Chicago had over 1,000 gangs in the 1920s.These early gangs had reputations for many criminal activities, but in most countries could not profit from drug trafficking prior to drugs being made illegal by laws such as the 1912 International Opium Convention and the 1919 Volstead Act. Gang involvement in drug trafficking increased during the 1970s and 1980s, but some gangs continue to have minimal involvement in the trade. Understanding the structure of gangs is a critical skill to defining the types of strategies that are most effective with dealing with them, from the at-risk youth to the gang leaders. Not all individuals who display the outward signs of gang membership are actually involved in criminal activities. An individual's age, physical structure, ability to fight, willingness to use violence, and arrest record are often principal factors in determining where an individual stands in the gang hierarchy; now money derived from criminal activity and ability to provide for the gang also impacts the individual's status within the gang. The structure of gangs varies depending primarily on size which can range in size from five or ten to several thousand. Many of the larger gangs break up into smaller groups, cliques or sub-sets. The cliques typically bring more territory to a gang as they expand and recruit new members. Most gangs operate informally with leadership falling to whoever takes control; others have distinct leadership and are highly structured, much like a business or corporation. (Documentary,2015,Full Documentary,New Documentary,Top Documentaries,Documentaries,HD,2015,documentary films,documentary,) In discussing banditry in Chinese history, Barrington Moore, Jr. suggests that gangsterism as a "form of self-help which victimizes others" may appear in societies which lack strong "forces of law and order"; he characterizes European feudalism as "mainly gangsterism that had become society itself and acquired respectability". A wide variety of gangs, such as the Order of Assassins, the Damned Crew, Adam the Leper's gang, Penny Mobs, Indian Thugs, Chinese Triads, Snakehead, Japanese Yakuza, Irish mob, Pancho Villa's Villistas, Dead Rabbits, American Old West outlaw gangs, Bowery Boys, Chasers, the Italian mafia, Jewish mafia, and Russian Mafia crime families have existed for centuries. According to some estimates the Thuggee gangs in India murdered 1 million people between 1740 and 1840. The 17th century saw London "terrorized by a series of organized gangs",some of them known as the Mims, Hectors, Bugles, and Dead Boys. These gangs often came into conflict with each other. The members dressed "with colored ribbons to distinguish the different factions." In the United States, the history of gangs began on the East Coast in 1783 following the American Revolution.The emergence of the gangs was largely attributed to the vast rural population immigration to the urban areas. The first street-gang in the United States, the 40 Thieves, began around the late 1820s in New York City. The gangs in Washington D.C. had control of what is now Federal Triangle, in a region then known as Murder Bay. The word "gang" derives from the past participle of Old English gan, meaning "to go". It is cognate with Old Norse gangster, meaning "journey. In 2007, there were approximately 785,000 active street gang members in the United States, according to the National Youth Gang Center. In 2011, the National Gang Intelligence Center of the Federal Bureau of Investigation asserted that "There are approximately 1.4 million active street, prison, and outlaw gang members comprising more than 33,500 gangs in the United States." Approximately 230,000 gang members were in U.S. prisons or jails in 2011. According to the Chicago Crime Commission publication, "The Gang Book 2012", Chicago has more gang members than any other city in the United States: 150,000 members. Traditionally Los Angeles County has been considered the Gang Capital of America, with an estimated 120,000 (41,000 in the City) gang members. There are street gangs, which are people with similar backgrounds and motivations. The term "street gang" is commonly used interchangeably with "youth gang", referring to neighbourhood or street-based youth groups that meet "gang" criteria. Miller (1992) defines a street gang as "a self-formed association of peers, united by mutual interests, with identifiable leadership and internal organization, who act collectively or as individuals to achieve specific purposes, including the conduct of illegal activity and control of a particular territory, facility, or enterprise."

• published: 07 Jun 2015
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