18th Street gang
multi-ethnic transnational criminal organization
The 18th Street Gang, also known as Eighteen St, Barrio 18, Mara 18, or simply 18 in North America, is a multi-ethnic (largely Mexican and Central American) street gang from Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest street gangs in Los Angeles, with 30,000–50,000 members between the United States, Mexico, and Central America. A United States Department of Justice report featured the following statement regarding 18th Street and rival gang MS-13: "These two gangs have turned the Central American northern triangle into the area with the highest homicide rate in the world".
History
The 18th Street Gang was formed in the Rampart District of Los Angeles in the 1960s by Mexican-Americans and other immigrant youths who were not accepted into existing Hispanic gangs, specifically Clanton 14. The Clanton 14 gang was composed of mostly Mexican Americans, and only accepted members of Mexican descent. Some members of Clanton 14 wanted to start a new clique called "Clanton 18th Street" and allow members of other ethnicities to join; however, this proposal was rejected by the Clanton 14, which led to the formation of the 18th Street Gang. The two gangs have been bitter rivals ever since.
18th Street grew by expanding its membership to other nationalities and races, and it was among the first multiracial, multi-ethnic gangs in Los Angeles. In the beginning, they were made up largely of second-generation Hispanics. As the 18th Street Gang began to battle with more established Hispanic gangs, they began to recruit outside the Hispanic community.
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This entry incorporates text from “18th Street gang” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.