In prison, every day is a fight for survival. An inmate's most important weapon may not be a shank, but instead a gang membership.
Mara Salvatrucha (commonly abbreviated as MS, Mara, and MS-13) is a transnational criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles and has spread to other parts of the United States, Canada, Austrialia, and Central America.[1] The majority of the gang is ethnically composed of Central Americans and active in urban and suburban areas. In the U.S., the MS-13 specially has a heavy presence in Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California; the Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas of Fairfax County, Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Prince George's County, Maryland; Long Island, New York; the Boston, Massachusetts area; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Houston, Texas. There is also a sizable presence of MS-13 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.