The Mystery of the Yakes Yakes (original) (raw)
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Encyclopedia of Gangs, 2008
In light of Los Angeles' gang state of emergency, ethnic and minority gangs are arguably more high profile now than at any other time in our history. News media typically focus on the crime and violence associated with gangs, but not much else. This encyclopedia seeks to illuminate the world of gangs, including gang formations, routine gang activities, aberrations and current developments. One hundred essay entries related to gangs in the United States and worldwide provide a diffuse overview of the gang phenomenon. Each entry defines and explains the term, provides an historical overview, and explains its significance today. As the following entries demonstrate, gangs are part of the fabric of American society. They are not only in our communities but also our schools and other social institutions. Understanding the world of gangs is therefore needed to understand American society. Entries include: Bikers, Bloods, Cholas, Crips, gang mythology, gang warfare, graffiti, Hell's Angels, Hong Kong Triads, Latin Kings, law enforcement, occultic gangs, mafia, media, prison gangs, rites, Skinheads, Streetgang Terrorism Omnibus Prevention Act, tattoos, trafficking, Wanna-bes, West Side Story, Witness Protection programs, and youth gangs.
Killing Bill: Politics, Policing and Street Violence in the Gangs of New York Era
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000
Policing heretofore has been terra incognita for anthropology, though this and other recent sessions at AAA meetings suggest that's changing. Good, because it is through police forces that the power of the state directly confronts its citizens. New York City is a key case because of its historical and current role as trend leader among urban American police. This paper discusses the creation and early development ofthe New York police force. Extreme social conflicts were channeled through politics and then through the police, in an effort to control life on the street and thereby shape society. This narrative of contending visions of America focuses on the first three of New York'sfour police forces, from 1845 to 1857. The period might be familiar to you, albeit it in a warped way, through Martin Scorcese's fihn Gangs of New York, loosely based on Herbert Asbury's book of the same name. New York in 1845, was just Manhattan, maybe 400,000 people, with continuous building approaching today's midtown. It was policed by an all-purpose constabulary, supplemented by a night watch, and on the very frequent occasions of riot, backed by the militia. The constabulary and night watch went back to Dutch times. That system no longer worked.
Under a setting sun: the spatial displacement of the yakuza and their longing for visibility
Trends in Organized Crime
Spaces occupied by organised crime are usually kept secret, hidden, invisible. Japanese criminal syndicates, the yakuza, made instead visibility a key feature of the spaces they occupy through an overt display of their presence in the territory: in the past, a yakuza headquarter could have been instantly recognised by the crest and group name emblazoned on the front wall. However, recent changes in legislation have restrictively regulated these spaces, and the hygienisation of central neighbourhoods that used to be vital loci of yakuza activity has eroded the visibility of the groups. The intensification of the neoliberal drive took these processes to the extreme: political élites are urging to hide the yakuza from international scrutiny. Meanwhile, gentrification and temporary fortification of big cities have already changed the urban landscape and expelled elements of visual disturbance: marginal and dangerous 'others' such as the yakuza and the homeless. This article explores the relationship between organised crime and (in)visibility through the unusual case of a criminal group that ironically strives for visibility, and aims to investigate the socio-spatial consequences of the invisibilisation of the yakuza. Based on interviews and institutional documents, this article focuses on the wards of Kabukichō (Tokyo) and Nakasu (Fukuoka)traditionally spaces of yakuza presenceexamining how the increasing grip of the politics of surveillance over urbanscapes and the consequent spatial displacement of the yakuza induced a change in the yakuza's relationship with their surroundings. As a result, it is argued, this is further contributing to the emergence of new forms of crime challenging the yakuza's historical monopoly of the underworld.
Old Heads Tell Their Stories: From Street Gangs to Street Organizations in New York City
It has been the contention of researchers that the "oldheads" (identified by Anderson in 1990 and Wilson in 1987) of the ghettos and barrios of America have voluntarily or involuntarily left the community,leaving behind new generations of youth without adult role models and legitimate social controllers. This absence of an adult strata of significant others adds one more dynamic to the process of social disorganization and social pathology in the inner city. In New York City, however, a different phenomenon was found. Older men (and women) in their thirties and forties who were participants in the "jacket gangs" of the 1970s and/or the drug gangs ofthe 1980s are still active on the streets as advisors, mentors, and members of the new street organizations that have replaced the gangs. Through life history interviews with 20 "old heads," this paper traces the development of New York City's urban working-class street cultures from corner gangs to drug gangs to street organizations. It also offers a critical assessment of the state of gang theory. Analysis of the development of street organizations in New York goes beyond this study, and would have to include the importance of street-prison social support systems, the marginalization of poor barrio and ghetto youth, the influence of politicized "old heads," the nature of the illicit economy, the qualitative nonviolent evolution of street subcultures,and the changing role of women in the new subculture.
''Stones Run It'' : Taking Back Control of Organized Crime in Chicago, 1940-1975
In the 1960s and 70s African-American “supergangs” emerged in Chicago. Many scholars have touted the “prosocial” goals of these gangs, but fail to contextualize them in the larger history of black organized crime. Thus, they have overlooked how gang members sought to reclaim the underground economy in their neighborhoods. Yet even as gangs drove out white organized crime figures, they often lacked the know-how to reorganize the complex informal economy. Inexperienced gang members turned to extreme violence, excessive recruitment programs, and unforgiving extortion schemes to take power over criminal activities. These methods alienated black citizens and exacerbated tensions with law enforcement. In addition, the political shelter enjoyed by the previous generation of black criminals was turned into pervasive pressure to break up street gangs. Black street gangs fulfilled their narrow goal of community control of vice. Their interactions with their neighbors, however, remained contentious.