I have to say, the most interesting takeaway from this chapter was about how technology has influenced the rise and regrowth of gang culture. Technology is so often heralded as the hallmark of globalization or how people all over the world can connect, but there really is a dark side to all that connection. It isn’t just about meeting the wrong person on Omegle. It’s things like how ISIS mainly recruited between 2013 and 2015 from sites like Twitter and Facebook. And it extends to gang membership as well.

It’s fascinating how gangs are going more underground now because of the internet. The internet allows for subtlety in public and loud advertisement online. It seems, however, that that would be easier to track. Especially since gangs usually don’t come with IT personnel built in. I’m not really sure how the internet protects gang anonymity more than being on the streets does, except that you can’t really grab a gang member virtually. I would like to read up more on that, because I know that many ISIS members have been caught that way and how can secret signs be transmitted online when they’re public for the most part? The internet is even more public than just graffitiing something because it can reach so many people.

Speaking of people, the “consumers” of this gang culture now have a different skill set to cultivate. The way that gang evolution is described in this chapter is almost like changing trends in business. It’s strange how now gangs have adapted to switch to crimes that police are less likely to go after, like human trafficking. In fact, it seems like that’s a huge area of growth for gang activity. While usually one thinks of foreigners from countries with less gender equality being those to traffick women and girls, now it seems to be homegrown gangs that will do this as well. And to diversify their income? That sounds so mundane for something that’s a lot more long term than merely shooting someone or robbing a store. Human trafficking changes lives irrevocably, and it involves many moving parts. It seems fairly complicated, and perhaps not something that the youth-focused “street gangs” are up to.

Local human trafficking is hardly ever talked about- so often it’s the trafficking of foreign girls who are coerced into coming to the States, but now it appears that it can be local American citizens as well, and that’s the majority of what it is for the gangs that participate in or propagate human trafficking.

Violence is still the “language” of gangs, and that participates in the destabilization of urban areas. Control over violence is what gives a governing body authority, and in cities where gangs control territory it is hard to feel protected by cops or politicians. Until the proliferation of violence can be effectively controlled, I don’t believe gangs can be eradicated or even diminished much.

The human trafficking aspect is really frightening, though. People think of sex slaves as foreign Ukrainian women who can’t speak English, not girls from the neighborhood who walk down the wrong street at night. That definitely needs to be a law enforcement priority.