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Terms Used In Louisiana Revised Statutes 15:1403.1

  • criminal street gang: means any ongoing organization, association, or group of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, which has as one of its primary activities the commission of one or more of the criminal acts enumerated in Paragraphs (1) through (13) of Subsection B of this Section or which has a common name or common identifying sign or symbol, whose members individually or collectively engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 15:1404
  • person: includes a body of persons, whether incorporated or not. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 1:10

A.  No person shall knowingly solicit, recruit, enable, encourage, or otherwise cause another person to become a member of a criminal street gang which, as a condition of initiation, admission, membership, or continued membership, requires the violation of any law.

B.(1)  Whoever violates the provisions of this Section shall be imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than two years, fined not more than five thousand dollars, or both.

(2)  Any person over the age of seventeen who violates the provisions of this Section by knowingly soliciting, recruiting, enabling, encouraging, or otherwise causing a child under the age of seventeen to become a member of a criminal street gang, when there is a difference in age of at least three years between the solicitor and the person being solicited, shall be imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than four years, fined not more than ten thousand dollars, or both.  Lack of knowledge of the child’s age shall not be a defense.

Acts 1999, No. 902, §1; Acts 2010, No. 626, §1.