Rosaries are a popular gang tool, but not usually for prayer

Religion News Service • June 12, 2010

When seventh-grader Raymond Hosier was
suspended for wearing rosary beads to school late
last month, civil rights groups rushed to his
defense.

"Without question, the continuing action taken by
the school district in punishing Raymond for
wearing a rosary to school violates the
constitutional rights of our client," argued Jay
Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice.

After Sekulow filed a lawsuit, a federal judge issued
a temporary restraining order on June 1, telling
Oneida Middle School and the school district in
Schenectady, N.Y., to allow Hosier, 13, to wear the
rosary to class. A full hearing was held yesterday
(June 11).

Like school principals and superintendents in other
states, including Texas, California, Oregon, and
Virginia, Oneida officials say the no-rosary-beads
rule is necessary to "protect students from violence
and gangs."

They have a point, according to gang experts. After
schools began banning gang-related bandanas,
clothing, and hairstyles about a decade ago,
students have turned to rosaries as a subtle and
often First-Amendment-protected way to signal
gang allegiance.

"With the introduction of strict dress codes and the
use of uniforms in the school systems, these type of
indicators seem to be favored by the gangsters," the
San Antonio (Texas) Police Department says in a
handbook about gang awareness.

Gangsters not only wear certain colors -- reds for
Bloods, blues for Crips, for example -- they also
arrange the beads to signal their rank in the gang,
and teach young members to plead religious
freedom if they're hauled into the principal's office,
said Jared Lewis, a former police officer in California
who worked in public schools.

"You are often dealing with gang members who have
no inkling or cares about the religious significance
of the rosary beads," said Lewis, who now runs
Know Gangs, a training group for law enforcement
officials. "They are just trying to skirt around school
rules under the guise of a religious symbol."

No one is sure which gang started the trend of
wearing rosaries, said Robert Walker, a former head
of the gang identification unit for the South Carolina
Department of Corrections. Like a lot of gang fads,
he said, it likely started in California and migrated
east.


"One gang started it -- who it was, nobody knows.
Another gang saw it and thought it was cool, and
started using it, too," Walker said. "These things just
evolve."

Their adornment by violent gangs is an ironic twist
for beads whose use in prayer is praised by
Christians, including Pope Benedict XVI, as a means
to access contemplative calm. (The word "bead" is
derived from the Anglo-Saxon term for prayer,
"bede.")

Legend has it that the Virgin Mary presented St.
Dominic with the first rosary in the 13th century,
though some scholars doubt that story because
elements of the prayers predate and postdate
Dominic.

In Christian parlance, the "Rosary" refers to a
sequence of prayers and meditations on the life of
Jesus, though the word is often used outside the
church to refer to the circlet of beads as well.

Each of the beads (usually 55 or 155) represents a
prayer -- a Hail Mary, Our Father, or Glory Be -- and
is grouped in sets of 10 with a crucifix hanging
from a pendant.

The beads help mark which prayers have been
recited and guide the supplicant through the life of
Jesus.

Now cherished by many Christians, rosaries fell out
of favor among Protestants because the Roman
Catholic Church used them to promote indulgences
-- papal dispensation from time in purgatory.

After the Reformation, the beads became a defiant
emblem for Catholic monks and nuns to wear
outside their habits and a tactile tool for
missionaries to pass on the faith -- particularly in
Latin America.

Now, Latino gangsters are the most frequent -- and
creative -- wearers of rosaries, said Lewis.

The Latin Kings, for example, use colors to signal
members' rank in the hierarchy -- five black and five g
old beads for members; two gold beads for top
dogs. Assassins wear all black.

The Netas, an East Coast gang founded in Puerto
Rico, wear 78 red, white and blue beads to
symbolize the 78 towns in Puerto Rico. Prospective
members wear all white beads until they join the
gang.

Lewis said he sympathizes with principals who are
torn between respecting religious rights and
preventing gang wars in their schools.

"We live in a country where, obviously, people
should be able to do and say what they want," he
said.

"At the same time, if something happens on school
grounds, the school principal is going to be held
liable for not keeping students safe."