White Gangsters in San Andreas

[Gecko]

Some bits in the topic are outdated such as where the Nazi Lowriders stand today (due to old sources). They are no longer a factor like they were in the 90s, they no longer exert control over other gangs, and they're no longer the "go to" gang for degenerate needle nazis to join. Peni Death Squad have not been considered "kids" (their leader is like 50-years-old now) for a long time now and are one of the few serious white gangs still left out there.

 

All the white gangs abide by the Aryan Brotherhood's word in one way or another. There have been gangs who received the AB's blessing to exist in the first place. There were gangs who have tried to defy them, but they had the greenlight placed on them at some point, like the Nazi Lowriders, United Society of Aryan Skinheads, and a few others. Operating while under a greenlight isn't a legitimate way to exist in the context of prison politics.

 

It's not the best representation to role play as a 16-year-old kid, because serious white gangs don't recruit kids. At least not since the punk rock gang days and tagbanger days. For example, members of Peni are adults, often in their 30s and 40s, who sometimes have kids of their own. It's better to role play as a young drug addict who gets sucked into the group's crime though his addiction and ends up in and out of prison. It's not kids from the neighborhood that join white gangs, it's junkie criminals from the area who rep the same thing in jail/prison.

 

With the disappearance of white neighborhoods from California, the decline of the punk rock scene, the downfall of movements like the White Aryan Resistance, and the subduing chokehold on gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood and Nazi Lowriders who are not what they were in the 70s and 90s respectively, the rise of sensitive needs yards, and the overall political correctness now, white gangs are a dying breed. The only thing that keeps spawning white gang members is the fact that if you're a drug addict criminal, they stick you in prison among gang members who divide themselves based on race, yet this isn't a model that creates camaraderie, just a social group for junkies on the yard and if they hit the street.

 

The county car thing is explained a bit confusing. A beach isn't a county, neither is a park, neither is Paleto Bay or another town. Peckerwoods don't only claim their neighborhood or city, they claim their whole county as well. That's who they ride with, hence county car. The only two counties in the game world are Los Santos County and Blaine County. Now, I don't know how you woodsters do it in-game, but someone wouldn't go to prison and exclusively claim only one specific neighborhood as a whiteboy, he'd also claim his entire county. A notable real life exception is the San Fernando Valley, which is a collection of towns north of Los Angeles, but they do it because they have the numbers to do so.

 

That white gangs are "blood in, blood out" thing is a bit over-exaggerated. The main pathway does in fact lead to prison or death (by drugs), but a lot of white gang members who don't want those two options instead take a path of sobriety and try to be law-abiding working class citizens so they can support their family. This is where some fail and others succeed, but no one will go after them if they want to stop shooting up heroin and "get out" of the negative lifestyle. Narcotics Anonymous has a lot of ex-convicts attending and you're not considered a dropout for trying to better yourself. Even Popeye from Peni preaches against heroin and helped people with staying sober.

 

Hispanics can't join white gangs if they identify as Hispanic and if they're Hispanic why would they claim otherwise? The genetics of White Americans are often mixed in various percentages between different European groups, as well as sometimes other races such as Hispanic/Latino or Native American. Most times even they themselves don't know in specifics what they are. Which is why the racial background of a person in a gang isn't scrutinized like they're going through eugenics. You need to identify as white to roll with a white gang whose politics tie around racial representation. So even if you look white but have the last name Hernandez, you're white, and you're about white power.

 

La Mirada Punks was a mixer clique of various races because they were created around the punk music scene of the 80s, they didn't originate with the idea that they were "peckerwoods" and any sort of prison politics came about later. Same was the deal with the Los Angeles Death Squad, Suicidals, Burbank Punk Organization, Circle One Family, and so on. Don't believe Wikipedia pages that tell you Sublime were some sort of peckerwood gangbangers. La Mirada Punks, decades later, is now a mostly white gang.

 

Around some point in the 90s, this became a problem for mixer cliques, and some of them had problems with it when they hit jail/prison, while others were forced to make a choice of what they are, which sometimes just happened as a natural progression. The Southside LADS in particular went through a weird change of being punk rockers, to gangbangers, to some branching off to do LADS 13/ESL 13, to others becoming skinheads and riding comrade in prison as Lethal Aryan Death Squad, to a now almost defunct gang (although some older members who always viewed themselves as just harmless punks may disagree with this narrative).

 

And also as a whole "Hispanics in White Gangs?" is a very insignificant subject in relation to white criminal gangs in California. What constitutes someone as a Hispanic? 10 percent part of their DNA? 25? 50? 100? Their name? It's the same thing when people always ask about "White Bloods in Prison" or "Russian Surenos" and things like that. It's an overly-discussed subject to that only catches someone's attention because it's a gimmicky "unique" thing when in reality it's a non-factor in the big picture.

 

There's other bits in the thread that stand out wrong or are outdated that I'll just group up here: blacks in peckerwood gangs (what), don't know if the 128-G form is still used maybe someone else can come correct on that, NLR running yards (source?), etc. I'm also curious about the post talking about whites who don't get down during riots. How does that work considering if another race jumps yours they only see the color of your skin, so how would they not get involved if they get jumped regardless?

Edited April 19, 2021 by Gecko

[Large Hazard]

45 minutes ago, Gecko said:

 I'm also curious about the post talking about whites who don't get down during riots. How does that work considering if another race jumps yours they only see the color of your skin, so how would they not get involved if they get jumped regardless?

Context is important for this. A lot of the riot stories I've heard sound like you could easily sit down straight away and not get involved, because unless the tension is obvious the defending race isn't grouped up together. You have to travel from wherever you might be (another area of the yard, the other side of the dorm etc.) to get involved and a fair few inmates don't - especially on lower level yards. Being jumped simply for belonging to a race which is involved in the riot is different, obviously you'd have no choice about it in those cases. I recommend you look up the YouTube channel Prison POV on this topic, he's a peckerwood who has a lot of riot stories. In most of them he tends to refer to there being a number of white guys who didn't get involved, and he makes a point to shout out the ones who went out of their way to participate.

 

I'll also add to the conversation on Hispanic members of white gangs - you're right, they're really not common enough to be a major point of discussion and choosing to roleplay one simply to be 'different' is always a bad idea (same goes for a lot of the other 'mixed race' characters). The issue is really quite simple - if you're culturally white (identify as white, consider yourself white), you're going to 'roll wood'.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Large Hazard

[Netsrac]

I'd say this thread is still a good intro into this world, for those who wish to learn more 

[Large Hazard]

Any detailed understanding of the prison-related subcultures requires personal experience and research. Threads like this are always a good starting point even if they're not 100% or all-inclusive.

[Thimble]

@Gecko

 

Not only do I fuck with that Gex avatar of yours but I do respect the hustle in trying to spread some knowledge when you believe you're right.

 

Can you share some of the sourcing on your claims? I'm genuinely curious from an educational standpoint, dont worry about the NLR parts tho I'm already aware of its modern day politics.

[Large Hazard]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWoJp5FsLQgLzPTHWeBri6A

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAK0Nbyfywebbdmox3jDmww

 

Two channels with excellent content. Not only educational but entertaining. The second one in particular is probably the best source I've ever come across for prison material, and honestly might never be beaten. Take a look at its contents and you'll see what I mean.

[Gecko]

On 8/25/2020 at 1:37 AM, Thimble said:

@Gecko

 

Not only do I fuck with that Gex avatar of yours but I do respect the hustle in trying to spread some knowledge when you believe you're right.

 

Can you share some of the sourcing on your claims? I'm genuinely curious from an educational standpoint, dont worry about the NLR parts tho I'm already aware of its modern day politics.

I don't know which specific ones you want a source to. There isn't an academic source to all of them, but instead word of mouth and, I don't know, a conclusion based on what you can gather on the internet or in real life based on gang members being out there.

 

Aryan Brotherhood (AB) put the greenlight on United Society of Aryan Skinheads (USAS) because the latter were trying to make a real white power movement and legit network of different skinhead chapters that didn't factor in the AB. They didn't want to take orders from prison gangs. The greenlight is talked about here, here, and here. You can never wipe out a gang but USAS seem to have died down a lot compared to what they were ten or more years ago, with solid chapters in various parts of California.

 

As far as the average age of white gang members, there isn't anyone making statistics on things like that, so that's more or less based on what you'd see out there. And you wouldn't see some 16-year-old member of Peni because the gang isn't a clique of teenagers like it was in their early-early years during the height of punk rock. There is simply no positive in having kids in your gang. You can't hit a bar with them and they can't earn their bones because they have school at 8 tomorrow. The only factor that now connects people to white gangs is drugs and being in the same social circle, as well as prison which is a breeding ground for recruitment. Back in the "old days" when you had a punk scene, the scene was breeding peewees into becoming "gang members" from a young age. One, the scene was violent and there were fights and stabbings; two, the scene imprinted the idea in people's mind that you need a group/clique to identify with and there's power in numbers; three, the gang lifestyle made a lot of things like crime not seem taboo. I'm not saying everyone from those days turned out to be a gangbanger, a lot of them lived a normal life, and didn't join any of those groups, but it certainly swung a lot of people in the wrong direction. Kids don't have a scene like that anymore and the only thing that indoctrinates them now is drugs->prison->prison gangs.

 

Basically, what I'm saying is, if you take your run of the mill peckerwood/skinhead gang from SoCal, and pull the average membership profile, it's not going to be just-turned 18-year-old kids loitering on the boardwalk. It's going to be grown ups that are at least a bit older than that. Just for reference, the last time I checked, the average age of an inmate in prison was 30. There are white juveniles of course, and less-serious groups running around, but that doesn't factor into the, I assume, more-serious white gangs we're talking about.

 

The "blood in, blood out" comment, is again, a conclusion based on what you see out there. Maybe the Aryan Brotherhood do that because of how the gang is structured, but it's not true for the rest of the white gangs. Here's the thing. None of them "drop out" on the outside. They just stop committing crime, because after awhile it gets tiresome to be in and out of prison, broke, living day to day. You just become inactive in the lifestyle. When you have a girl and a kid, most mature people see what's right for them. The gangs aren't structured in a way where you join and you're constantly ordered to do this and that. If you hit the streets and lose touch of people, nothing happens to you. If you stay connected and put yourself out there, one way or another, you can end up doing crime for a certain group. If you're staying sober and out of the mix, you're not going to be in trouble with the gang. But if you stay in the mix and are ordered to do something and you don't do it? Then you'd be in trouble. As an influential gang member, there's an art in finding ways to manipulate people to do things for you. It's a game in itself. Just look how the majority of the latest RICO indictment on the AB is just Renegade getting people to do dirty work for him. But those people were all in the mix in order for him to have the opportunity to.

 

To build up on the last paragraph and go a bit off-topic, killing someone is a very-last resort thing, and not black-and-white as people think. Most white gang members haven't killed anyone in their life and they probably won't. Murdering someone creates more trouble than it solves anything. There's dropouts out there, sex offenders, and such, with their whereabouts known, and no one that's active goes to hunt them. Why? Because the pat on the back isn't worth the life sentence when the police eventually find out. If your status is bad and you end up on the wrong yard or run into the wrong crowd on the street, it'll get nasty for you, but other than that you should be fine. I'll give you the example of Bouncer from Peni who dropped out in what, 2002, or something? He was put in the hat by his gang and spent the next decade testifying against gang members, talking about the gang on TV, still living in the OC, but yet, he didn't get got. In another case, Scottish was handled (even though what he did was less severe). It shows things aren't black-and-white as they seem. A lot of puzzles need to fall in place for things to happen the way they do.

 

When people realized that, a common method to get rid of "bad people" became to give them a "hotshot" and make them overdose. I'm guessing a lot of deaths in those circles which law enforcement attributes as "accidental overdose" are people in bad standing receiving a "hotshot". That practice is talked about in here.

 

As far as the early days of La Mirada Punks (LMP), there's a book that does it justice, called "Disco's Out, Murder's In". When a lot of those punk rock gangs started out, a lot of them had Hispanics, Asians, rarely even Blacks, but the scene was still predominantly White. It was about the punk rock scene and the members were all teenagers. None of them were "peckerwoods". Those politics only came to be later on when members, as adults, started going to prison. When the punk rock scene died, most of the punk rock gangs died off, the remaining ones evolved into real street gangs, which is what Peni did. Another good book from that period which focused on the Hollywood LADS and Kaos gang is "Safety In Numbers: My Journey with L.A. Punk Rock Gangs 1982-1992". I'll use Peni as an example of a gang that went through this transition. First it was an innocent clique of punk rock kids and looked something like this (notice the Peni on the brim), then they went through the gangbanging phase doing things like this, and when the punk scene died they went full skinhead with members doing time, and then cleaning up their image for the 2000s when their operations got more sophisticated. That's pretty much a similar path a lot of LMP and some LADS took.

 

About the 128-G form not being a thing anymore: I think it was a California correctional officer that mentioned it. So you can take his word for it if you'd like. It was a recent change. From what I remember, convicts get a package of different forms now, and two of them include their charges, so there still is paperwork being passed around, I think, just not the old 128-G form. I won't bore you with the names of all the paperwork forms in the package. When it comes to county cars, I don't think that needs sources since it's common knowledge. Some of the more known county cars in California prisons are the Inland Empire car (San Bernardino and Riverside), San Fernando Valley car (towns north of Los Angeles), Orange County car, Bakersfield/Kern County car, San Diego/Dago car, Modesto car, Contra Costa/Co Co county car, Sacramento county car, Fresno county car, and so on. Los Angeles county might get split into more than one car because they usually have a lot of people coming from all the areas there - Los Angeles, South Bay, Harbor Area/Long Beach, San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, Antelope Valley, but none of those are in GTA 5 with in-game equivalents (I think), except LA, so none of this matters. I just wanted to point out that one beach or park or place wouldn't be a whole car.

 

In regards to the riots and people not participating, yeah that makes sense. Prisons are bigger than people think and there are so many rooms and facilities to be at. Although, in a perfect world (or "perfect yard"), those people should be participating, and if they don't, they'll be dealt with. I'm only saying that because of stories of whites being stabbed because they decided to not do anything while they were some place else.

 

Now, I don't know how any of this translates into the game world, but it's something to talk about on here.

[Large Hazard]

128-G was replaced by something called a CI&I as far as I know. Same function, just an update. I'm not experienced enough in white criminal roleplay to comment on the rest.

[Netsrac]

@Gecko I love All this info you're sharing.

[Thimble]

@Gecko Interesting stuff, I was expecting more in the way of sourcing(many of the links you've provided already thrive in several of my personal documents on the subject) maybe even something anecdotal but you've still provided a fascinating interpretation certainly worth mulling over on the basis of general brainstorming. Thank you again, brother! I'll be following any future posting you do closely in regards to GTARP concepts.