Gang Intelligence Manual: Identifying and Understanding Modern-Day Violent Gangs in the United States.

Gang Intelligence Manual: Identifying and Understanding Modern-Day Violent Gangs in the United States by Bill Valentine, published by Paladin Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1995.

With the proliferation of gangs across the nation, ironically amid a declining crime rate, the Gang Intelligence Manual is a welcome and useful tool for law enforcement officers. Written in clear, concise, and plain language, the book takes readers through the basics for understanding the makeup of a gang into an in-depth view of a variety of gangs now plaguing the United States. These gangs are both on the streets and behind prison walls. The author analyzes their activities, migration, and motivations.

The author, an 18-year veteran of the Nevada Department of Corrections, has compiled a realistic, fact-filled book. It represents a valuable piece of literature for every member of the law enforcement community involved in gang-related work and makes a great reference manual of gang signs, symbols, and terms for parents and citizens to use to identify the presence of gangs in their communities.

The Gang Intelligence Manual provides an in-depth look at the nation's fastest-spreading gang problem--Bloods and Grips--while showing their significance to the crack-cocaine trade and the effect they had on the communities in which they settled. This book also provides a comprehensive list and analysis of a variety of gangs--including the Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings, Asian gangs, Jamaican Posses, Hell's Angels--as well as other ethnic and racist gangs. The author even explores the historical emergence of the Colombian cartels within and affecting the United States and offers an overview of their basic operations.

The book continually reinforces factors leading to gang violence and denotes how incidents of disrespect lead to repercussions of violence even when gang members are wrong. Just one single incident of disrespect can lead to violence and death.

The Gang Intelligence Manual demonstrates how gangs gain strongholds, spread their business, and increase membership while incarcerated and interacting with fellow inmates. For example, the author discusses Carlos RivasLederer's contact with a small-time marijuana dealer, George Jung, in a federal prison in Connecticut. This shows how gangs, in jail, gain confidants, future business partners, and recruits. It also points out how gangs can spread across the country through prison incarceration in other areas.

The information in this book provides an important framework of gang interdiction programs. The author has compiled a comprehensive guide that everyone can use, and many law enforcement officers will wholeheartedly agree with his statement "...gangs are a national epidemic and can only be solved by a combined effort of all citizens...."