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Encyclopedia of Gangs

Edited by LOUIS KONTOS and

DAVID C. BROTHERTON

GREENWOOD PRESS

Westport, Connecticut London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Encyclopedia of gangs / edited by Louis Kontos and David C. Brotherton.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-313-33402-3 (alk. paper)

1. Gangs—UnitedStates—Encyclopedias. 2. Gangs—Encyclopedias. I. Kontos,Louis.

II. Brotherton, David.

HV6439.U5E53 2008

364.1’0660973—dc22 2007029804

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

reproduced, by any process or technique, without the

express written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007029804

ISBN: 978-0-313-33402-3

First published in 2008

Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881

An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

www.greenwood.com

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National

Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Preface

vii

Acknowledgments

Introduction

xiii

List of Entries

xix

Guide to Related Topics

xxi

The Encyclopedia

Index

283

Preface

Much has changed in “gangland” since the publication of the rst empirical study on

the topic, Thrasher’s The Gang . In this study, “gang boys” are primarily children of

immigrants living in industrial slums. Their participation in gangs is deemed a “nat-

ural” response to the problems and contradictions of their world; a mode of adapta-

tion that includes rituals, symbolism, folklore, and concepts that provide a basis for

solidarity and sense of collective purpose. The in uence of Thrasher’s account on

theoretical and empirical work on gangs is strong in the 1930s and 1940s. A more

deterministic (neo-positivist) logic can be found in the 1950s, which Hardman (1967)

aptly characterizes as “the decade of theorizing.” In two of the most in uential

works of this decade—Cohen (1955) and Miller (1958)—gang culture is theorized

along a single dimension: norms and values. Cohen sees gangs as a mode of rebellion

rather than adaptation. The typical gang, in this account, develops in opposition to

mainstream (middle-class) values and institutional sources of judgment. Its subcul-

ture is deemed merely epiphenomenal—something gang members invent with the

intent to shock outsiders, assert distaste, and reclaim dignity. Miller, by contrast, sees

gangs as a collection of working-class youth whose habits and values are incongru-

ent with the institutional logic of middle-class society. Incongruence leads to trouble,

for instance, when young men are overly masculine and thereby confrontational, or

when they cheat or steal because they are not accustomed to “delayed grati cation.”

In this scenario, gang subculture is simply an extension of working-class culture

without appropriate context, thereby pathological. Did gangland change all that

much in an anti-social direction between the 1920s and 1950s? Yes and no.

Clearly there is a problem with generalizations about “gangs,” since the people

who study them display widely disparate motivating interests and theoretical as-

sumptions, which are, at least in part, ideological in nature; and since ideological

and theoretical tendencies in the literature on gangs have shifted widely over short

periods of time, and from one “school” to the next. This manner of shift has been so

dramatic over the last eighty years as to make real comparisons among any past and

present gangs dif cult. The most dramatic shift occurred in the 1960s, where “gang

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