Aryan Circle
The Aryan Circle is a white supremacist, Neo-Nazi prison gang spread throughout many U.S. correctional facilities.
Aryan Circle emblem | |
| Founded | 1985 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Mark "Cowboy" Gaspard |
| Founding location | Texas Department of Corrections |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Territory | Primarily Texas, with a smaller presence in several other states |
| Ethnicity | White American |
| Membership (est.) | 1,400 |
| Activities | Drug trafficking, contraband smuggling, theft, robbery, extortion, murder, assault, hate crime |
| Rivals | Aryan Brotherhood of Texas |
The Aryan Circle was founded by Mark "Cowboy" Gaspard in 1985 in the Texas Department of Corrections as a splinter group of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT). During the 1980s the ABT had shifted focus away from overt crime towards religion. The Aryan Circle split from the Aryan Brotherhood to maintain criminal gang status and white supremacist beliefs, and to oppose African American and Hispanic prison gangs.
The gang began growing during the 1990s, becoming the second-largest prison gang in Texas by 2008, with 730 confirmed members in state prisons. The gang also had an operational presence in neighboring states and isolated members throughout the country. The Anti-Defamation League estimated their 2009 nationwide membership to be approximately 1,400, including 150 confirmed members in federal prisons.