The El Salvadorian civil war in the early 1980s lasted nearly twelve years, left roughly 100,000 people killed, and was responsible for more than one million people fleeing from El Salvador to the United States. Many of these refugees had ties with violent local street gangs, including the La Mara, and also with a paramilitary group referred to as Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMNL). The adjoined group, now referring to themselves as the Mara Salvatrucha gang, initially only accepted memberships from other fellow Salvadorians. Now the Mara Salvatrucha gang accepts members from Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and also a few African American members. While the gang had mainly relocated into Southern California, its members now extend into states all across the US to include Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia, Georgia and Florida.
Unique to this particular gang, is the fact that they uphold their ties with the gang members who still reside in El Salvador. From this communication, the El Salvadorian gangs are able to more easily gain access to military-style weapons, including grenades and the M-16 rifle. El Salvadorians also have difficulty in obtaining smaller handguns, creating a high demand for these weapons here in the US. This demand has gotten so out of control that the gang members are now accepting handguns as payment for drug transactions. Along with providing weapons to the El Salvadorian gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha also lines the streets with stolen cars. Approximately eighty percent of the cars in the area were stolen in the United States. These cars are also taken as payment for various drug deals. These violent gang members rarely ever turn down opportunities to commit crimes. Mara Salvatrucha members admit to committing a myriad of crimes, including invasion robberies, extortion, murder, rape, witness intimidation, and drug smuggling of cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine. These crimes are committed on a daily basis and are the basis for which this gang is able to fully operate.
When evaluating the efforts of the local law enforcement in the Southern California region to regulate the vicious gang’s activities, one might conclude that the gang is the victor. Some law enforcement officers have even been said to be intimidated by the group, while others mention that the group completely disregards all officers as any source of legitimate power or authority. There are only two main courses of action for the Mara Salvatrucha gang members: incarceration or deportation. While both methods temporarily seem to suppress the members’ crime activities, they are exactly that – temporary. Once out of custody or once back in the States, these delinquents quickly return to their routine behavior. There is no telling when, or even if the violent crimes committed by the Mara Salvatrucha gang members will ever fully be contained.
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