El Chapo was born into a poor peasant family and he was leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Pablo Escobar was also born into a poor family, his father was a peasant farmer and his mother a school teacher (pathetic shit pay in Colombia for school teachers back then.)

A lot of Mexican cartel members and Colombia cartel members are from poor backgrounds.

In my observations, bikers seem to come from lower middle class families (people that don't have trades and just work shit jobs)

Yeah, but cartels are always different.Their money and power arent fromw the area where they operate, its from US and Europe, where their products are sold. Without the global
drug market they would be no more than a bunch of street thugs.

Not quite.

The Mexicans run large legitimate businesses and also have cornered entire industry's in their respective cities and regions. The higher ups own casinos, hotels and all sorts of businesses.

They have rackets outside of drug trafficking, like the multi-million dollar fuel theft trade, prostitution, immigrant smuggling, gambling (casinos for US tourists just across the border), exotic wild life trade.

Hardly a bunch of street thugs.

Sure they are much more than that but thats because global drug trade gave them wealth and power. If there no drug trade, the cartels wouldnt have been formed in the first place. Cartel is a combination of several powerful drug lords in order to monopolizing the whole market. Otherwise there will be only smaller gangs operating in different areas.
Anyway, these are not my point. I was just saying in America the reason why most street gangs are not so organized is that they route in the poorest neighborhood and has no access to OC market(except drug).

There are a lot of crime groups based in poor neighborhood, for example, all kinds of street gangs, it seems most members of these gangs comes from a very poor background, like an immigration family. On the contrary, in some upper class neighborhood there always lack gang activities.
However, some groups, especially mafia type groups are different. Lots of LCN members are not from poor background. Im not saying their economy class is high, just saying that they are from some sort of working class neighborhood and I think LCN, bikers and some white racial gangs are similar in this aspect.
It also occur to me, some organised crime activities actually rely on middle class society. Well maybe those poor neighborhoods have the biggest drug market, but apart from this, things like gambling, loan shark, union corruption request you to have connections in some economically better area, I assume thats why OC groups and street gangs have different composition.

Street gangs are different compared to OC groups.

Street gangs are made up of teenagers and guys in their early twenties looking for a surrogate family, they didn't join a gang to further their financial interests.
OC groups are made up mostly of guys in their 40's and older. They joined an OC group purely to further their financial interests.

@SimeonChin & @Neo

It's a broad stereotypical picture in regards to street gangs that I caution against. Street gangs vary by location and structure. Yes a considerable amount of their membership is young & poor that's not the majority. You have street gangs that are well organized and involved in different activities.
Too many cases has and will continue to display that certain street gangs are criminal enterprises.

But weren’t the original members and first few generations of most of those organized crime groups also poor immigrants? The original LCN and those organizations before them came from poor backgrounds and the level of poverty compared to today’s poor was worse back then. What’s left of those groups now is what was passed down in the culture or whatever is left of the tradition. But the origins were still guys from poor immigrant families that didn’t want to work the same as their parents and they wanted to make fast money and command respect on the streets. Is it fair to say they built their structures at a time before the Feds had the tools to really fight OC like they do today?

LCN guys in 20s and 30s were poor, but back then I believe they operate more like street gangs and not that much organized. I dont know about bikers, but it seems they just became a real power in 60s and they werent from a very poor background from the beginning. Similarly, AB guys in the south are red necks from better background compared with black and Mexican inmates.

Yes thats true, actually a lot of these "gangs" should be considered as OC groups.

Mobster are interest in two things power and money. So poor Kids want money and sometimes they want power.Some rich kids want also money and sometimes power. But the way how they get this are different. Rich guys goes to Yale, Havard and MIT. For poor Kids a mobster lifestyle are more lucrative. Both can be a criminal.Bbut they way are different how they organzid a criminal enterprise

El Rukns was a splinter group consisting of the high rank members of the BPS. The group possibly would of use the financial support for expansion than terrorism.

Yeah I know but they were going to carry out a terrorist act on behalf of the Libyans. I reckon that fucked up the El Rukns faster than drug dealing.

you may have individuals hook up inner city crime folks trying to prove they are tough but I have never seen a black suburban-based street gang.the black folks who can afford to purchase homes not going to sit there and let street scum ruin their investment.they going to sic the law on azzholes