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Gang

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses of the word, see Gang (disambiguation).

A gang is a group of individuals who share a common identity and, in current usage, engage in illegal activities. Historically the term referred to both criminal groups and ordinary groups of friends, such as Our Gang. Some anthropologists believe that the gang structure is one of the most ancient forms of human organizations.

Some commentators use "gang" to refer to small, informal, and disorganized "street gangs", while "syndicate" or "organized crime" are used to refer to larger, more powerful organizations, such as the Italian-American Mafia, which may control entire legitimate businesses as "fronts" for their illegal operations.

The word "gang" generally appears in a pejorative context, though within "the gang" itself members may adopt the phrase in proud identity or defiance.

1 Gang activities
2 Gang identification
3 Gang types
4 Gang members
5 Gang warfare
6 See also
7 External links

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Gang activities

Most commonly, the word "gang" refers to street gangs or sometimes "youth gangs", groups who take over territory or "turf" in a particular city and are often involved in "providing protection", often a thin cover for extortion, as the "protection" is usually from the gang itself, or in other criminal activity. Since roughly the 1970s, street gangs have been strongly connected with drug sales (especially crack cocaine). Some commit burglaries, car theft, and armed robbery. Most members retain their gang affiliations when sent to prison (see prison gang). Many gangs use fronts to demonstrate influence and gain revenue in a particular area. These clandestine bases may include restaurants, bars, casinos, race tracks, strip clubs, or other business. "Gangs hurt people" - Theodore Roosevelt

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Gang identification

Gangs have been known to claim colors such as red or blue, a trend that started as far back as the late 18th century and early 19th century with the rivalry of the Roach Guards and the Dead Rabbits of New York's Five Points district and later with Mexican bandits and roving marauders in what would later become the Southwest/Western United States. (In the United States, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, "gang colors" can refer to the entire design of a gang jacket.)

Gangs often spread by a parent or family moving out of the gang neighborhood, and the children taking the gang culture and lore with them to a new area and recruiting new members for their old gang. This concept has been referred to as satellite gangs. Some very well known gangs are the California-based Crips and Bloods, or the Sureños and Norteños. Other large gangs include the Aryan Brotherhood, a mostly prison-based white power gang, the Nazi Low Riders, or NLR, the Latin Kings, the Gangster Disciples of Chicago, the Los Angeles-based 18th Street gang, and the Jamaican Posses. In the 1980s, other gangs, such as the Central American sureño gang named Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), the Miami based International Posse or In/p and the Asian Boyz (ABZ) emerged. At one point, there was an alleged cybergang by the name of Glock 3, but it turned out to be a hoax.

Before the 1970's heroin and marijuana were sold by the street gangs in Los Angeles.

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Gang types

Apart from street gangs, there are motorcycle gangs (such as Hells Angels, the Gypsy Jokers, Mongols, Vagos, etc.), as well as other clubs that might be designated as gangs based around other shared hobbies or activities. These gangs tend to go international with their activities as soon as they can. The Crips in Los Angeles are famous for bringing their terror in a similar fashion to other cities around the world such as New York and most recently in Barbados.

There are also numerous prison gangs or Security Threat Groups (such as the Mexican gang la Eme—the Mexican Mafia), organized criminal mafias (a term deriving originally from the Italian, but now also applied to the Russian Mafia).

There are also ethnically identified gangs, such as Asian criminal gangs (such as Chinese triads, Indian thuggees, Korean gangpeh, and the Japanese yakuza, as well as Chinese-American identified, and that many gangs (especially prison gangs) maintain some ethnic majority or stereotype.

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Gang members

Individual members of gangs may be referred to as gangsters or "gangbangers

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Gang warfare

Gang warfare is the conflict between opposing gangs.

Gang warfare is commonly held over turf boundary disputes, the takeover of an area in order to bring in narcotics to push on the streets, personal rivalries, or simply the fact that the opposing group is different in some way. Gang warfare takes a huge toll on cities, families, and communities involved, especially many cities in South/Central America and South Africa where the levels of gang violence have long dwarfed even American cities.

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