Edict to Gangs Follows an Old Pattern : Violence: The Mexican Mafia’s order to stop indiscriminate warfare emulates strategy of other organized crime units, which found that random bloodshed cuts into profits.

The Mexican Mafia, by threatening to kill gang members who commit drive-by shootings, is following a rule that has guided criminal syndicates throughout the annals of American gangsterism.

Random bloodshed is bad for business.

Faced with the most chaotic and violent era in the history of Latino gangs, the Mexican Mafia has been making a push to impose order, using its muscle to put a chill on turf-oriented rivalries and refocus that energy on the more profit-minded world of illegal drugs.

It is a classic evolution that has been repeated from New York’s Italian Mafia to Chicago’s infamous El Rukn Nation. Older members, more interested in money than combat, discover that indiscriminate warfare is not beneficial to the long-term economic survival of their organization.

“This crazy shooting interferes with business . . . and the key thing is the making of the dollar,” said Irving Spergel, a gang specialist at the University of Chicago. “That’s the great American system.”

For decades, Los Angeles’ barrio gangs have stood as an exception to this pattern, clinging proudly to an anachronistic mystique that values culture and family over the pursuit of cash. This is especially true for the multigenerational gangs of East Los Angeles, which have remained remarkably individualistic and neighborhood-bound, said Joan Moore, a sociologist who has studied the history of Eastside rivalries.

But in recent years, the battlefield has been transformed.

Hundreds of new gangs have surfaced, fragmenting turf and forcing longtime gangs to confront dozens of additional rivals. Gangs of young immigrants, notably from Central America, have challenged the authority of older Mexican-American gangs, fueling even more violence. Meanwhile, some factions of the Bloods and Crips, in the span of just one generation, have demonstrated the profitability of moving beyond neighborhood feuds to drug distribution.

These changes, according to those who study the gang world, have created a climate much more receptive to the Mexican Mafia’s rigid, prison-based command. La EME, as it is commonly known, has the clout to restore rules of conduct where they have broken down and the entrepreneurial spirit needed to compete with African-American gangs in the corporate realm.

Although there are many reasons the syndicate will have difficulty forging a criminal network out of barrio gangs, few experts question the significance of the effort.

“There is a lot of power out there, but right now it’s diffused because it’s so indiscriminate and disorganized,” said deputy probation officer Mary Ridgeway, a longtime watchdog of Eastside gangs. “Any time you can organize this many people, the ramifications are awesome.”

The Mexican Mafia’s “no drive-by” edict, disclosed last week by The Times, has been handed down over recent months at a series of tightly guarded meetings across Southern California. One of the most recent, held Sept. 18, drew an estimated 1,000 gang members to Elysian Park, just a few dozen yards from the Los Angeles Police Academy.

At that meeting, steeped in nationalistic rhetoric and run in militaristic fashion, the gangs were told that drive-by shootings are cowardly and cause their people to suffer needlessly. Old scores can still be settled with rivals, but they must be carried out face-to-face. Violators, the Mexican Mafia said, will be killed behind bars or targeted by the syndicate’s surrogates on the streets.

Since the rise of Prohibition-era bootleggers, the chieftains of organized crime have recognized the advantages of keeping innocent bystanders out of the line of fire. Reckless gunplay brings unwanted attention, both from law enforcement and the media.

After a series of violent showdowns known as the Castellammarese War left dozens of bodies strewn across New York in the early 1930s, the leaders of the five most powerful Italian Mafia families formed the Commission, a council of kingpins designed to resolve leadership disputes.

“In any business--whether it’s extortion or making widgets--if there’s a disruption, you don’t make as much money,” said Richard Laskey, a top official in the New York State Organized Crime Task Force. “Stability is what gives the Mob strength.”

In the 1960s, the Blackstone Rangers took a somewhat different route, agreeing to curb violence in their Southside Chicago neighborhood in exchange for a series of job-training and anti-poverty grants. After being convicted of stealing the money to buy drugs and weapons, their leaders restyled themselves as El Rukn and became one of the most sophisticated drug distribution syndicates in the country.

Its top leader is currently serving a federal prison sentence for orchestrating a multimillion-dollar scheme to make terrorist attacks in the United States on behalf of Libya.

“Crime pays--so it makes all the sense in the world to organize,” said Carl S. Taylor, head of the Center for Urban Youth Studies at Michigan’s Grand Valley State University. “A lot of the gang members I talk to believe there’s not a lot of difference between them and some of the guys who wear ties.”

Behind the Mexican Mafia’s edict, according to law enforcement sources, is an elaborate system of taxation and extortion designed to expand La EME’s control.

If gang members fail to attend a meeting, officials say, they are visited by a Mafia representative and ordered to bring a donation of money and guns to the next gathering. If they don’t, the Mexican Mafia may put out a “green light,” making them fair game for attack. At all times, say authorities, the street gangs are instructed to buy drugs from La EME, which then imposes a franchise fee on each dealer.

“It’s an opportunity--they’re filling a gap,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez, who grew up surrounded by gangs in Northeast Los Angeles. “From my perspective, it’s not really positive . . . but it’s a reflection of our lack of resources, of opportunities for employment, of other positive activities.”

The Mafia carries the weight to make such rigorous demands because of its dominance inside the state’s penal system, where for three decades it has directed the trade in contraband and perquisites with an iron fist.

Drawing from the most hard-core of Southern California street gang members, La EME requires all initiates to take an oath of “blood in, blood out”--they must kill to join and will be killed if they want out.

“The minute you take the death oath . . . the Mexican Mafia comes first, before your family, before your street gang, before anything,” said Ramon (Mundo) Mendoza, a former EME hit man now living in protective custody and writing a book about his experiences.

Some law enforcement officials believe that the street gangs, much less structured and regimented than the prison gang, have such a disdain for authority that they will eventually rebel. “If the Mexican Mafia tells you to kill your mother, you kill your mother--or else,” said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. Wes McBride, a veteran officer in the department’s anti-gang unit. “That is totally alien to the street gangs.”

But at least so far, in many crime-plagued barrios, gang members seem almost relieved that they have been given an honorable way to let tensions cool. After six consecutive record-breaking years, the annual gang homicide count for Los Angeles County is down 16% for the first eight months of 1993--from 523 killings to 438.

“The Mexican Mafia may be taking the low road, but I’d rather see human lives saved than worry about whether it’s happening for the right reason or not,” said Lou Negrete, a leader of Hope in Youth, a gang-prevention program backed by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.

This is the trade-off, authorities say, that comes with all criminal organizations. As they become more structured, they may shy away from the kind of shootouts that make sensational headlines. But in doing so, their power becomes more institutionalized, ultimately reinforcing the criminal underpinnings that gave rise to the violence in the first place.

“It’s the Faustian dilemma,” said Ridgeway, the Eastside probation officer. “For good, bad or indifferent, we are watching history being made.”