteenth Street had become awell respected gang which had grown in membership. At the same time,Salvadorans were seeking refuge in the United States because of a civil warwhich had begun in their country. Arriving into poor neighborhoods, many ofthese Central American immigrants became attracted to the power that otherLatino gang members held. Ironically, after having had the same experienceyears earlier, Eighteenth Street was not willing to embrace this new culture. As aresult, the Mara Salvatrucha gang came into existence. Many of the newSalvadoran immigrants were members of the Farabundo Marti NationalLiberation Front (a militant group composed of community members which wereonce trained fighters) while in the Salvadoran civil war (Valdez, 2005, ¶2).Moreover, today, some suggest that guerilla tactics, implemented by currentSalvatrucha members, took their origin from previous militant training. Forinstance, the killing of rival gang members through the use of machetes serve asways to intimidate the public, as well as create a reputation for themselves ascriminal organizations, rather than street hoodlums. Having the rivalry innatefrom the beginning, both gangs have shown a phenomenal potential forexpansion. Massive deportation of gang members has become a primary reason whyEighteenth Street and Mara Salvatrucha have been able flourish as local gangsand expand into international criminal organizations. According to an article inU.S. Newswire, there are approximately “800,000 members…currently operatingin the U.S” and “70,000…in Central America” (Stratman, 2005, ¶3). During thenineties, the U.S. government was responsible for the massive deportation ofimmigrants into Latin America, a policy known as “Operation Gatekeeper,” as aresponse to an influx of immigrants from the south. Among those deported weregang members and criminals with long histories of violence. As a solution,deportation failed because it became a simple matter of relocation as opposed torehabilitation, which would have deterred the perpetuation of deviance by theseindividuals. Furthermore, expansion of U.S. gang members into Latin Americaprovided an excellent opportunity to recruit new members from local, poor, andmarginalized Latin American youth. This opportunity also offered a wider accessto resources, such as arms and drugs, which ultimately paved the way tolucrative business ventures.In addition to deportation, the smuggling of illegal goods acrossinternational borders, as well as the unique use of technology for recruitment,have become the current core resource through which gangs have survived andexpanded globally. The Eighteenth Street and Mara Salvatrucha gangs havebeen regarded as experts when it comes to crossing international borders.According to an article by Stephen Johnson, there have been remarks of Al-Qaeda having met with gang members in order to converse about smugglingarms into the U.S. (Johnson, 2005, ¶11). Having such a valuable asset at theirreach, such as smuggling, it is no wonder the drug market is one of the mainsources through which gangs exist. It is not only a part of their culture, but it isalso a way for gangs to make money. For gangs, this lucrative businesstranslates into weapons and authority within neighborhoods. But moreimportantly, money allows for recruitment by way of traveling. Traveling outsideof their “turf” has allowed for rapid exponential growth. Lastly, expansion hasbecome much easier through the use of the Internet. Changing along with thetimes, these gangs have embraced new forms of communication. Through theWorld Wide Web, gangs interact with each other from the privacy of their ownhomes (Papachristos, 2005, ¶18). Using their own forms of cryptograms,members do not have to worry about government interception. Seeing how the formula for expansion is conceivable, it is essential torecognize how these gangs are interconnected. It is known that cliques of gangsare only a small part of the organization because they have been found to keepcontact with each other. Many times when members are incarcerated, they relaymessages with members form other countries. Also, there have been mentions ofmeeting between cliques. Generally, much of their ties can be seen through thetattoos. For example, members of