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Is their anywhere I can research how gangs recruit new members in this case?

H

harmonica44

For my story I want an undercover cop, to join a gang, so he can infiltrate it.

However, in doing research I cannot find anyways to join a gang. So far I can only find cases, where youths join, but scenarios in which youths are drafted into gangs (through school related examples), are very different compared to how an adult would be.

I have found a lot of real life stories, of police infiltrating gangs. In my story, I want a cop to infiltrate but I do not want him knowing who any of the members are. I want them all to be a mystery, for a plot turn later. But every real life story I come across, the police always know who at least one or some of the members are. Or they have suspects, and they make contact with the suspects, and it turns out they were right, about the suspects being part of it.

But I want my cop to join without knowing any of them, and they are all men in masks, and they communicate with him in scrambled voices over the phone to start, and when they finally meet him, it's all masks and they never reveal their faces.

But I can not find an undercover true story, that is anything like that. Plus it would be a good idea for a gang to recruit newcomers that way, because in case anything happens, and the newcomer turns out to not be who he/she seems, the gang can create deniability, since the new recruit does not know any of them.

So I am wondering if their are any books or sites that talk about it at all? Thank you for your input. I really appreciate it.
 
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the whole premise seems unrealistic to me.

when you join a gang it is for life. for the rest of your life.

Who would make a lifelong commitment like that without knowing a single person in the gang
 
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Sounds impossible to me. How can this guy even contact the gang? Someone must know someone, even if it's a friend, of a friend, of a friend, of a friend. And why would they recruit somebody they don't know? What if that person turned out to be an undercover police officer?!

If your character wasn't a police officer, if he was perhaps a hitman, I could understand a gang seeking him out anonymously. I don't see how your scenario can ever work. I think you need to change it.
 
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Well even though the cop doesn't know who any of them are, the gang can still recruit members by looking out for people and stalking them, getting to know who they are, etc, so they can predict who will make the better recruits. And this is where the police come in, as they can create a fake person, for the gang to seek out.

Plus, isn't considerably more risky for a gang to recruit someone they know real well, personally? I mean let's say they do, then that person turns on them, or was an undercover cop. The gang would be thinking 'Crap, he knows who we are!'.

If they recruit someone who doesn't know any of them, then that person decides to turn later, they would instead think 'he doesn't know who any of us are, so he won't be able to identify us personally'.

Isn't the latter method of recruitment preferable in that way?
 
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harmonica44 said:
...isn't considerably more risky for a gang to recruit someone they know real well, personally? I mean let's say they do, then that person turns on them, or was an undercover cop. The gang would be thinking 'Crap, he knows who we are!'.
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If he turned out to be an undercover cop then they clearly didn't know him "real well". If they did, they'd have know he was a cop. Have you not seen Reservoir Dogs?


harmonica44 said:
Isn't the latter method of recruitment preferable in that way?
Click to expand...

You don't have a workable method of recruitment for your latter option, do you? If you do, then it's completely up to you.
 
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mad_hatter said:
If he turned out to be an undercover cop then they clearly didn't know him "real well". If they did, they'd have know he was a cop. Have you not seen Reservoir Dogs?




You don't have a workable method of recruitment for your latter option, do you? If you do, then it's completely up to you.
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Yep, I have seen Reservoir Dogs. It's the same thing though, isn't? They recruit a new person, and did not know he was a cop.

As for it being safter to recruit people you know, what if the gang does not know a lot of people, but at the same time, they want to expand and look for new recruits?
 
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What is the plot turn, out of interest? Obviously, you dont' have to say. My advice would be to make sure that the reason he joins the gang is organic. If you ask the audience to suspend their belief or ask them to buy into a lot of things, the plot turn is going to feel really contrived. If you can't manage to figure out a workable solution, it might be best to rethink the plot turn.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Yep, I have seen Reservoir Dogs. It's the same thing though, isn't? They recruit a new person, and did not know he was a cop.
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No. That was a standard undercover cop type situation. He knew about them (or more specifically, about Joe). Presumably, as I don't remember it being specificall mentioned in the film, Mr Orange would've come highly recommended by somebody. That somebody would most likely have been a snitch of some kind.
 
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Oh okay. Well if it's completely unrealistic for a gang to recruit members that do not know the gang, then I cam write it differently.

Basically I need the cop to witness some illegal activity, but I do not want him to know who the perps are. I could write it so that the cop happens to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and witnesses it by coincidence, but it feels like a convenient coincidence, as oppose to coming up with an undercover operation, and infiltrating them with effort.

If I have a coincidence, it feels convenient with less effort, if that makes sense. But if that's the only to write it so a cop witnesses a crime without knowing the perps, I could write it that way.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Well even though the cop doesn't know who any of them are, the gang can still recruit members by looking out for people and stalking them, getting to know who they are, etc, so they can predict who will make the better recruits. And this is where the police come in, as they can create a fake person, for the gang to seek out.

Plus, isn't considerably more risky for a gang to recruit someone they know real well, personally? I mean let's say they do, then that person turns on them, or was an undercover cop. The gang would be thinking 'Crap, he knows who we are!'.

If they recruit someone who doesn't know any of them, then that person decides to turn later, they would instead think 'he doesn't know who any of us are, so he won't be able to identify us personally'.

Isn't the latter method of recruitment preferable in that way?
Click to expand...
1. If the police don't know who the gang members are, how can they possibly profile who would be a good candidate to fake in the first place? If you know there is an illuminati group in your town but have no clue what an illuminatus looks or acts like, it could be anyone. How could you possibly make yourself look interesting?

2. Most gang members most often are brought in by friends or family members. They are not strangers off the street. You need someone who will keep their mouth shut. If your cop already had a friend in the group, he might bring him in.

3. Gangs do not bring in strangers unless its obvious that the stranger is already acting as an outlaw. In most movies, the 'cop' has to become discredited and become a 'bad guy' before he's even considered for approach. If he was a member of a rival gang or copycat perpetrator and they caught him, they might draft him in.

4. The power of gangs is that they don't care if you know who you are. Because as a member, if you open your mouth, you're dead. The witness protection program was started for a reason. A new guy would be paired with an established member to track him and given tasks to increasingly show his loyalty. This is where the familiar face comes in. Somebody has to vouchsafe him for admittance. He would be kept far removed from the inner circle.
 
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Oh okay. Well you said that if he is a member of a rival gang, they might draft him in.

That is sort of what I thought of before. As part of his cover, the police would create a rival copycat gang, that is just a ruse, and the gang catchs him that way, and he 'defects', or something like that.
 
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