The four cities we studied – Albuquerque, Inglewood, Las Vegas, and Phoenix – are located in the Southwestern United States, where gangs have been predominately comprised of Mexican Americans and Mexican Nationals. This differentiates our research from that conducted in communities where the character of the gang problem has been substantially African American (New York, Chicago) or Asian (San Francisco, Seattle). In this chapter, we describe the context of gangs and their activity, identify characteristics of area gangs and gang members, and explain the historical police response to the gang problem, in each of the four cities.

We examined gang behavior within an historical context in order to determine how communities and police have perceived it over time. In describing how police have responded to gangs historically, we focused on the organizational and environmental factors that influenced their responses, and the conditions that ultimately gave rise to each department's gang unit.

INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA

Of our four sites, Inglewood was the first to have developed a gang problem.