Crips

The Crips are one of the largest Los Angeles, California youth gangs. The Crips are identified by the blue color worn by their members. The Crips were formed by Stanley "Tookie" Williams and Raymond Washington in 1971 after the two became fed up with random violence in their neighborhood.

The Crips quickly became popular throughout southern Los Angeles as more and more youth gangs joined it; at one point they outnumbered non-Crip gangs by 3 to 1. In response some of the besieged smaller gangs formed an alliance that later became the Bloods. Some of the most notorius Crip Sets (a subgroup of a bigger gang)include LA's Rollin 60's Crips, Watts Grape Street Crips, Long Beaches Insane Crips, and Comptons South Side Compton Crips.

The Crip gangs have branched out throughout the United States and even internationally. Due to the loose network of territorial gangs, there are significant differences between the various cliques. Even in Los Angeles there are new gangs with Crip affiliations emerging, this includes Long Beach's L&L Crip Gang while others die out.

While there have been bloody rivalries between the Crips and Bloods, a peace treaty was recently negotiated, prompting a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. Though violence levels have been reduced somewhat after the conclusion of this peace treaty, gangland killings and warfare still persist in heavily gang-controlled areas. Snoop Dogg is a member of the Rollin 20's Crips of Long Beach.