What’s The Difference Between A Gang And A Cult, And Why Both Are So Attractive?

Both gangs and cults promise their members the following: identity, belonging, meaning, validity, instruction, structure, and purpose as a group.

(Photo by Jose CABEZAS/AFP/Getty Images)

While crime numbers may be down in most cities, reports say that gang membership is up.  They may not be big-name gangs like the Bloods or Latin Kings.  Rather, they are neighborhood-based gangs, made up of the youths who happen to live on the same block or same project or who go to the same school.  They thrive in places where kids come from single-parent families and attract youths who are recent immigrants and need protection from other gangs or bullying in school because they don’t fit in.  Often their parents work more than one job, struggle to make rent, and come from a different country and culture.

The gang offers its members order, rules, protection, a mission, and a clear-cut way to prove themselves as men.  The rules are generally strict.  The simple ones include memorization of the rules, the code words, and the history of the group.  Members must attend weekly meetings and pay dues.  Failure to comply brings harsh physical punishment.  Forget to make a meeting and you will be beaten up in front of everyone.

I’m now working on a trial involving the Dominican group called the Trinitarios.  Three people, in charge of discipline, are tasked to deliver 12 hard punches to the transgressor’s ribs if he commits a minor offense like missing a meeting. After each punch the person being punished must say, “Patria” (which means country).  The Trinis (like many) center their dogma around the patriotic history of the country from which the members hail and where many left behind relatives, friends, and familiarity.

Yet in spite of the punishment, kids still want to join. After all, gang membership brings with it parties, girls, drugs, and a sense of being cool.  But then there’s the violence.  Probationary members are tasked to do “missions” that range from spying on rival gang members to beating up other gang members on sight. The reward for missions completed is full-scale membership.  They get their “papers” (official recognition) and the full protection of a brotherhood of guys who genuinely have fun together but whose friendship could flip on a dime should they suspect someone of snitching.

As Christopher Cialdini, author of “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,” puts it, “The more we identify ourselves with others, the more we are influenced by these others.

Cults, on the other hand, are not associated with a particular “patria.”  Rather they tend to be organized around a cult leader who often promises clarity amidst the chaos of daily life, and a chance at salvation.  Central is often a much-awaited future moment when cult members will alone be chosen to escape an upcoming apocalypse by being whisked off to a better place.  In a recent article in the New Yorker written by a woman who grew up in a cult but left at age 11, that place was Venus.  For her, growing up in a cult had its benefits — lots of outdoor activity, being read to by the older kids, the fun of sleeping five children to a bed, and communal parents who stayed in a different building. When she went back as an older woman, she recognized the misogynist tendencies in such groups, where women and girls do all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry, and the leader(s) can bed whichever girl they chose.

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The people attracted to cults are often socioeconomically the opposite of gang members. Many come from good families and have solid educations and comfortable lives.

Take the trial of NXIVM (pronounced nex-ee-um) leader Keith Raniere.  Raniere founded a “self-help” group near Albany in the late 90s.  He is now on trial in federal court in Brooklyn, charged with crimes of racketeering and sex trafficking.  Among its members were heiress Clare Bronfman, actress Alison Mack of “Smallville,” and India Oxenberg, daughter of “Dynasty” actress Catherine Oxenberg — clearly not underprivileged kids.  Mack already pleaded guilty to recruiting new members and assisting in a process of branding them with Raniere’s initials.  She told the court she’d joined the group to “find purpose” in her life.

Raniere attracted women, some underage, to live in his compound, have sex with him, pledge obedience, sign over their bank accounts, and go on starvation diets.   They could have left at any time but chose not to. This was not bondage, it was mind control.

Such cults, with leaders like Jim Jones to Charles Manson, are often run by demagogic, charismatic men who are so good at brainwashing their followers that cult members can be convinced to kill themselves (“drink the Kool Aid”) or in Manson’s case, kill others.

Both gangs and cults promise their members the following: identity, belonging, meaning, validity, instruction, structure, and purpose as a group.

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In the case of gangs, there’s a real-world need for some youths (especially in the inner city) to find protection and solace in being with others who share a cultural identity.  Many gangs originally formed to provide a structure for newly arrived immigrants navigating a new culture — housing, employment, help with getting adjusted.  Even the Italian mafia had a role in community development in Sicily, making sure the government paid attention, paved streets, put in water, built schools.

For gang members who joined when they were young and managed to leave without being killed, going to jail, or doing serious damage to others, gang membership was merely a rite of passage and perhaps an aid to survival.

I have a tougher time understanding the attraction to cults.  (And I’m not talking about the recognized and widely practiced major religions.)  These cults seem, in many cases, to be nothing more than excuses to promote the sexual fantasies of their leaders, exploit girls and women, compel rigid thinking, and isolate members from their families and social norms.  Gangs, on the other hand, in their most benign form, provide a social service. My questions are what greater purpose do cults serve? Why are they so compelling? Why are women in our day and age still attracted to subjugation?

I have no good answer.


Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.