I was totally ready to call it a week, but then I ran across something that I just had to post on.
You see, a little over twenty years ago N.W.A. gave many of us, myself included, our first insights into what life was like as a gang member in songs like “Gangsta Gangsta” — a life filled with violence, crime and drugs.
But now, according to a new FBI report, urban gangs have hilariously and astutely taken note of the low risk, high reward nature of financial crimes and are moving away from stuff like drug dealing and car thieving. Because as anyone who’s been paying attention in America over the past few years knows, white collar crime is where it’s at! Additionally, the FBI says that gang membership is on the rise, thanks to online recruitment tools like Facebook and YouTube.
Gangs like the Bloods and the Crips are engaging in crimes, such as identity theft, counterfeiting, selling stolen goods and even bank, credit card and mortgage fraud, said a new FBI gangs threat assessment.
“We’ve seen it, but we’ve seen them doing it even more now and we attribute to the fact that the likelihood of being caught is less, the sentences once you are caught are less, and the actual monetary gain is much higher,” said Diedre Butler, a unit chief at the National Gang Intelligence Center.
In 2009, the FBI estimated there were 1 million gang members. It attributes some of the 40 percent increase since then to more comprehensive reporting by law enforcement agencies.
Agency officials said they were unable to determine exactly how many new gang members there were now since the last estimate, but that such membership was indeed on the rise.
Gangs are using social media such as Facebook and YouTube to recruit members and communicate, as well as posting photos of their lifestyle to present a tough image, the assessment said.
“It may stoke the curiosity of someone in the community and so that is kind of a recruitment tool because now people may see this video and think that’s kind of sort of cool,” said Calvin Shivers, a section chief in the FBI’s gang unit.
HA! Maybe now we’ll finally see some serious cracking down on financial crimes if young black kids are committing them?!
Anyway, y’all have a wonderful weekend. Here’s a little N.W.A. to help you kick it off…
