Crip is an alliance of individual street organizations known as sets. The Crip alliance originated in Los Angeles, California. Each Crip set is it’s own individual gang and are known to have sub-clicks, blocks, or lines (line-ups) which are like smaller individual sets within the set. Gang members in gangs under the Crip allaince are known as Locs and all Crips call each other “cuz” (short for cousin) to signify that they see each other as family. The gangs under the Crip Alliance are mainly identified by the color blue which is worn proudly by all Crip members as a primary color. Each Crip set has significant differences such as hand signs, use of secondary colors, and customs. The Crip alliance has significantly branched out of California and has spread throughout the majority of the United States.

A 15 year old Fremont High School student named Raymond Washington started a gang called the Baby Avenues in 1969 in an attempt to be like the older gangs and copy the political activities carried out by other organizations such as the Black Panthers. The gang named itself the Avenue Cribs eventually and took on the nickname Cribs because most members were very young back then. The name Crips was first brought up in L.A. a Los Angeles newspaper in a artical about young Cribs with canes, as if they were crippled. A lot of people believe the name came to existance because of a spelling error. Either way, The name stuck and the Crips alliance was formed.

Stanley Tookie Williams is one of the co-founders of the Crips. He started his own gang called the Westside Crips. The Crips were very well known throughout southern L.A. as more and more people began to join. The Crips eventually became the biggest and most ruthless gang in California and began targetting the other non-crip gangs with daily acts of violence. In retaliation, all non-crip gangs, including the Pirus, later formed an alliance that eventually became known as the Bloods.

Along with a few other friends near his 78th Street home near Fremont High School, Stanley Tookie Williams and Raymond Washington created the Crips alliance with the initial intent of continuing the revolutionary ideology of the 1960s. They failed miserably because of their lack of political leadership. They later became obsessed with protecting themselves from the other non-crip alliance independent gangs in the community which began to increase violence and resistance towards the Crips. The Crips began to increase violence and take over new turf. Some of the other original founding fathers of the crips were Angelo “Barefoot Pookie” White, Melvin Hardy, Bennie Simpson, Greg Batman Davis, Jimel The God father Barnes, Raymond Cook, Ecky, Michael Christianson, Michael Shaft Concepcion, Mack Thomas and No 1.

All Hoover Criminal Crip sets began to use orange flags in addition to the blue flags to seperate themselves from the rest of the sets in the Crips alliance, essentially turning Hoover Criminal into it’s own “Card” or “Car” for short. Cards are smaller alliances of individual Crip gangs within the Crip alliance itself, which gangs within the cards are known to put before the whole Crip alliance. Other Crip cards include: Neighborhood Crips (NHC), Trays (Gangster Crips), Blocc Crips, Coasts, Deuces, and CC Riders. Crip gangs strictly bang (go to war) to defend their territory (hood) before any alliance or card, and are known to be very vicious in their attacks. Also, Crip sets are always trying to expand their territories and find new territories to take over which essentially makes their wars never ending. Crips are known to mark their territories and all boundaries by the use of extreme wall banging. Wall banging consists of marking territory with graffitti which shows what gang controls that turf or going into a rivals turf and crossing out their graffitti.

There are significantly more Crip gangs today than when the alliance was first created. This is because many independent organizations outside of California, and across the United States have also turned into Crip sets. All it takes for an entire independent organization or gang to become a Crip set is the will to become Crips, meaning any gang can become a Crip set if it chooses to do so. Many Crip sets have names which include the name of their City, a street that runs through their turf, or the name of the projects, apartment complex, or community they control. Crips are known to shout “CaRip” and "OoWoo" as a greeting to other Crips and to let their presense be known. Crips are also known to do a "Crip Whistle" which consists of 2 short bursts of loud whistles followed by a long burst of loud whistle.

Contrary to popular belief, real Crips are not part of the Folks Nation Alliance, they are part of the Crips alliance. The confusion of Crips representing the Folks Nation alliance started on the internet with unknown persons creating various fictional “Crip Books of Knowledge” which consist of mixing Crip history and Gangster Disciple history, symbols, and literature (lit) together to form fictional "Crip Books of Knowledge". These fictional “Crip Books of Knowledge” spread rapidly throughout the internet and eventually into the streets with wanna-be’s taking these books seriously. There was, however, a brief cease-fire agreement between Crips and Gangster Disciples in Kansas City Missouri in 1993 called the "8 Ball". They called it the "8 Ball" because of the shape you get when you merge the "C" handsign of the Crips with the "Pitch Fork" handsign of the Gangster Disciples. That cease fire was very brief and the "8 Ball" has been cracked (cease fire dropped), but that cease-fire agreement may have sparked the idea of creating the fictional internet "Crip Books of Knowledge". This misrepresentation of the Crips has largely affected Crips throughout the south and parts of the mid-west. This widespread miseducation of the Crips has lead to a recent major outreach by west coast Crips to all Crips across the country to let them know that Crips do not represent the Folks Nation of Chicago and do not represent the Gangster Disciples 6 point star and lit. This outreach has been making a major impact on Crips in the south and midwest who have all been dropping the use of anything related to the Folks Nation and a 6 point star and are all steady getting back to their roots.

Crips have a loose structure of ranks based on how long a person has been banging for their particular hood and how much work they put in for the hood. Their rank structure is as follows:

(from lowest to highest)
T.G. (Tiny Gangster) - members under 18 years old
B.G. (Baby Gangster) - members over 18 years old
O.B.G. (Original Baby Gangster) - after 5 active years of banging
O.G. (Original Gangster) - after 10 active years of banging
O.O.G. (Double O.G.) - after 15 active years of banging
O.O.O.G. (Tripple O.G.) - after 20 active years of banging

These ranks don’t signify leadership or dominance over anybody else in the set, they just signify respect for those who have been in the hood longer, put in more work for the hood, and have survived the longest. This means that Crips with higher rank don’t give out orders or call shots over those with lower rank. Crips with higher rank are respectfully reffered to as “Big Homies” by Crips with lower rank. Once a person has joined a Crip set, it’s for life… meaning you can not leave the set or flip (switch) to another set.