In this interview, we explore the world of gang culture, a world that for many remains unfamiliar or sensationalized. Through the lens of David Spivey, a former Crip member born in Los Angeles, we examine not only what it means to be a gang member, from initiation rituals to territorial control, but also how one’s journey toward change can begin.
Before we dive into your personal story, I think it’s important to clarify the concept of gangs, as many people in Italy may not be familiar with them. While there are smaller youth gangs in cities like Milan, they are very different from gangs in the U.S. For instance, the members are typically 15 to 17 years old and they mostly commit minor offences. Additionally, some people may even confuse gangs with the mafia, but they are two distinct forms of organized crime. The mafia is family-based, while gangs are typically street-based, from what I understand. So, could you explain how a gang works? Is there a set of values or beliefs that members must follow?
I’ll break it down like this: there’s a lot of similarities between gangs in the U.S. and the mafia. A lot of people in gangs are infatuated with the mafia. There’s a lot of gang members that have nicknames that are based [on the mafia]. We have people named Capone, there’s people named Bugsy. Gangs in the U.S. believe in omertà too but it’s not so much as “we don’t speak about the Crips, so nobody knows about the Crips”. We don’t believe in snitching. You can’t snitch. A snitch is a bad, bad thing. In the U.S., particularly Los Angeles, a lot of gangs are kind of family-based because a lot of people come from broken homes. Also, if my brother is from the neighborhood, I’m gonna join the neighborhood. Some neighborhoods have generations of gang members.
So, you are also influenced by your friends and family?
I’m not going to say it’s like a short-shot thing. In the mafia, if you have a father that’s a made man, nine times out of, well, nine and a half times out of 10, you’re going to join the mafia as well. But that’s similar. A lot of people join gangs because they got an older brother, a cousin, a father or a mother that’s from the neighborhood. That’s all they’ve known their whole life. So they end up joining the gangs as well.
How do you join a gang? Is there a recruitment process, or if you want to join, you are in?
No, we have initiations. Sometimes it’s two people who jump you in (“beat you”). Sometimes it’s three. In some gangs five people may jump you. [There might be] two, three or five rounds. Seven people may jump again. They call it a “seven-man”. It just depends on how that gang is set up and what the architecture of the neighborhood is like.
Do gangs target a specific type of person to recruit?
My personal opinion is that most gangs, they might not flat out say it, but the best people to recruit are [those] from broken homes.
How do gangs control the territory and divide the city, Los Angeles in this case?
I’m not old enough to know when gangs first started, but people have set neighborhoods. Violence is going to always be the key. It started off with fist fights. In the 70s, guys would meet up and fist fight and then, in the 80s, they would start using knives and guns. It’s always been [about] who’s the most violent. You have gangs that no longer exist because they weren’t strong enough to battle the gang that opposed them, and so that gang took their neighborhood over and they expanded. You use violence. Also drugs. When you make money, you can recruit more people. You got more people spread out. So now, you can’t come on this side of the neighborhood because we got people over there and they will kill you.
On that note, I wanted to ask you about the old feud between the two main rival groups, the Crips and the Bloods. Do you know how and why the fight started?
Well, I’m not old enough to truly know why it started. But all I’ll say is this: if you have two different factions, at some point they’re bound to get into a fight. They’re bound to push to see who’s the strongest. It’s just like religion. You have Christians, you have Jews, you have Muslims. Everybody’s fighting to say they are number one. That’s the same thing with the Crips and the Bloods.
Gangs were initially founded to protect young people from the violence of their neighborhood. However, this is also the same reason why young people and men join gangs: protection. Why did you decide to join the Crips? Was there a specific event that made you take the final step?
Prior to me actually [joining] a gang, I was vehemently against it. But then I ended up getting into a confrontation with this one guy. He wanted to fight me, and little did he know, I was training to be a boxer and doing martial arts. Once he realized that I wasn’t scared, he went back to a little area and I knew he was getting a gun so I left. I got tired of walking around my own neighborhood, ducking and dodging and hoping I wouldn’t see him. So, ashamedly, I went to an OG Crip from my neighborhood and I said, “Hey there’s a guy that’s trying to kill me. Do you have a gun that I can use so that I can kill this guy?”. And he was like, “You’re going to be with me”. So that’s what happened. I ended up hanging out with him and getting jumped in my neighborhood.
Do you think your surroundings, the way you grew up, conditioned you?
Definitely believe so because I grew up in the 90s, in what was known as South Central Los Angeles at the time, and it was a heavy gang culture. You saw gangs everywhere. I believed the only way to survive was to join them or they would get you. Now, as an adult, I see how idiotic that was because everybody from Los Angeles didn’t join the gang. They survived. But as a child, I had warped beliefs. Either you are going to join, or you are going to be the prey. Seeing it so much, seeing it everywhere, it’s normal. Everybody joins the gang.
For how long were you in the gang?
I will say, maybe, 18 or 19 years.
And while you were an active member, did you find what you were looking for? Did you feel safer?
Definitely. I did feel a lot safer when I joined my neighborhood. Because now I got somebody that got my bag. My mom had three kids. My oldest brother died [and then] I was the oldest and I always used to say that I didn’t have anybody that I could run to. So now I have my homies.
But you are not a member anymore. Can you tell us when and why you left the gang? Was there a specific moment, a turning point?
When I went to prison. […] My mother passed away from Lupus and I remember sitting by myself, crying, and saying to myself, “You missed out on your mother’s last years on this earth because of something that didn’t even really matter, because you went to jail”. Before you go to jail, you have all these enemies, then you go to jail and you can’t do the same thing to people that you were doing on the outside. All I did was get a life sentence. That’s all the “hard work” I’ve done or believe that I was doing. It didn’t manifest into nothing. So I was telling myself, “I need to change”. Whenever I talk about my prior life, I always tell people my million dollar idea got me in prison. So I just started to embark on a journey of change because I’m like, this can’t be what it is. Then, a year after that, my brother was murdered. He got shot and he eventually died from gunshot wounds. And I said to myself, “David, you set the worst example that you probably could for your brother. Your brother loved you and this is what you did to him. You led him to his own death”. So I had to change. My thinking was bad. I needed to figure out a new way of thinking.
When you left the gang in prison, did you face some risks or was it a smooth process?
For me, it was very smooth. I know there’ve been a lot of cases where guys were beaten but I was definitely serious. I was very serious about what I was doing. I had a reputation for fighting. I was a leader. So, I called a meeting and I just told all my homies that I had to do this for me. I couldn’t keep risking my freedom because I wanted to go home and I had to put in the work to go home. A lot of guys had the utmost respect for me.
How did your gang affiliation affect your prison experience? Was it an advantage or did it also provide some challenges?
I would say it was a little bit of both. The neighborhood I belonged to was a top-ranked Crip gang in prison. They had a lot of respect amongst the Crips. But also it was very challenging as well because, in prison, you have allies. My neighborhood had many allies, and you’re expected to help out allies in certain instances of violence and things of that nature. Just being a gang member, no matter what neighborhood you’re from, it’s going to create a challenge because you can get into trouble for something that you didn’t even do. One guy gets into it with another guy on a basketball court or he owes another guy some money. I can get in trouble and I was minding my own business. Or if your homie is doing something wrong, you might have to discipline them. I would have to beat somebody up and get in trouble just because he was not handling it the way he should have.
So gangs are still influential in prisons.
Oh, without a shadow of a doubt, especially in California. California prisons are predominantly gang-based.
Can you tell us about your sentence? What were you convicted for?
I was convicted for first-degree murder with gang enhancement, student-occupied dwelling with gang enhancement and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder with gang enhancement. I was also charged with an extra charge of attempted murder with a gang enhancement. I was found not guilty on that but I got found guilty on all the other charges and I eventually got 100 years to life. My lawyer made a motion and they dropped it to 65 to life. Then I’ve appealed. They took the 65 off and made it 58 to life. Through hard work and dedication, the governor of California, Jerry Brown, gave me a commutation and reduced my sentence from 58 to life to 15 to life.
During your sentence, was there something that helped you in your journey to change? Some prisoners find solace in art programs, faith or they go back to school/college. Was this your experience?
Definitely. God was very big in my life. Once I started growing my relationship with God, it gave me strength, and it also helped take a lot of my cloudy thinking away. I’ll also credit self-help groups and educational programs like college. Also learning vocational skills was very helpful because [now] I’m doing things I never thought I would do.
What kind of things?
I have certification in masonry. I have certification in painting, building technologies, and alcohol and drug studies. Those things expanded my mind.
Once you got out of prison, how did you rebuild your life? What were the biggest challenges?
I went to jail at 17 and my adult life was in prison. So, the biggest challenge was learning how to become an adult outside of prison, like learning time management and learning how to budget your money.
What advice would you give to young people who are thinking about joining a gang or resorting to violence in general?
Don’t use your youth to your detriment, use it to your benefit. Right now, you have a clean slate in life. Right now, the sky’s the limit. The moment you join the gang, you will shorten your life, you will shorten your view, you will shorten your horizon.The effort and the energy that you would put into that, why not put it into yourself? Don’t wait till you have to do 15 or 20 or 30 years in prison. At the end of the day, anybody who has any common sense will tell you it’s not worth it. Right now, I can’t get certain jobs because of my criminal background. Don’t shortchange yourself. Be your best investment. Put it all into you. Put that energy into yourself. Don’t put it into something or somebody or some group of people who, at the end of the day, when you die, will forget you, and when you go to jail will abandon you.
Finally, in your opinion, what can the state or institutions do to prevent violent crimes?
Education is number one. [But] I believe that it should be an equal education. I don’t believe that if you come from a low-income family, you should be less educated than somebody who comes from a wealthy family because they can go to a private school. [With] equal education, we have the same kids, no matter what neighborhood or socioeconomic status they have or belong to. They are learning the same things and learning how to better themselves. Also, after-school programs. If the kids do not have after-school programs, they’re going to find something to get into. I know that in the United States, there are a lot of cities, states and counties where there’s literally nothing for these kids to do when they get out of school, and a lot of these kids are coming from single or working-parent households. So, when the parents are gone, or one parent’s gone, they have to walk past these gang members on a regular basis. They see these guys with nice cars and jewelry, all their money and all the women. That’s enticing. How about we start educating the kids better and giving them some outlets for after school? How about we start bringing back theater? How about we have long classes for kids, things that will expand their mind and allow them to be able to think of this? The more you learn, the bigger your horizons, because now you’re able to think in so many different aspects.
di Giulia Galassi
