The FBI considers the fans of shticky rap group Insane Clown Posse to represent a threat on par with the Crips, Bloods, and Aryan Brotherhood, according to its annual report on gang activity.You might think Insane Clown Posse’s people — known as the Juggalos — are just a group of face-painting teenagers who wonder how magnets work. Not so, says the FBI’s 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment. To the feds, Juggalos are a “loosely-organized hybrid gang” that are “forming more organized subsets and engaging in more gang-like criminal activity.”
Consult page 22 of the FBI’s brand new annual report on gang activity nationwide. (.PDF) Listed in the same breath as street gangs with ties to murderous Mexican drug cartels is the Juggalo threat...
Other gangs cited in the report, like the Haitian Boys Posse or the Custer Street Gang, are linked to homicides, gun running, and drug trafficking. Juggalo gang activity cited by the FBI cites is a notably lower caliber: thefts, hand-to-hand drug sales and felony assaults. The FBI has recently had difficulty distinguishing ordinary American Muslims from terrorists; now it appears it has a similar problem distinguishing teenage fads from criminal conspiracies.
Most problematically, since Juggalos evidently believe themselves to be badasses, an FBI report legitimizing their outlaw image will surely embolden them. A generation of teenagers will come to believe it is acceptable to spray each other with Midwestern-specific soda and devalue lyricism in hip hop.
