Misdemeanor in The Armed Forces

The FBI announces that there are from one to two percent gang’s members infiltrated in the U.S. military forces because some of them have used a fake document to get in. Many applicants have committed crimes in young ages, making impossible for a criminal background investigation, because their criminal record will be sealed and not available anymore to open it once they become adults. We all can see when a person is a gang member, because they normally have tattoos and criminal records, but is impossible for military recruiters to recognize who is a member of a gang when they don’t have any signal. Every military has a training for the situation the use of guns, tactical situation and war moments, but they do not have training for situations where they must recognize if the member who is joining the branch is a gangster or not.

Per the Federal Bureau of Investigation, more than 1.4 million gang members are in the US having increase of 40 percent since the year 2009, which many of them are in the military. In every domestic and international military installation, have been found street, prison and motorcycle gang members from every region, which still increasing in negative ways, dated in 2007. Per National Gang Threat Assessment (NGIC) and Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI), more than 53 gang members are in active duty in the armed forces. The United States military takes people who have not serious crimes, it is called a misdemeanor. According to Boris Kogan 2010, who was in the military for more than 8 years said, that while he was in military he saw many people who had affiliation with a type of gang which used to deal drugs outside of the military. Some of the gang’s names that there are more notable and recognized in military installation would be The Crips. Bloods, Hells Angels, Black Disciplines, Latin King, the 18th Street Gang, Mexican Mafia, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Vice Lord, etc. The Criminal Investigation Command in the Army (CID) stated that all the gangs that are found in the Army have variation because each time there are new gang names that are found in the Armed Forces, having new challenges for the armed forces to detect and prosecute them. The FBI has a believe that gang members join the military life because they want to escape from the gang environment where they are living. Some gang members enlist the armed forces to support weapons and explosives to other troops in the same branch in a moment of the war. So, the alternative for them is to choose that or being in the street ending in prisons or even worse dead in gang’s confrontations, because they don’t have other experience that just being a gang member. Few of them change their lives after being inside of the military forces for some years, because they see that there are other better things that they can do for a living, and not just being in streets doing negative things ending in prisons or death.

The main issue for law enforcement is that gang member who is joining the armed forces, once they complete their time or have a reason to get discharge, they will become too dangerous for the public safety because they will be doing things not just in low profile, they will be doing negative things in high scales such as robberies, drug distribution, weapons offenses, homicides, assaults, theft, and burglaries, doing all of those crimes with sophisticated in their negative tactics and being more resistant in moment of fight methods with the law enforcement . Gang members who were in the military for years have training for being sophisticated and organized, which means that law enforcement will not be dealing with just a regular gang member, they will be dealing with gang members who have military training with experience in combat and the knowledge of how to use machine guns, grenades, etc. These types of people in many cases are the principal providers of illegal drugs in the United States because they always work with organized criminal entities. The other problems for law enforcement is that gang member who joins the armed forces, may be easier to steal or get any type of guns and explosives because they will bring those weapons to the street where they came from, making the job for law enforcement more difficult to control. The way that they steal is with fake documentation, asking for the supply of guns for other members. Gang members who have access to machine guns become a strong enemy to the law enforcement who patrol the US streets and making communities vulnerable. Many officials say that many weapons who were stolen from a member who used to be in the military were recovered. The types of guns that were recovered were machine gangs, explosives, long distance rifles or sniper gun, and other militaries supplies. They way that they got all those weapons back were: in routine traffic stops, search warrant, undercover, etc.

Anti-gang initiatives are what the FBI is doing in some countries. The gang that are more recognized such as Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and the 18 street which the FBI wants to decrease these two gangs. These two gangs are from countries in Central America which are El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. The FBI wants to use intelligence investigations with partnerships such as Safe Streets Task Forces, Transnational Anti-Gang Task Forces, and the National Gang Intelligence. In 2005 the FBI and the director of the Congress created the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC), in order the help anything related to gangs committing criminal activity. The NGIC is integrated with people from local, state, and federal law enforcement to defend any significant threat to the United States. The target of the NGIC is to support the law enforcement by giving information about what they have to prior intelligence analysis for future investigations. NGIC sharing information with law enforcement will help to identify which gang represents more danger to the nation and depending on it, law enforcement will be more focuses on the gang. The 18th Street and the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) are the most notorious gang that now represent dangerous for the United States because they are getting bigger expanding in every state with more members having younger people than before. The mission of the TAG Force program is to be the focus in the dismantling of transnational gangs in Central America because these countries are where most notorious gang’s member coming from. In their respective countries where gangs are the main crime, the TAG Forces have members from FBI who gives training to the Policia Nacional Civil (PNC) to ensure that they will be doing very a satisfactory job, which is to decrease gangs that commit crimes. The agent who is in the FBI and are assigned to the TAG Forces also work in international investigations targeting specific gangs.

Since 2004 in Texas a town called El Paso, the police and the FBI found more than 50 militaries who were involved with gang activities such as homicide, weapon offenses, assaults, robberies, drug distributions, domestic disturbance, vandalism, extortion, and money laundering. Committing these types while they were completing time in the army. The military installation where all these types of people were at Fort Bliss base. Another example where than in 2015 more gang members were found was in the base of Fort Lewis in Washington, where more than 130 militaries personal had some influences with gang activities. Probably many of these issues are happening because many military data are not incorporated into the Uniform Crime Report (UCR).

In 2005 a person who was in the army was assigned to the United States Army Finance Battalion which later discharged for his behavior who had a misconduct with others. Later he was an investigation of his behavior, which with further investigations they found that he was engaged with drug distribution while he was serving in the Army. Per National Gang Intelligence (NGIC), Criminal Investigation Command (CID) of the Army, crime increased related to gangs. Reports show that incidents and felonies were related to gang member with several 183-people involved with it from 2003 and 2007, showing how gang activity is increasing in the armed forces. It is more than three-quarters of many incidents which were reported in 2006 and 2017. For these types of people, the way to prosecute is with military justice, which they oversee any illegally things inside of the branch. To promote efficiency in the military establishment, The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) authorizes ways of punishments and empowers for people who are doing or did gangs activities inside or outside while the person was enlisted.