According to the Denver Post, President Obama declared the street gang MS-13 a international crime group on October 12, 2012. It is believed that the declaration was an attempt by the United States to recover the millions of dollars in profits from both drug and human trafficking committed by the gang. The gang is notoriously violent, known for such crimes as mutilating victims with machetes and killing others in broad daylight. Members have been convicted for stabbing a pregnant seventeen year old in Virginia, and for shooting three people in a schoolyard in New Jersey. The Mara Salvatrucha-13 gang is an international force, built by immigrants to Los Angeles fleeing El Salvador. The founders of the gang had lived through brutal combat, due to the civil war in El Salvador, and used this to create one of the most violent gangs in the USA. The gang has now expanded encompassing forty-six states, and containing over ten thousand members. It has a large presence in Northern Virginia, Southern California, Central America and members have even been reported in Europe. The gang often targets businesses for the purpose of extortion, and by labeling them an international crime group the US hopes to prevent the gang from sending money back to leaders in El Salvador and from laundering criminal profits from legitimate enterprises. Several experts on drug cartels and gangs believe that the tactic may prevent some of the problems in the United States, but with the thousands of members outside the US and around the world, the gang will not likely be slowed.
The article was very coherently written and easy to understand. It had a nice flow of presenting both facts on the gang and what was being done by the United States to try and stop them. The facts presented were very enlightening, and opened my eyes to problems in this country that I had no idea existed. The article also explained that while the United States has labeled MS-13 an international crime group in attempts to slow or stop the flow of money to El Salvador, this will not help the problems caused by the gang worldwide and the money flowing from other locations. It did not, however, go on to explain what exactly could be done by the US or other countries to continue to deter the gang. The article ended somewhat abruptly, and did not go on to fully explain future steps.
10/18/12 11:28 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment