Online communities like MySpace, MiGente, and Bebo are being used by web-savvy youth gangs to recruit members, bully classmates and brag about their exploits, the Dallas Morning News reported June 1.

Dallas-area school officials say that they have found online sites depicting students in gang-associated clothing, flashing hand signs, and using drugs. Some sites are believed to be the work of gangster wannabes, but others may be from serious gang members.

Ken Richardson, the resource officer at Irving, Texas' Nimitz High School, said it's his job to tell parents when he finds their kids on gang-associated sites. "To me if they're already acting out, taking pictures and throwing gang signs, the parents should be looking at that and talking with their kids," he said.

Gang-related graffiti has shown up on home pages established for Irving high schools on Bebo.com. Users sometimes arrange fights online. The vice president of Bebo said offensive content will be removed from the site if the company receives complaints, and said Bebo also is hiring a safety officer.

Irving schools block access to social-networking sites. Violators can have the hard drives on their school-supplied laptops wiped clean, but that doesn't prevent some students from working around the filters.

Nimitz High parent Maria de la luz Flores said that many Latino parents are unaware of the link between gangs and cyberspace. "There are many parents who know very little about computers," she said. "We need more classes so parents will benefit from the information."

Local police monitor the websites to keep track of gangs. "Everybody wants to act like a thug or a gangster," said Sgt. Mark Langford of the Dallas police. "But in the middle of all that, there are nuggets of truth."