Gang violence decreased during the Black Power era. But the defeat of the Panthers triggered a subsequent drift into a new kind of gangsterism, epitomized by the rise of the Crips and then, shortly after, the Bloods. Mike Davis explains: "[The] decimation of the Panthers led directly to a recrudescence of gangs in the early 19705. The Crips, however perversely, inherited the Panther aura of fearlessness and transmitted the ideology of armed vanguardism... [albeit] shorn of its program."

As the Crips set about aggressively expanding their territory, their smaller, neighborhood-based rivals began to affiliate in a defensive alliance under the banner of the Bloods. With these two supergangs competing for the same territory and control of the associated markets - all the factors necessary for decades of fratricidal warfare fell into place. Under the counterinsurgency model, that result was predictable and even desirable. The US. Army's Counterinsurgency field manual (FM 3-24) states frankly: "Throughout history, many insurgencies have degenerated into criminality. This occurred as the primary movements disintegrated and the remaining elements were cast adrift. Such disintegration is desirable; it replaces a dangerous, ideologically inspired body of disaffiliated individuals with a less dangerous but more diverse body, normally of very uneven character."

— Gang Politics by Kristian Williams (Page 63 - 64)