Gangs and their use of Social Networking Sites

Since the rise of social networking websites like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and a host of others school officers and parents have been struggling to protect their children . What are the risk? Sexual predators, drug and alcohol use and the teen desire to carve out a persona free from their parents watchful eyes.

The main risk for young people is still the massive amount of personal information that they post on these sites. That information can lead to someone conducting a Goggle or Zabasearch or paying for a search to quickly locate someone from the information they provided. In many cases the searcher doesn’t even have to do that. All the information is already present including names, birth dates, school names, ages, telephone numbers and in all cases a picture of the person.

But like all new technologies street gangs are now starting to exploit social networks as well. Posting boasts, put downs, networking with other gang members locally and nationally as well.

A cursory look at several sites found one member of the Maniac Latin Disciples look for information on a rival gang member by nickname. Within a day another person posted the rivals full name, address where he works and the car he drives. One can only wonder what will happen now that the rival has that information. 
Gang members are posting pictures of themselves with firearms, drugs, using drugs and most importantly interacting with gang members, non gang members and associates electronically.

Gang investigators should take note of this and began spending a bit of time looking for local gang members and viewing their blogs and posts to see if any incidents are related to recent incidents in their community. The intelligence factor relating to this alone makes it a worthwhile venture.A recent article about street gangs and facebook only highlights this issue.


In one documented case an investigator in Atlanta had an unsolved homicide that was suspected gang related and while looking through several Myspace sites of known gang members he came across a picture of a gun, broken down.

The investigator was able to read the serial number off of the high quality digital picture and traced the gun to a gun shop. Their records showed it was purchased by a known gang member with no criminal record.

The same gang member who had to gun up on his site, and coincidentally the same caliber firearm used in the shooting. A search warrant was obtained and the gun was located. Ballistic tests linked it conclusively to the homicide.

These type of examples are typical of what an investigator might expect to locate by keeping track of these sites. By being vigilant the intelligence gained can be invaluable to any law enforcement organization.