ABSTRACT
The Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and other branch Military Criminal Investigative Organizations (MCIO) have been reporting on gang-related investigations since 2005. The CID has published an assessment annually, with varying degrees of detail and analysis, apparently dependent on the authors’ focus. Examining the increased level of violence when the community includes military-trained gang members (MTGM) starts with understanding that the MCIOs have identified military personnel with gang membership or affiliation in every branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. Gang members and associates who join the military typically seek to acquire training and access to weapons and sensitive information. The presence of gang members in the military should be aggressively examined, questioned, and reported. The goal should be to limit opportunities to join and be retained and subsequently released to the civilian community. Although the MCIOs do well to identify the gang-related crimes committed in their ranks, the larger problem is not the presence, with or without criminal activity, of gang members in the military. More significant than gang members in the military is the increasing presence of MTGMs in the civilian communities, and their ability to increase the dangerousness of the organized criminal element and avoid detection by law enforcement because of their skills.
