The Crips (also known as the "Consolidated Crip Organization") are an alliance of individual street gangs known as sets. The original Crip alliance started in the City of Los Angeles, California. Each Crip set is it’s own individual gang and each gang are known to have "cliccs" 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 Blacc Panthers. The gang named itself the Avenue Cribs eventually and took on the niccname Cribs because most members were very young bacc 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 stucc 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 and mimicking the Black Panthers. They even made the word crip stand for "Community Revolution In Progress". They failed miserably in becoming a positive movement because of their lacc 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, Eccy, Michael Christianson, Michael Shaft Concepcion, Macc 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 or 3x), Deuces (2x), Blocc Crips, Coasts, NYCC (New York City Crips), and CC Riders (Compton Crips). 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 attaccs. 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.

The Crips have been known to operate as part of the Folks Nation Alliance. There have been documented examples of Crips and GD's coming together throughout the south in places like Florida and Memphis and in the midwest in cities like Detroit and Kansas City since the late 80's, but the Crips officially representing the Folks Nation alliance started with a cease-fire/hood share agreement between Crips and Gangster Disciples that originated in San Diego California in 1991 called the "8 Ball". The alliance of the local Gangster Disciple decks and Crip sets was so they can rival the lucrative Blood/People Nation alliance that has been going on since the 70's in Los Angeles California. The 8 ball alliance gave an opportunity for Larry Hoover (GD leader) to do something productive to earn parole and be released from prison, so in October 1993 he had the GD's on the streets organize a "peace treaty summit meeting" in Chicago, bringing in Crips from all over the continental USA, as well as a lot of GD's and sympathizers to the GD "cause". This peace treaty set off similar peace treaties around the U.S. between Crips and GD's, most notably in Kansas City and New York City. The year 1993 would therefore signal the year in which "Crips" would align themselves into a national gang alliance system with the "Folks" (particularly GDs). Today, "Crips" and "Folks" are aligned in the national gang alliance system. It was not a hard allegiance to make: both Crips and GDs wear "blue" colors. The 8 Ball alliance quickly led to the "Universal Crip Nation" being considered a Folks Nation Mob officially sanctioned by the Gangster Disiples leader, Larry Hoover. They call this alliance/merger 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, which is how they greet each other to show Crip/GD solidarity. Unlike the Stones who actually became a Blood set to merge the People Nation and Bloods, Crips and Gangster Disciples remain 2 separate organizations that consider each other "first cousins" under the Folks Nation. Crips and Gangster Disiples share hoods and resources all around the country and Crips have begun tilting thier hats to the right to show allegiance to the Folks Nation, while keeping their bandanas to the left to show that they are still crips. The "8 Ball" has been known to be "cracked" in some areas where the local Crip sets were pressured to return to their Los Angeles roots and drop out of the Folks Nation, leaving both gangs/alliances to fight a bloody war for sole control of that hood; these instances are very rare. Contrary to popular belief, Crips do not use any secret books of gang knowledge and gang prayers like most Folks Nation alliance gangs and other Chicago gangs do. Some Crip sets, however, simply use their own unique code words to communicate with each other. Also, many Crip sets have begun utilizing the 6 point star symbol to further show their acceptance as being a part of the Folks Nation. When a crip uses the 6 point star or the number 6, for them it signifies the 6 letters found in the phrase: "C.R.I.P.U.P." or "Crip Up".

The word "C.R.I.P." is actually an acronym that stands for "C.ommunity R.evolution I.n P.rogress". When a Crip is using the 6 point "C.R.I.P. U.P." It stands for "C.ommunity R.evolution I.n P.rogess - U.ndying P.ower". Crips are also known to use the phrase "Crips don't die, we multiply", meaning they will never disapear because they will always branch out and create new crips hoods forever. Crips have also adopted the use of the 3 point crown from the GD's, but for Crips the 3 points stand for "C.C.O." or "Consolidated Crip Organization", which was created to rival the Bloods "UBN". The 3 points also signify the 3rd letter of the alphabets which is "C". Many Crips are known to practice the Jewish religion, a custom also picked up from the Gangster Disciples.

Crip sets 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. Each Crip set has their own unique different set of ranks and what they stand for. 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. The entire Crips alliance are also allies with the Sureños alliance. The Crips alliance as a whole is generally against it's members using hard drugs, but they make an exception for alcohol, marijuana and PCP. Crips especially utilize PCP (also called angel dust, sherm or wet) right before battle because of it's astounding ability to drastically increase physical strength and it also makes members become more ruthless, fearless and violent when under the influence.

Many Crip gang members can be found on TheHoodUp.com, which is a notorious virtual gathering-place for many other gangs as well. The reason many Crips and other gang members choose to communicate with each other on TheHoodUp.com over other sites is because of the ability to remain completely anonymous and avoid being tracced by the "internet-police" while being able to communicate with other gang members from around the world. TheHoodUp.com is also known to be frequented by local, state, and federal law enforcement so extra cautious members of the site are known to use the Tor browser to surf TheHoodUp.com in order to completely hide their tracks and they have even created a unique method of communicating with each other called "starring", where they replace multiple letters in a word, often times already a code word for that particular set, with an asterisk(*) and only those who can fill in the blanks will know who or what they're talking about.