Nazi Lowriders
The Nazi Lowriders, also known as NLR or the Ride, are a neo-Nazi, white supremacist organized crime syndicate, and prison and street gang in the United States. Primarily based in Southern California,[1] the gang is allied with the larger Aryan Brotherhood and Mexican Mafia gangs,[5] and fellow peckerwood gang Public Enemy No. 1.[5] The Nazi Lowriders operate both in and outside of prison.[3]
Founded
1970s[1]
Preston Youth Correctional Facility, California, United States[1]
1970s–present
Primarily Southern California, with a smaller presence in numerous other U.S. states[1]
1,000[3]
History[edit]
The Nazi Lowriders originated as a skinhead gang in the California Youth Authority during the early-to-mid 1970s, and later established itself as a gang for young white inmates.[1] It was created by members of the Aryan Brotherhood (AB), the leading white gang in the California prison system.[8] In the late 1970s or early 1980s, Aryan Brotherhood leader John Stinson began recruiting skinheads incarcerated in the California Youth Authority at the Preston Youth Correctional Facility in Ione, and at the Youth Training School in Chino, to act as middlemen in the AB's criminal operations.[1]
The gang did not come to the attention of law enforcement until the early 1990s, by which time authorities in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had begun suppressing the Aryan Brotherhood's activities.[1] The Nazi Lowriders' position as middlemen for the Aryan Brotherhood, along with the crackdown on the AB, allowed the gang to supplant the Brotherhood as the most prominent white prison gang in California.[9] While maintaining its presence in the prison system, the Nazi Lowriders also became a street gang, firstly in Southern California, and later in Central California and Northern California, during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Due to gang's rapid expansion, links with other white power gangs, and highly-organized operations, the Nazi Lowriders established themselves as a significant crime group on the West Coast.[1]
As opposed to other white criminal gangs in California prisons, the NLR gained a reputation for being very violent. They are labeled as a prison gang by the California Department of Corrections. They are strong in numbers in such California communities as Oildale, Bakersfield, Lancaster, Inland Empire, Rosamond and Orange County. The "Nazi" part of their name is more a sign of a racist belief in white supremacy than anti-Semitism, while "Lowriders" is a play on the term used for Hispanic gangs.
The gang eventually progressed from being muscle for the Aryan Brotherhood to a fast-growing gang in their own right. Unlike other white supremacist gangs in the US, they appear to be well organized and have developed links with other white organizations throughout the West Coast, including the Ku Klux Klan and Hells Angels. Paroled gang members have been known to move east to further spread the organization's reach.
On January 28, 1999, California prison officials recognized the Lowriders as a prison gang. Consequently, in an attempt to disrupt the gang's criminal activities, inmates known to be members can now be subjected to removal from the general population, as well as other restrictive treatments. To this, the Lowriders have responded by striking an alliance with Public Enemy No. 1, another white disruptive group, which has since taken over the reins on California's white mainline prison population. Where Aryan Brotherhood and NLR have left off, PENI or Public Enemy No. 1 (Pronounced 'PEE NYE') plan to continue the 'key holding'.