Are Gang Initiations Seen As Rituals?

This paper explores the relationship between gangs and violence, arguing that violence within gangs, particularly in the context of initiation rites, is not only an action between the perpetrator and the victim. Gang initiation rituals, marked by violence and sexual assault, significantly impact society by increasing community safety concerns and youth recruitment, necessitating community engagement. Research shows that gangs and fraternities share many of the same characteristics, especially involving three general types of initiation: the ego violent event, the crime commission, and the expressive violence toward others.

Violent initiation rites directed at new members or potential members of an organization are not recent phenomena and are not exclusive to joining street gangs or crews. In gang initiations, such as “sexing-in”, prospective female gang members have sex with multiple male gang members, involving significant ritual, oaths, blood, and an agreement to follow the rules of the Mafia. Gang initiations are rituals or ceremonies that new members must undergo to gain acceptance into a gang, often involving demonstrating loyalty.

Initiation rites are comprised of pro-social behaviors that build social relationships, understanding, empathy, civility, altruism, and moral decision-making. Most initiation rituals combine elements of mysticism, fraternity initiation rites, and references to each group’s legendary origins. Membership in many gangs is acquired through initiation rituals that can include various forms of violence and deviance.

Do frats have initiations?

Initiation is a ritual that confers full membership upon those who have not yet been initiated. Interest groups are students who have registered as RCOs with the objective of becoming recognized fraternities or sororities. The central organization is the inter/national organization. In the context of Greek letter organizations, the term “legacy” is used to describe a student’s fraternal family.

What is hazing or initiation rituals?

Hazing, or initiation ceremonies, involve rituals, challenges, and activities involving harassment, abuse, or humiliation to initiate a person into a group. This practice is prevalent in various social groups, including gangs, sports teams, and schools. The initiation rites can range from harmless pranks to protracted behavior, including physical or psychological abuse, nudity, or sexual assault. Staff must be alert to such behavior and adhere to child protection and behavior policies.

What is the initiation ritual for ms13?

Mara Salvatrucha, a gang primarily composed of Salvadorans and Salvadoran Americans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, and other Central and South American migrants, is known for its violence and subcultural moral code. Many victims are minors, making up the majority of suspects arrested for killings attributed to MS-13. Members typically arrive in the United States from Central America as unaccompanied minors, leaving them at home and vulnerable to gang recruitment. Recruitment is often forced, with children recruited while traveling to school, church, or work. Incarcerated youth are usually impressed into a gang during their incarceration.

MS-13 members are impoverished young men and teenagers who subsist on minor drug dealing, theft, and extortion of street vendors and other small-time criminals. They use abandoned buildings in urban areas, known as “destroyers”, as places of residence and host clandestine meetings, parties, and drug deals. Gang members who are employed usually work in the construction, restaurant, delivery service, and landscaping industries, presenting false documentation to employers.

The gang is often public in its violence, with infanticide and femicide being common, with El Salvador hosting the third-highest femicide rate in the world. Legal impunity is a key factor, with only five cases resulting in convictions in femicide cases. Violent retributions target enemy gangs, gang members’ entire families, friends, and neighbors, and sometimes burn occupied passenger buses. Police officers, government officials, and community organizations are frequent targets, leading the Supreme Court of El Salvador to authorize the classification of gangs as terrorist organizations.

The cruelty of distinguished members of the “Maras” or “Mareros” has resulted in some being recruited by the Sinaloa Cartel battling against Los Zetas in the Mexican drug war. The FBI and U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have initiated wide-scale raids against known and suspected gang members, arresting hundreds across the United States. Officials state that the gang has ambitions to become a “national brand” with an organization to match the Mafia or Mexican drug cartels, and its membership has grown by several thousand in the last decade, with a presence in forty states.

What are rituals ceremonies?

Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. ( 4 ) They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages, funerals and more. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying ” hello ” may be termed as rituals.

The field of ritual studies has seen a number of conflicting definitions of the term. One given by Kyriakidis is that a ritual is an outsider’s or ” etic ” category for a set activity (or set of actions) that, to the outsider, seems irrational, non-contiguous, or illogical. The term can be used also by the insider or ” emic ” performer as an acknowledgement that this activity can be seen as such by the uninitiated onlooker. ( 5 )

In psychology, the term ritual is sometimes used in a technical sense for a repetitive behavior systematically used by a person to neutralize or prevent anxiety; it can be a symptom of obsessive–compulsive disorder but obsessive-compulsive ritualistic behaviors are generally isolated activities.

What is meant by initiation ceremony?

A ceremony can be defined as a formal event or process through which an individual becomes an official member of a group.

What are rituals in religions examples?

Water rites are ceremonial customs that use water as their central feature, often symbolizing religious indoctrination or ritual purification. Examples include the Mikveh in Judaism, misogi in Shinto, Wudu in Muslim rituals, baptism in Christianity, and Amrit Sanskar in Sikhism. These rites are not considered water rites if water is not their central feature, such as in the Church of All Worlds waterkin rite.

Fertility rites are religious rituals intended to stimulate reproduction in humans or the natural world, often involving the sacrifice of a primal animal. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz argued that political rituals construct power, as they depend on the ability of political actors to create rituals and the cosmic framework within which the social hierarchy headed by the king is perceived as natural and sacred. Comprehensive ritual systems may create a cosmological order that sets a ruler apart as a divine being, as seen in the divine right of European kings or the divine Japanese Emperor.

Political rituals can also emerge in the form of uncodified or codified conventions practiced by political officials that cement respect for the arrangements of an institution or role against the individual temporarily assuming it.

Why are initiation rituals necessary?

Teenagers face a significant developmental task of fitting in and being accepted socially by their peers. Initiation rites are crucial for meeting the needs of teenagers and the group, as they build relationships, understand the history and culture, and understand the group’s history. These rites are comprised of pro-social behaviors that build social relationships, empathy, civility, altruism, and moral decision-making. A survey showed that 98% of students, both girls and boys, reported involvement in at least one community-building initiation activity.

Half of the students reported only this type of initiation activity. Students were more likely to be involved in positive initiation rites and not hazing if they were female, had a higher GPA, did not know an adult who was hazed, or thought hazing was socially unacceptable. They were involved in sports, scholastic groups, music, art, or theater groups, or social organizations. Students understood the importance of community-building activities to initiate new members, and by a three-to-one margin, they responded with community-building activities when asked about activities not listed on the survey form.

What is the initiation ritual of the Yakuza?

Yakuza organizations in Japan have a hierarchical structure similar to a family, with new recruits referred to as kobun (child) and subordinated to oyabun (father). The kobun-oyabun link is cemented in the ritual of sakazukigoto, where they drink sake, a Japanese rice wine, and oyabun fills his glass to the brim, signifying his position of authority. Pachinko parlors, a legalized form of arcade game-based gambling, are a $300 billion industry in Japan, with over 13, 000 parlors. The highest concentration is in Kyushu, where most jobless ronins used to live, and where the first well-known yakuza groups emerged in the 1800s.

Jake Adelstein, a yakuza expert, recently covered an extensive news story about yakuza, highlighting that in Japan, “the yakuza” is an umbrella term for over 20 different mafia groups, each with their own corporate logo, history, and office buildings. The major bosses are known to the public, and many members also pay taxes. Most bosses forbid their underlings from engaging in petty theft, robbery, and common street crimes, projecting the image that yakuza help keep the peace.

Some yakuza organizations have legitimate front companies, such as restaurants, real-estate agencies, and cryptocurrency exchanges. Although police are quick to bust them on any charges since 2011, they don’t seem inclined to obliterate them.

What is considered a religious ritual?

Religious rituals are repetitive and patterned behaviors that are prescribed by a religious institution, belief, or custom, often with the intention of communicating with a deity or supernatural power. They can be performed individually or collectively, elicited by events, or performed sporadically. Rituals are an important aspect of religion as they allow believers to express and reaffirm their belief systems.

One of the primary purposes of rituals is communication, conveying information about the commitments, beliefs, and values of the individuals performing the ritual and linking them to the institution. A six-year follow-up study found that private religious activity may prolong survival.

What are the most common hazing rituals?

In 2008, a National Study revealed that 73 students in social fraternities and sororities experienced behaviors that met the definition of hazing to join or maintain their group membership. The most common hazing behaviors included participating in a drinking game, singing or chanting in public in a situation not related to the group, drinking large amounts of alcohol to the point of getting sick or passing out, being awakened at night by other members, and being yelled, screamed, or cursed at by other members.

In varsity athletics programs, the most common hazing behaviors included participating in a drinking game, singing or chanting in public, drinking large amounts of non-alcoholic beverages, drinking large amounts of alcohol to the point of getting sick or passing out, and being screamed, yelled, or cursed at by other members.

Are there females in MS-13?

Previously, women were barred from joining the notorious MS-13 gang in the United States. However, they are now actively being recruited and rising in the ranks. This trend is fueled by various factors such as drugs, police, murder, prison, guns, cocaine, and social media. The documentary “Vice World News LF” highlights the ongoing issue of women joining the gang and its impact on society.