MS13 Gangsters Use Guns, Money & Marginalization to Turn Teenagers Into Killers Tom Porter - Newsweek
go to original May 28, 2017

MS-13: America's Most Dangerous Street Gang? (CNN)

Notorious for their elaborate tattoos and penchant for extreme violence, MS13 has long targeted minors for recruitment. In Central America - its center of operations - the gang forcibly recruits young people. Indeed, most of the 5,300 children and teens murdered in El Salvador between 2011 and 2015 members of criminal organizations, according to Unicef.

Hundreds of unaccompanied minors who have fled the violence in Central America find themselves again targeted for recruitment by MS13 once they enter the U.S., a factor believed to be partly responsible for mounting gang violence.

In Long Island there is such fear of MS13 that parents are reportedly withdrawing their children from high schools, terrified they could be recruited into the gang.

Reyes Rivas’s gang involvement started in middle school, her mother told a local radio station, although Northern Virginia Regional Task Force Director Jay Lanham added that recruitment can begin as early as the fifth grade.

"I can't give you the name of the schools in Northern Virginia area and primarily in the areas where there is a heavy population, a Latino [population], because that's who they tend to prey on,” Lanham said.

“We can't arrest our way out of the problem,” he added. “I mean, everyone has to be involved and it starts with the parents."

Law enforcement officials told the station in February that vulnerable youths are often befriended by the gang on social media, and lured into becoming members. Gangsters will show off their money, weapons and lifestyles in social media postings, and taunt rivals.

It is not just MS13 that targets children and adolescents for recruitment. The National Institute of Justice has said the majority of people who join gangs do so between the ages of 11 and 15.

Read the rest at Newsweek

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