organised crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...
in the United Kingdom is concentrated around the cities of
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
and
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
and regionally across the
West Midlands region
The West Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of International Territorial Level for statistical purposes. It covers the western half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. The region consists ...
, south coast and northern England, according to the
Serious Organised Crime Agency
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom which existed from 1 April 2006 until 7 October 2013. SOCA was a national law enforcement agency with Home Office sponsorship ...
. With regard to
street gangs
A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectivel ...
the cities identified as having the most serious gang problems, which also accounted for 65% of firearm homicides in England and Wales, were London,
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
,
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
and
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
.
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
also has a historical gang culture with the city having as many teenage gangs as London, which had six times the population, in 2008.
In the early part of the 20th century, the cities of
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
,
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
,
Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
(and more prominently
Keighley
Keighley ( ) is a market town and a civil parish
in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford.
Keighley is north-west of Bradford city centre, north-west of Bi ...
) and
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
all commanded headlines pertaining to street gangs and suffered their share of high-profile firearms murders.
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...
, which has a long history of gangs traced back to the 1920s in the book "The Sheffield Gang Wars", along with
Leicester
Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands.
The city l ...
is one of numerous urban centres seen to have an emerging or re-emerging gang problem.
On 28 November 2007, a major offensive against gun crime by gangs in Birmingham, Liverpool, London and Manchester led to 118 arrests. More than 1,000 police officers were involved in the raids. Not all of the 118 arrests were gun related; others were linked to drugs, prostitution and other crimes.
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national ...
Jacqui Smith
Jacqueline Jill Smith (born 3 November 1962) is a British broadcaster, political commentator and former Labour Party politician. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Redditch from 1997 to 2010. She served as Home Secretary from 2007 to 2009 ...
said it showed the police could "fight back against gangs".
In the 2000s, Britain's street gangs in certain inner city areas such as London and Manchester became influenced by America's
Crips
The Crips is an alliance of street gangs that is based in the coastal regions of Southern California. Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969, mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams, the Crips were initially a single alliance ...
and
Bloods
The Bloods are a primarily African-American street gang founded in Los Angeles, California. The gang is widely known for its rivalry with the Crips. It is identified by the red color worn by its members and by particular gang symbols, includin ...
. This was evidenced by identification with colours, hand signs, graffiti tags and in some cases gang names, for example Old Trafford Cripz and Moss Side Bloods or 031 (O-Tray-One) Bloods gang and ABM (All Bout Money) Crips. However this phenomenon has since declined during the 2010s.
Debate persists over the extent and nature of gang activity in the UK, with some academics and policy-makers arguing that the current focus of enforcement efforts on gang membership is inadvisable, given a lack of consensus over the relationship between gangs and crime.
Due to
austerity
Austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spend ...
there are fewer youth clubs and there is less provision for youngsters, this creates a vacuum. Youngsters, some children as young as 10 turn to gangs for friendship and protection. Later youngsters get forced into illegal activities, notably selling and trafficking illegal drugs.
"Scuttlers" and rise of gang culture
Child labour
Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...
was regulated for the first time in the UK in 1833, and therefore young children could no longer financially contribute to the family through jobs in factories. Children were now spending more time on the streets while the rest of their families went to work all day. The lack of an extra stable source of income for families led to an increase in petty crimes among working-class youths in the late 19th century. As children spent more time with siblings and neighbours on the street, pranks became commonplace and were viewed as devious attempts to outsmart authority. Along with pranking, petty crime among older teenagers was also on the rise. Because older teenagers could not earn enough money to support their families, especially in the absence of one parent, which was common, many resorted to stealing. Food and cigarettes were the most common forms of property that were stolen in the late 19th century. These small crimes and this culture of pranks added to the underlying resistance to authority that existed among working-class youths who had no other outlets to control their environment.
The early groups in the 1840s were family oriented and were typically composed of brothers, sisters, and neighbours. While petty crime rose everywhere during the 19th century in England, individual crimes differed from city-to-city and even persisted in rural areas. But gangs were not unique to deprived areas, and many arose in many working-class towns that were flourishing from trade. Early forms of gangs were based upon territory and locality rather than certain ethnic or religious affiliations, which tended to be the defining characteristics of gangs in the early 20th century. Many of the names of early British gangs included titles of local areas and streets, such as the Bengal Tigers who originated from Bengal Street in Manchester. The idea of “hooliganism” was used to describe these type of crimes committed by working-class youth, and drew great concern from the press and middle class during this time. "
Scuttlers
Scuttlers were members of neighbourhood-based youth gangs (known as scuttling gangs) formed in working class areas of Manchester, Salford, and the surrounding townships during the late 19th century. It is possible to draw parallels with th ...
" was the specific term given to the perpetuators of these early, petty crimes. These factions were not highly organised, and most people drifted in and out of membership. However, the early development of petty crime with groups forming an identity for themselves through names and clothes helped create the framework for more organised crime groups that gained great notoriety throughout the early 20th century.
Gangs in major urban centres
Belfast
According to one report,
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
has over 150 active criminal gangs as of 2014. In Belfast in particular, a report in 2003 estimated there to be approximately 80 gangs, most nominally sectarian, engaged in racketeering across the city.
An investigation in 2014 found that some gangs in Belfast were particularly hostile towards non-white residents of the city, with numerous cases of racially motivated violence, intimidation and extortion having been reported.
Gangs in Belfast have been involved in
people smuggling
People smuggling (also called human smuggling), under U.S. law, is "the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person or persons across an international border, in violation of one or more countries' laws, ei ...
and
human trafficking
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extrac ...
. Although the vice industry was previously mostly on the street, in recent years it has moved indoors to residential homes and hotels and formed closer links to organised crime networks. Trafficking gangs in Belfast, as in the rest of Northern Ireland, tend to be of Chinese or Eastern European origin, utilising local people as facilitators in their network.
In 2014, three nights of violence in East Belfast led to the
Police Federation for Northern Ireland
The Police Federation for Northern Ireland (PFNI) is the representative body to which all members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland belong up to and including the rank of Chief Inspector, as well as the ranks of reserve and part-time offic ...
stating: "The gang culture has to be broken up so that people can go about their business without fear of being struck by a missile or intimidated."
(See below for information about sectarian gangs in Northern Ireland associated with
The Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
)
Birmingham
The
Peaky Blinders
The Peaky Blinders were a street gang based in Birmingham, England, which operated from the 1880s until the 1910s. The group consisted largely of young criminals from lower- to middle-class backgrounds. They engaged in robbery, violence, racke ...
were a criminal gang based in Birmingham, England, in the late 19th century and, to a lesser extent, in the early 20th century. Philip Gooderson, author of ''The Gangs of Birmingham'', states that the Peaky Blinders originated as a specific gang, but the term later became a generic label. An earlier gang known as the Cheapside Sloggers had evolved in the 1870s, and the term "Sloggers" (meaning fighters) had already become a generic local label for street gangs when the Peaky Blinders emerged at the end of the century in Adderley Street, in the Bordesley and Small Heath areas, which was an extremely deprived slum section of Birmingham at the time. The Peaky Blinders were distinguished by their sartorial style, unlike earlier gangs. Notable members included David Taylor (imprisoned for carrying a gun at 13 years old), "baby-faced" Harry Fowles, Ernest Haynes and Stephen McNickle.
Early in the 20th century, one of the Birmingham gangs known as the
Brummagem Boys
The Birmingham Boys (also known as the Brummagem Boys or the Brum Boys) were a street gang whose power extended from the North of England to London's underworld, between the 1910s and 1930s. They lost control of the South East racecourses to th ...
(Brummagem being slang for Birmingham) began to spread their criminal network from the streets of Birmingham to around the country. Helped by greatly improved transport, for the first time, regional gangs were able to expand beyond the streets that bred them. The new connecting railway between Birmingham and London meant they could target the racecourse riches of the country's capital.
Following the Handsworth riots in 1985, young people banded together in groups which soon turned to petty crime and robbery. By the late 1980s, the Johnson Crew, named after their Johnsons Café hang-out, controlled the drugs market and nightclub security across a large area of Birmingham.
After a fall-out between members of the Johnson Crew, the Burger Bar Boys formed, taking their name from a Soho Road fast-food joint. This began a violent feud between the Johnsons and the Burger Bar Boys, which was resolved in a truce instigated by Matthias "Shabba" Thompson in 2010, with assistance from documentary maker Penny Woolcock. The process of forming the truce was captured in the Channel 4 documentary, One Mile Away. Following the truce, violent crime fell by 50% in the B6 postcode area and 30% in B21.
The increasingly collaborative relationship between the two gangs has led to some in the media describing them as more akin to a "super gang", seeking to establish a greater national network of organised crime rather than controlling their post-code areas. Other reports suggest both gangs are effectively inactive, and there is no "super gang".
However, 20 shootings in mid 2015 onwards were linked to the feud between the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew, suggesting any truce is no longer active and the gang rivalry has been renewed.
See also:
*
Peaky Blinders
The Peaky Blinders were a street gang based in Birmingham, England, which operated from the 1880s until the 1910s. The group consisted largely of young criminals from lower- to middle-class backgrounds. They engaged in robbery, violence, racke ...
*
Birmingham Boys
The Birmingham Boys (also known as the Brummagem Boys or the Brum Boys) were a street gang whose power extended from the North of England to London's underworld, between the 1910s and 1930s. They lost control of the South East racecourses to th ...
*
Murder of Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis
Two teenage girls, Charlene Ellis, 18, and Letisha Shakespeare, 17, were shot with a MAC-10 machine pistol, outside a hair salon in Birchfield Road, Aston, Birmingham, England, as they were leaving a party in the early hours of 2 January 2003, in ...
Glasgow
The history of
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
gangs can be traced back to the 18th century, although the first media reference to Glasgow gangs was not until the 1870s, with the acknowledgement of the
Penny Mobs
The Penny Mobs was the names used by the press to describe the early street gang active in Glasgow, Scotland during the early 1870s. As the court system offered heavy fines as an alternative to imprisonment, gang members were often freed after a c ...
. It has been suggested that the rise in Glasgow gangs from the 1850s was a result of an influx in
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
immigration which included those from traditional Irish fighting gangs such as the Caravats and Shanavests. By the 1920s many Glasgow gangs were widely viewed as fighting gangs rather than criminal gangs, although there were widespread reports of
extortion
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...
and
protection racket
A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from viol ...
s, particularly in the city's
East End
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
and South Side. By the 1930s, Glasgow had acquired a reputation throughout Britain as a hotbed of gang violence and was regarded at the time as Britain's answer to
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, home to some of America's most feared gangsters. The gangs at this time were also referred to as
Glasgow razor gangs
The Glasgow razor gangs were violent gangs that existed in the East End and South Side of Glasgow, Scotland in the late 1920s and 1930s and were named after their weapon of choice. H. Kingsley Long's novel ''No Mean City'' (1935) contains a ...
, named after their weapon of choice.
One of Glasgow's most notorious gangs were the
Billy Boys
"Billy Boys", also titled "The Billy Boys", is a loyalist song from Glasgow, sung to the tune of "Marching Through Georgia." It originated in the 1920s as the signature song of one of the Glasgow razor gangs led by Billy Fullerton and later be ...
, a sectarian anti-Catholic gang, who were formed in 1924 by William Fullerton after he was attacked by a group of Catholic youths. Many gangs in the East End of Glasgow (such as the Billy Boys' rivals, the
Norman Conks
The Norman Conks (or Norman Conquerors) were a large Catholic sectarian street gang active in Glasgow. It was one of the popular Glasgow razor gangs, and was active from the 1880s to the 1960s, with its territory and most of their members based ab ...
) were both
sectarian
Sectarianism is a political or cultural conflict between two groups which are often related to the form of government which they live under. Prejudice, discrimination, or hatred can arise in these conflicts, depending on the political status quo ...
and territorial, whereas in other districts they were primarily territorial.
The gang culture prevalent in the older, central areas of the city such as
the Gorbals
The Gorbals is an area in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, on the south bank of the River Clyde. By the late 19th century, it had become densely populated; rural migrants and immigrants were attracted by the new industries and employment opportu ...
which became overcrowded and substandard in living conditions, did not disappear when these areas were cleared and redeveloped following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
with many of the inhabitants rehoused either in clusters of
tower block
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building
A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently ...
s or in large peripheral
overspill estates
An overspill estate is a housing estate planned and built for the housing of excess population in urban areas, both from the natural increase of population and often in order to rehouse people from decaying inner city areas, usually as part of the ...
like
Easterhouse
Easterhouse is a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, east of the city centre on land gained from the county of Lanarkshire as part of an expansion of Glasgow before the Second World War. The area is on high ground north of the River Clyde and south ...
;In the shadow of the blade , The Scotsman, 19 July 2008 instead, as the job opportunities became limited in the
post-industrial
In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy.
The term was originated by Alain Touraine and is closely related to s ...
age, the structural flaws, planning mistakes and related social issues became apparent in the schemes as the years passed, and
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
addiction spread throughout the city, new gangs (in addition to some which remained in the original areas) formed in the modern environments and remained prominent for decades, particularly in Glasgow's many areas of deprivation and poor health where generations of young people suffered in childhood and found themselves with little to occupy their lives as teenagers other than a cycle of thrilling but pointless collective recreational violence (usually fuelled by alcohol) against similar groups from neighbouring districts. This lifestyle was depicted years later in movies such as
Small Faces
Small Faces were an English rock band from London, founded in 1965. The group originally consisted of Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones and Jimmy Winston, with Ian McLagan replacing Winston as the band's keyboardist in 1966. The band w ...
and
Neds
Ned is a derogatory term applied in Scotland to hooligans, louts or petty criminals.Tam McGraw
Thomas "Tam" McGraw (19 February 1952 – 30 July 2007), also known as "The Licensee" or "Wan-Baw McGraw", was a gangster involved in organised crime including extortion and drug trafficking in Glasgow, Scotland.
Once one of the wealthiest bu ...
, with the resulting "ice cream" turf war eventually culminating in the deaths of a family.
An ''
Evening Times
The ''Glasgow Times'' is an evening tabloid newspaper published Monday to Saturday in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Called ''The Evening Times'' from 1876, it was rebranded as the ''Glasgow Times'' on 4 December 2019.list of Glasgow gangs. Along with incidents from other origins including
domestic violence
Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner ...
and
organised crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...
, the street gangs' behaviour contributed to Glasgow being declared the "murder capital of Europe" in the mid-2000s. Gangs in Glasgow – some involved in the supply of drugs, housebreakings and other illegal activity but most simply a mob with minimal leadership structure, focused on enhancing their local reputation for notoriety and defending their "bit" (territory) – marked their territory with tags or graffiti, and adopted a particular style of dress and speech in each era, being defined as 'ned culture'. The majority of large-scale fights were organised in advance by phone calls, text messages and later by online contact, but at all times of the day rival neighbourhoods became "no-go areas" for gang members as well those young people who were not involved in the violence but could be identified as residing in another area.
The habitual carrying of knives and other weapons was common wherever the fear of attack was present, with serious and tragic consequences often resulting from confrontations when they did occur. Several campaigns were launched by law enforcement and government agencies to discourage the possession of weapons, including a 2009 programme of checks on buses heading to the city centre, where the gangs would meet to fight when they left their own territory. An earlier campaign of the 1990s, "Operation Blade", had initially appeared to produce results before the levels of weapon use and violence soon returned to previous levels and thereafter increased. Not all murders were gang-related, but the prevailing culture in the city caused weapons to be carried as a matter of course and, in combination with the abuse of alcohol, serious incidents to result from often trivial disputes.
The latter years of the 20th century saw an increase in Pakistani gangs, particularity in the South of Glasgow (e.g.
Pollokshields
Pollokshields ( gd, Buthan Phollaig, Scots: ''Powkshiels'') is an area in the Southside of Glasgow, Scotland. Its modern boundaries are largely man-made, being formed by the M77 motorway to the west and northwest with the open land of Pollok C ...
). Pakistani gangs came to wider attention following the racially motivated
murder of Kriss Donald
Kriss Donald (2 July 1988 – 15 March 2004) was a 15-year-old Scottish teenager who was kidnapped and murdered in Glasgow in 2004 by a gang of British men of Pakistani origin, some of whom fled to Pakistan after the crime. Daanish Zahid, Imra ...
by local men of Pakistani origin in 2004. During that period, in the wake of the Donald murder, as well as a perception that
asylum seekers
An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and mi ...
who had been housed in empty properties in some of Glasgow's most run-down areas were being given priority over locals, some of the teenage gangs in those areas styled themselves as "nazis".
In the decade following the publication of the ''Evening Times'' reports, the number of young people involved in "young teams" in Glasgow and the number of serious violent incidents recorded as a result of their activities reduced substantially; in 2016, contributors to an article in the same newspaper suggested the links to gang identity were deeply embedded in local communities and unlikely to entirely disappear for many years, but that measures to combat the problems such as the police-led
Violence Reduction Unit
The Scottish Violence Reduction Unit is a Police Scotland initiative established in January 2005 (by Strathclyde Police) which uses a public health approach to target all forms of violent behaviour including street/gang violence, domestic abuse, ...
(which engaged with existing gang members, encouraging them to examine the negative consequences of their behaviour, to seek positive connections with their "enemies" such as Friday evening football games and outdoor pursuits, and to provide opportunities for training and employment as an alternative to the lifestyle they had known) had been effective to a noticeable extent.Fare play helps curb Easterhouse gangs , Evening Times, 7 October 2013 Other external factors such as an increased availability of advanced internet-enabled gaming technology and the widespread use of
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
among youngsters – which were acknowledged as having their own associated problems such as
social isolation
Social isolation is a state of complete or near-complete lack of contact between an individual and society. It differs from loneliness, which reflects temporary and involuntary lack of contact with other humans in the world. Social isolation c ...
and online bullying, as well as allowing the "young teams" a platform to boast of their exploits and taunt rivals – also contributed to a general reduction in the number of local teenagers regularly out roaming the streets bored and seeking companionship or confrontation, with those who did openly express an affiliation to a violent gang more likely to face a negative reaction from the majority of their peers than in the past. In the wake of a rise in knife crime in England and Wales, particularly in London, in the 2010s, it was reported that those areas were studying the approaches taken by Scotland in tackling the issue.
However, it was recognised by the VRU that only around half of all violent incidents which occurred were reported to the police (as compared with figures from hospital admissions and other research), while violence related to organised crime in parts of the city (many of those involved having "graduated" from the local street gangs) remained a significant issue. A 2020 Graeme Armstrong novel, ''The Young Team'', narrated by a gang member in the
local dialect
Local may refer to:
Geography and transportation
* Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand
* Local, Missouri, a community in the United States
* Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...
, focuses on the "ned culture" of the region in the early 21st century (albeit set in
Airdrie, North Lanarkshire
Airdrie (; sco, Airdrie; gd, An t-Àrd Ruigh) is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It lies on a plateau roughly 400 ft (130 m) above sea level, and is approximately 12 miles (19 km) east of Glasgow city centre. , the town had a ...
a few miles east of Glasgow rather than the in the city itself).
Liverpool
Street gangs in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
have been in existence since the mid-19th century. There were also various
sectarian
Sectarianism is a political or cultural conflict between two groups which are often related to the form of government which they live under. Prejudice, discrimination, or hatred can arise in these conflicts, depending on the political status quo ...
"political" gangs based in and around Liverpool during this period. Dr Michael Macilwee of
Liverpool John Moores University
, mottoeng = Fortune favours the bold
, established = 1823 – Liverpool Mechanics' School of Arts1992 – Liverpool John Moores University
, type = Public
, endowment =
, coor ...
and author of ''The Gangs of Liverpool'' states, "You can learn lessons from the past and it's fascinating to compare the newspaper headlines of today with those from the late 1800s. The issues are exactly the same. People were worried about rising youth crime and the influence of '
penny dreadful
Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood. The term typically referred to ...
s' on people's behaviour. Like today, some commentators demanded longer prison sentences and even flogging while others called for better education and more youth clubs."
In the early 1980s Liverpool was tagged by the media as "Smack City" or "Skag City" after it experienced an explosion in organised gang crime and
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
abuse, especially within the city's more deprived areas. At the same time several criminal gangs began developing into drug dealing cartels in the city, including the Liverpool Mafia, which was the first such cartel to develop in the UK. As drugs became increasingly valuable, large distribution networks were developed with cocaine producers in South America, including the
Cali cartel
The Cali Cartel ( es, Cartel de Cali) was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia, around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca. Its founders were the brothers Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela. They broke away fr ...
. Over time, several Liverpool gangsters became increasingly wealthy, including Colin 'Smigger' Smith, who had an estimated fortune of £200m and Curtis 'Cocky' Warren, whose estimated wealth once saw him listed on the ''
Sunday Times Rich List
The ''Sunday Times Rich List'' is a list of the 1,000 wealthiest people or families resident in the United Kingdom ranked by net wealth. The list is updated annually in April and published as a magazine supplement by British national Sunday news ...
''.
It has also been suggested that distribution networks for illicit drugs within
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
and the UK, and even allegedly some
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
holiday resorts, are today controlled by various Liverpool gangs.
A report in the ''
Observer newspaper
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'' written by journalist Peter Beaumont entitled ''Gangsters put Liverpool top of gun league'' (28 May 1995), observed that turf wars had erupted within
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
. The high levels of violence in the city came to a head in 1996 when, following the shooting of gangster David Ungi, six shootings occurred in seven days, prompting Merseyside Police to become one of the first police forces in the country to openly carry weapons in the fight against gun crime. Official Home Office statistics revealed a total of 3,387 offences involving firearms had occurred in the Merseyside region during a four-year period between 1997 and 2001. It was revealed that Liverpool was the main centre for organised crime in the
North of England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...
.
In August 2007 the ongoing war between two rival gangs caused nationwide outrage, when innocent 11-year-old Rhys Jones was shot in the neck and died in his mother's arms in the car park of the Fir Tree pub in
Croxteth
Croxteth is a suburb of Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and a Liverpool City Council Ward. Although housing in the area is predominantly modern, the suburb has some notable history. At the United Kingdom 2011 Census it had a population of 14,561.
...
Liverpool. On 16 December 2008, Sean Mercer was convicted of the murder and ordered to serve a minimum tariff of 22 years by trial judge Mr Justice Irwin.
London
London was the first city noted to have a major problem with criminal gangs, followed thereafter by American cities such as New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. A number of street gangs were present in London during the 20th century, many in the
East End
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
, often referred to as Mobs, including
The Yiddishers The Yiddishers were a London street gang based in Whitechapel and were led by Alfred Solomon. One of their more famous members was future mobster Jack Spot during the inter-war years. During the 1930s, they opposed the growing fascist movement in Gr ...
,
Hoxton Mob
The Hoxton Gang (or Hoxton Mob) was an independent street gang based in London's Soho district during the interwar years. They were one of several gangs which fought against Charles "Darby" Sabini and the "Italian Mob", specifically over control ...
, Watney Streeters, Aldgate Mob, Whitechapel Mob, Bethnal Green Mob and the organised Italian Mob headed by
Charles Sabini
Charles "Darby" Sabini (born Ottavio Handley; 11 July 1888 – 4 October 1950) was a British-Italian mob boss and considered protector of Little Italy during the interwar years.
Early life
Sabini was known by many names and his actual name is ...
. The history of these gangs is well documented in "London's Underworld: Three centuries of vice and crime".
The Pall Mall Gazette
''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed int ...
released a research report on gangs and crime in England in 1888, they discuss the downfall and dissolution of a gang called the
Skeleton Army
The Skeleton Army was a diffuse group, particularly in Southern England, that opposed and disrupted The Salvation Army's marches against alcohol in the late 19th century. Clashes between the two groups led to the deaths of several Salvationis ...
a few years before hand, and include a collection of 9 gangs and their respective territories, gathered from contemporary police reports, which are as follows:
On 21 February 2007, the BBC reported on an unpublished
Metropolitan Police
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
report on London's gang culture, identifying 169 separate groups (see
Ghetto Boys
The Ghetto Boys is a street gang based in New Cross, Lewisham and Deptford, South London.
The gang was formed on the Woodpecker/Milton Court Estate and its members are primarily of Black British origin. Most of the members are from the London ...
,
Tottenham Mandem
The Tottenham Mandem (also Tottenham Man Dem, TMD, or Man Dem Crew, formerly known as Frontliners or Tottenham Boys) were an organised street gang based in Tottenham, North London, that began on the Broadwater Farm estate prior to the Broadwate ...
and
Peckham Boys
The Peckham Boys, also referred to as Black Gang (due to its association with the colour black), is a multi-generational gang based in Peckham, South London. The gang is particularly prominent for its members prolific activity in music. Giggs, ...
), with more than a quarter said to have been involved in murders. The report's accuracy has been questioned by some London Boroughs for being inaccurate in places and the existence of certain gangs on the list could not be substantiated. The Centre for Social Justice identifies the Gangs in London website as a useful tool in creating an overall picture of London gangs, as highlighted in the report "Dying to Belong: An in depth review of street gangs in Britain", which was led by Conservative leader
Iain Duncan Smith
Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born George Ian Duncan Smith; 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was S ...
in 2009.
In February 2007, criminologist Dr John Pitts, from the
University of Bedfordshire
The University of Bedfordshire is a public research university with campuses in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England. The University has roots from 1882, however, it gained university status in 1993 as the University of Luton. The Universi ...
, said: "There are probably no more than 1,500 to 2,000 young people in gangs in all of London, but their impact is enormous". There is no methodology to suggest where this number came from and how it was obtained. Furthermore, in December 2007 in a report written by Pitts on Lambeth gangs, he claims that the dominant gang ( PDC from
Angell Town
Angell Town is an area in Brixton, in the London Borough of Lambeth, south London. The area is dominated by the Angell Town Estate, a housing estate known for its poverty, deprivation and gang subculture.
The Angell Town Estate was originally bu ...
) "boasts 2,500 members". Probably a more accurate estimation for gang membership, although dated, can be found in the 2004 Home Office document "Delinquent Youth Groups and Offending Behaviour". The report, using a methodology developed by American gang experts and practitioners, estimated that 6% of young people aged 10–19 were classified as belonging to a delinquent youth group, although based on the most stringent criteria this was 4%.
There is a modern history of London gangs dating from the 1970s although many of them emerged from sub-cultures such as
punks
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
, Rastas and football hooligans. Two well known subcultures involved in violent clashes during the
Notting Hill riots
The Notting Hill race riots were a series of racially motivated riots that took place in Notting Hill, England, between 29 August and 5 September 1958.
Background
Following the end of the Second World War, as a result of the losses during the wa ...
in the 1950s,
Teddy Boys
The Teddy Boys or Teds were a mainly British youth subculture of the mid 1950s to mid 1960s who were interested in rock and roll and R&B music, wearing clothes partly inspired by the styles worn by dandies in the Edwardian period, which Savil ...
and
Rudeboys
Rude boy, rudeboy, rudie, rudi, and rudy are slang terms that originated in 1960s Jamaican street culture, and that are still used today. In the late 1970s, there was a revival in England of the terms ''rude boy'' and ''rude girl'', among other ...
, could well be labelled gangs by today's media. Amongst the current London gangs whose history does go back to the 1970s are the
Peckham Boys
The Peckham Boys, also referred to as Black Gang (due to its association with the colour black), is a multi-generational gang based in Peckham, South London. The gang is particularly prominent for its members prolific activity in music. Giggs, ...
and
Tottenham Mandem
The Tottenham Mandem (also Tottenham Man Dem, TMD, or Man Dem Crew, formerly known as Frontliners or Tottenham Boys) were an organised street gang based in Tottenham, North London, that began on the Broadwater Farm estate prior to the Broadwate ...
, both predominantly or entirely
black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
. Native British gangs remain active while there are several
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
gangs in London, such as the
Brick Lane Massive
A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...
whom are of predominantly
Bangladeshi
Bangladeshis ( bn, বাংলাদেশী ) are the citizens of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centered on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the eponymous bay.
Bangladeshi citizenship was formed in 1971, when the ...
descent, initially formed to protect their local communities from racist attacks from the native white population. Since 2000,
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nati ...
gangs in
Croydon
Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...
and
Wembley
Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...
have been active such as the "Wembley Boys" and the "Tamil Snake Gang. Tamil Hindu gangs in London are also featured as one of the many major ethnic gangs in Ross Kemp's documentary on London Gangs. A gang database for London estimated that 78.2% of members were Black, 12.8% were white, 6.5% were Asian (Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshis), 2.2% were Middle Eastern/Arabs and under 1% were East Asian or of unknown-ethnicity.
London gangs are increasingly marking their territory with
gang graffiti
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
, usually a gang name and the
Post Code
A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal a ...
area or
housing estate
A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country.
Popular throughout the United States a ...
they identify with. In some cases they may tag the street road signs in their area with an identified gang colour, as can be seen in
Edmonton
Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
. This is not a new phenomenon and has been practised by many London gangs in the past although today it is a more integral part of the gang culture. Many gangs have a strong sense of belonging to their local areas and often take their names from the housing estates, districts and postal code areas where they are located. In some areas the post codes act as rival gang boundaries, although this is not a general rule as there can be rival gangs present within the same postal area as well as gangs that occupy multiple postal areas.
In 2018, researchers from London South Bank University found that gangs in the London borough of Waltham Forest that used to be organised around post code rivalries had moved beyond territorial disputes to focus on profit-making activities like drug dealing. They cite
James Densley
James Densley (born April 13, 1982) is a British-American sociologist and Professor of Criminal Justice at Metropolitan State University. He is best known as co-founder of The Violence Project and as co-author of the bestselling book, ''The Viol ...
's gang evolution model, which details how gangs progress from recreational goals and activities like defending post codes to financial goals and activities like drug dealing. Densley concludes that fully evolved gangs "resemble not just crime that is organized, but organized crime". Densley also found that gangs in London also used handsigns and gang tattoos to denote gang membership. Some gangs in London are motivated by religion, as is the case with
Muslim Patrol
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
. However, profits arising from drugs and other criminal activity is a significant motivator for many gangs.
Manchester
The first recorded gangs in Manchester were "
Scuttlers
Scuttlers were members of neighbourhood-based youth gangs (known as scuttling gangs) formed in working class areas of Manchester, Salford, and the surrounding townships during the late 19th century. It is possible to draw parallels with th ...
", which were youth gangs that recruited boys and girls between 14 and 21 years of age. They became prominent amongst the
slums
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...
during the second half of the 19th century, but had mostly disappeared by the beginning of the 20th century. In the mid-1980s, a growth in violence amongst
Black British
Black British people are a multi-ethnic group of British citizens of either African or Afro-Caribbean descent.Gadsby, Meredith (2006), ''Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival'', University of Missouri Press, pp. 76–7 ...
youths from the west side of the Alexandra Park Estate in South
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
and their rivals, West Indians living to the north of the city, in
Cheetham Hill
Cheetham is an inner-city area and electoral ward of Manchester, England, which in 2011 had a population of 22,562. It lies on the west bank of the River Irk, north of Manchester city centre,
close to the boundary with Salford, bounded by Brou ...
began to gain media attention. The city has sometimes been dubbed in the media as "Gangchester" and "Gunchester".
The gang culture spread into many deprived areas in South Manchester.Killing surprises few in Moss Side BBC, accessed 28/10/07 A gang-related crime occurred on 9 September 2006, in Moss Side, where Jessie James, a 15-year-old schoolboy was shot dead in the early hours of the morning. His shooting is said to have been the result of a mistaken identity for a rival gang member. To this day his murderer(s) have not been found.
In April 2009, eleven members of the
Gooch Gang
Gooch is a surname. Gooch or the Gooch is also a nickname. It may refer to:
Surname People
* See Gooch baronets for a list of baronets with the surname (some are listed below)
* Alexander Gooch (died 1558), English Protestant martyr
* Arthur Go ...
were found guilty of a number of charges ranging from murder to drugs offences. The Gooch Gang had a long-standing rivalry with the equally well known
Doddington gang Doddington could refer to
Places in England
* Doddington, Cambridgeshire
*Doddington, Cheshire
* Doddington, Kent
*Doddington, Lincolnshire
* Doddington, Northumberland
*Dry Doddington
Dry Doddington is a small village in the north-west of the ...
. The Gooch gang operated with a tiered structure. On the top were the gang's leaders, Colin Joyce and Lee Amos, and below them were members controlling the supply and distribution of drugs to the street dealers at the bottom. The gang was earning an estimated £2,000 a day, with street dealers allowed to keep £100 a day for themselves. After 2001 when Joyce and Amos were sent to prison on firearms charges, there followed a 92% drop in gun crime in central Manchester. Official gun enabled crime figures show a 17% reduction in Manchester when comparing 2005/06 (1,200 offences) and 2006/07 (993 offences). However, this was followed by an increase of 17% in 2007/08 (1,160 offences) compared to 2006/07. In 2009 shootings were reported as falling by 82% compared with the previous year.
In addition to this, many ethnic gangs can be found within Manchester as well,
Black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
and Pakistani gangs being the most prominent, founded in areas such as
Rochdale
Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...
and
Oldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, amid the Pennines and between the rivers Irk and Medlock, southeast of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, wh ...
where criminal charges range from carrying firearms to murder. Manchester is also home to the Inter City Jibbers, an element within the city's main hooligan gang that uses football hooliganism as a cover for acquisitive forms of crime. According to former Manchester United hooligan Colin Blaney in his autobiography ''Undesirables,'' members of the gang have been involved in serious forms of crime, such as drug smuggling from Latin America and the Caribbean, carrying out armed robberies and committing robberies on drug dealers. In an interview with ''
Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tra ...
,'' members of the gang spoke of connections with Liberian drug smuggling cartels and convictions for offences including armed robbery, credit card fraud and sale of class A drugs.
Drug gangs
A number of the criminal gangs in the United Kingdom specialise in the importation, production and sale of illicit drugs. Of the 2,800 gangs identified within the United Kingdom it is estimated that 60% are involved in drugs. Amongst them are the
Yardie
Yardie (or Yaadi) is a term often used, particularly within the Caribbean expatriate and Jamaican diaspora, to refer to people of Jamaican origin, though its exact meaning changes depending on context. The term is derived from the Jamaican pat ...
s, also known as Posses in America, who are generally associated with
crack cocaine
Crack cocaine, commonly known simply as crack, and also known as rock, is a free base form of the stimulant cocaine that can be smoked. Crack offers a short, intense high to smokers. The ''Manual of Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment'' calls ...
. In 2003, it was reported that Yardie drug gangs were present in 36 of the 43 police force areas in England and Wales. One of the more prominent were the
Aggi Crew
The Aggi Crew were a criminal drug gang based in the St Paul's district of Bristol. The name of the gang is an abbreviation of aggravated burglary ("doing an aggi") according to its former leader.
History
The gang dominated the city's drug mark ...
in Bristol.
In 1998, six members of the Aggi Crew were imprisoned after being found in possession of over £1 million worth of crack-cocaine.
There were raids across the city which was the latest phase of Operation Atrium, launched in 2001 to clamp down on
drug-related crime
A drug-related crime is a crime to possess, manufacture, or distribute drugs classified as having a potential for abuse (such as cocaine, heroin, morphine and amphetamines). Drugs are also related to crime as drug trafficking and drug productio ...
in Bristol by disrupting organised gangs. More than 960 people have been arrested in the past 18 months. In 2009 Olympian and judo expert
James Waithe
James Waithe (born 30 December 1961) is a former judoka who represented Barbados at the 1988 Summer Olympics, and England at the 2006 Commonwealth Judo Championships.
He was sensei at the University of Bristol Judo club 2001.
In November 2009, ...
was convicted of drugs offences, having been an enforcer for drug ring that made £50 million annually.
Asian drug gangs, usually of Pakistani and
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nati ...
descent are also present in the United Kingdom. Notable Tamil gangs include Harrow Tamils and Wembley Tamils. Pakistani gangs have been recorded to be associated with the importation and distribution of heroin and can be found in
Luton
Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...
,
Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
,
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
,
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
,
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...
,
Slough
Slough () is a town and unparished area in the unitary authority of the same name in Berkshire, England, bordering west London. It lies in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4 ...
,
Bedford
Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...
, and
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area.
Until the early 1800s, the a ...
. Drug squad officers in 2003 claimed that Asian gangs were actively seeking to corner the heroin market.
In other reports it has been suggested that Turkey replaced Pakistan and Afghanistan as the most important transit point for heroin, and it is estimated that 80% of heroin intercepted by British authorities belongs to Turkish gangs, which previously belonged to Pakistani and Afghan gangs A recent spate of murders in London in 2009 have been linked to a heroin drugs war involving rival Turkish and Kurdish gangs in north London. It is believed that the feud is between two organised drug gangs, the Turkish "Tottenham Boys" and the "Bombarcilar" or "Bombers" from Hackney. The Bombers were led by Abdullah Babysin who was said to be Britain's largest importer of heroin, he was convicted in 2006.
Women and gangs
Although most assumptions surrounding gang culture in the UK surround male-dominated narratives, females also played a role in gangs in Britain in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Society saw women as conspirators, supporters, and even perpetuators of gang crime in the late nineteenth century. In 1898, the ''Manchester Guardian'' wrote an article that said, “Girls incited conflicts between the gangs and were thus responsible for the majority of scuttling affrays.” This article reflects how women were viewed as sexual objects, causing a lot of the fights and violence that occurred between gangs. While historians such as Stephen Humphries support this claim that women played a supporting role in gangs, Andrew Davies argues that women played a much more active one. One of the most famous gangs of the early 20th century was an all-female gang in London called the
Forty Elephants
The Forty Elephants or Forty Thieves were a 19th to 20th century all-female London crime syndicate who specialised in shoplifting. This gang was notable for its longevity and skill in avoiding police detection.Capstick, J., Given in Evidence, ( ...
. By 1890, the
Forty Elephants
The Forty Elephants or Forty Thieves were a 19th to 20th century all-female London crime syndicate who specialised in shoplifting. This gang was notable for its longevity and skill in avoiding police detection.Capstick, J., Given in Evidence, ( ...
chose their first "queen" and established themselves as free from male control. Led by
Alice Diamond
Alice Diamond (22 June 1896 – 1 April 1952) was an English career criminal, linked to organised shoplifting.
Early life
Diamond was born Alice Elizabeth Black in Lambeth Workhouse Hospital to Thomas Diamond and Mary Ann Alice Black. Her paren ...
during its height in 1915, the gang was notorious for stealing expensive clothing, partying among the wealthy, engaging in violent robberies, and for being romantically involved with other gang leaders around London.
When it came to court, magistrates treated women's involvement in gangs differently to that of men. The concern over female crime related to the deviation from typical notions of femininity and morality, thus women typically received lesser sentences than men. Due to the conventional idea of femininity that saw women as weaker than men, many courts would have believed it impossible to view women as orchestrators of such crime. Most women were assumed to have played a supporting role.
Organised crime groups
Britain has a number of traditional organised crime firms or local British
crime families
A crime family is a unit of an organized crime syndicate, particularly in Italian organized crime and especially in the Sicilian Mafia and Italian American Mafia, often operating within a specific geographic territory or a specific set of activit ...
. Some of the most well known include the
Kray twins
Ronald Kray (24 October 193317 March 1995) and Reginald Kray (24 October 19331 October 2000) were identical twin brothers, gangsters and convicted criminals. They were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in the East End of London, Engl ...
,
The Richardson Gang
The Richardson Gang was an English crime gang based in South London, England in the 1960s. Also known as the "Torture Gang", they had a reputation as some of London's most sadistic gangsters. Their alleged specialities included pulling teeth o ...
and Terry Adams
Clerkenwell crime syndicate
The Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate, also known as the Adams Family or the A-Team, is a
criminal organisation, allegedly one of the most powerful in the United Kingdom. Media reports have credited them with wealth of up to £200 million.
Backgroun ...
in London. Outside the capital there are the Noonans in Manchester,
Thomas McGraw
Thomas "Tam" McGraw (19 February 1952 – 30 July 2007), also known as "The Licensee" or "Wan-Baw McGraw", was a gangster involved in organised crime including extortion and drug trafficking in Glasgow, Scotland.
Once one of the wealthiest bu ...
from Glasgow and
Curtis Warren
Curtis Francis WarrenBarnes, Tony; Richard Elias; Peter Walsh. 2003 ''Cocky: the rise and fall of Curtis Warren, Britain's biggest drug baron'' (also known as Cocky; born 31 May 1963) is an English gangster and drugs trafficker who was formerly I ...
from Liverpool who are amongst some of the most infamous..
By the 1980s the
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief tha ...
had capitalised on long established Irish Organised Crime in the UK to effectively gain control of organised crime, the druge trade and even copyright piracy to fund its terrorism. With the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement many former IRA and other Northern Irish paramilitaries moved into organised crime. However, they would come to largely displaced even in Northern Ireland by organised criminal gangs from Eastern Europe and the Balkans in the 2000s. The more established British and Irish organised criminal gangs were no longer able to compete in the intense rival for the drug trade in the UK major cities, moved to smaller towns establishing the so called county lines. In 2018 there were 4,629 criminal gangs and syndicates in Britain, employing 33,598 professional gangsters. The figure of 4,629 means there are more gangs in Britain than staff members of the NCA; 33,598 career criminals translates to more gangsters in Britain than belong to all three big Italian mafias. Organised crime in the UK generates annual revenues of £37bn, or 1.8% of GDP.
Sectarian gangs
Sectarian, or "political" gangs have featured in British cities such as Liverpool in England, Glasgow in Scotland and Belfast in Northern Ireland. Belfast has been the capital of Northern Ireland since its establishment in 1921 following the
Government of Ireland Act 1920
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 (10 & 11 Geo. 5 c. 67) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill ...
. Since its emergence as a major city, it had been the scene of various episodes of sectarian conflict between its
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
and
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
populations. The
Ulster Protestant Association
The Ulster Protestant Association (UPA) were a Ulster loyalism, loyalist paramilitary group organised in Belfast in August 1920 to prevent Northern Ireland being included in an independent Irish Free State.
In 1921, plumber and UPA Thomas Pentlan ...
is said to have provided many members of the murder gangs active in Belfast during 1921–22. Other Protestant gangs active at that time were: the Imperial Guards, Crawford's Tigers and the Cromwell Clubs. These opposing groups in this conflict are now often termed
republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
and
loyalist
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...
respectively, although they are also referred to as "
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
" and " unionist".
The most recent example of this is known as
the Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
- a civil conflict that raged from c.1969 to the late 1990s. Belfast saw some of the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, particularly in the 1970s, with rival paramilitary groups forming on both sides. Bombing, assassination and street violence formed a backdrop to life throughout the Troubles. The
Provisional IRA
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, fa ...
detonated twenty-two bombs, all in a confined area in the city centre in 1972, on what is known as " Bloody Friday", killing nine people.
The IRA also killed hundreds of other civilians and members of the security forces. Loyalist paramilitaries the
Ulster Volunteer Force
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former British Army soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaig ...
(UVF) and
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalism, Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and Timeline of Ulster Defence Association act ...
(UDA) claimed that the killings they carried out were in retaliation to the PIRA campaign. Most of their victims were Roman Catholic civilians unconnected to the Provisional IRA. A particularly notorious group, based on the
Shankill Road
The Shankill Road () is one of the main roads leading through West Belfast, in Northern Ireland. It runs through the working-class, predominantly loyalist, area known as the Shankill.
The road stretches westwards for about from central Belfast a ...
in the mid-1970s became known as the
Shankill Butchers
The Shankill Butchers were an Ulster loyalist gang—many of whom were members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)—that was active between 1975 and 1982 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was based in the Shankill area and was responsible for t ...
. In all, over one thousand five hundred people were killed in political violence in the city from 1969 until 2001. Part of the legacy of
the Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
is that both republican and loyalist paramilitary groups in Belfast have become involved in organised crime and
racketeering
Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit.
Originally and of ...
.
Debate surrounding the impact of gangs
Historically, societal fears of gangs have centered around frameworks which argue that effects like increased mass production, consumption, democracy, and communication lead to the rise of organised crime groups. There was a general consensus among the middle classes that there was increasing violence among working-class men due to these forces during the late 19th century. Newspapers used inflammatory language to convey a sense of lawlessness and excessive violence among working-class towns which added to these growing assumptions. The widely held belief of British intellectuals in the 20th century was that gangs reflected the working-class rejection of middle-class traditional values and norms. This view contributed to the way experts studied gangs throughout the 20th century and served as proof of innate immorality around working-class citizens.
Two historians have done extensive research in this field and represent two different views of the underlying causes of the rise in gang culture between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Stephen Humphries argues that these early groups can be seen as results of “social crime”. For the working class, they viewed these crimes as righteous and justified against a society that had left them to struggle. It was therefore fair for them to steal what they had been deprived of. According to Humphries, gangs were a way for the working-class youth to respond to feelings of insignificance that came with living in a large, uniform industrial town with no way of escape. Petty crimes were thus a way to respond to all of the top-down authority they were receiving from factory managers, teachers, the police, and the government. His analysis of interviews with former gang members led him to the idea that gangs allowed working-class youths to feel rebellious and also express a need to resist the monotonous nature of industrial towns. Building on this idea, Andrew Davies argues that the concept of masculinity among working-class men prompted this behaviour, and was a way for members to prove themselves to their peers. He connects acts of violence committed in the household to idealised criminals in popular culture at the time that would have contributed to the working-class idea of masculinity. However, in other works he notes how many women took part in organised crimes, thus proving that this idea was not the only motive of gang crime.
In 2014, the
Runnymede Trust
The Runnymede Trust is a race equality think tank in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1968 by Jim Rose and Anthony Lester as an independent source for generating intelligence for a multi-ethnic Britain through research, network building, ...
suggested that despite the well-rehearsed public discourse around modern youth gangs and "gang culture":
''We actually know very little about 'gangs' in the UK: about how 'a gang' might be defined or understood, about what being in 'a gang' means... We know still less about how 'the gang' links to levels of youth violence.''
Professor
Simon Hallsworth
Simon may refer to:
People
* Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon
* Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon
* Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genus ...
argues that where they exist, gangs in the UK are "far more fluid, volatile and amorphous than the myth of the organised group with a corporate structure". This assertion is supported by a field study conducted by
Manchester University
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
, which found that, "most within- and between-gang disputes... emanated from interpersonal disputes regarding friends, family and romantic relationships", as opposed to territorial rivalries, and that criminal enterprises were "rarely gang-coordinated... most involved gang members operating as individuals or in small groups".
Cottrell-Boyce, writing in the Youth Justice journal, argues that gangs have been constructed as a "suitable enemy" by politicians and the media, obscuring the wider, structural roots of youth violence. At the level of enforcement, a focus on gang membership may be counterproductive; creating confusion and resulting in a drag-net approach which can criminalise innocent young people rather than focusing resources on serious violent crime.
See also
*
British firms (organised crime)
British firms are organised crime groups originating in the United Kingdom.
Organised crime in the United Kingdom
In analogy with the ''Penose'' in the Netherlands and the ''Milieu'' in France, organised crime in the United Kingdom has traditio ...
*
Triads in the United Kingdom
Triads in the United Kingdom first appeared during the post-World War era with the 14K Triad emerging in Chinese communities in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester in England and Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee in Scotland as early as 1952 ...
*
Turkish organised crime in Great Britain {{Unreferenced, date=July 2022
Turkish organised crime in Great Britain has been prevalent in the country since the early 90s when the Arifs (gang), Arifs controlled London's underworld for a brief time. Since the fall of the Taliban during the War ...
*
Crime in the United Kingdom
Crime in the United Kingdom describes acts of violent crime and non-violent crime that take place within the United Kingdom. Courts and police systems are separated into three sections, based on the different judicial systems of England and Wale ...