5 Of The Biggest Gangs

[Susano]

Gangs and criminal organizations come into creation for a number of reasons or motives. Usually they revolve around money, and use fear, crime and extortion. They can be loosely controlled with no apparent structure, or they can be highly efficient with military like organization. In contrast to general media conception, gangs have been around for centuries in one shape or another, the Chinese Triads for example were started as a resistance to the Manchu Emperor of the Qing Dynasty in the 1760s. Here are just 5 of the biggest gangs and criminal groups in existence today.

 

More: http://www.alistoflists.com/miscellaneous/5-of-the-biggest-gangs

[BobGreenwade]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

Oddly, the part I find most interesting is that it took two days before any of the commenters made note of the fact that this list of "5 of the biggest gangs and criminal groups in existence today" is actually 6 strong.

 

Maybe it's Iron Enforcer math....

[megaplayboy]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

Hmm, a couple million young black men in the US, and the two largest black gangs put together total only about 50-60,000...there goes that ugly stereotype.

[Maur]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

Nah, the rest are in gangs that only number a few hundred strong and only influence their own neighborhood.

[megaplayboy]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

Well, there are an estimated 750,000 total gang members in the US, and 31% are black, so that's still only about 225,000--still a relatively small percentage of black males.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

Well' date=' there are an estimated 750,000 total gang members in the US, and 31% are black, so that's still only about 225,000--still a relatively small percentage of black males.[/quote']But, sadly, a disproportionately high percentage of gang members who are black.

[megaplayboy]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

But' date=' sadly, a disproportionately high percentage of gang members who are black. [/quote']

 

Well, 13% of gang members are white, 7% asian and 46% Latino. I suspect there's an intersection between living in poverty/living in an urban environment/single parent household, and gang membership.

 

(this is all from wiki, by the way).

[Roter Baron]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

Hmmm, curious article: Throwing togther the Crips, the Hell's Angels, the Russian Mafia, the Yakuza, the IRA and the MS13 Gang seems to make a hotchpotch-list to me, epsecially when the article about the Hell's Angels stated that Anges are hardly a gang OR a criminal organisation and that the real number of members is undisclosed. Well, then it doesn't make any sense to included them in a list about "the 5 biggest gangs".

 

Same with the IRA. You don#T have to like or defend the IRA to see that you can't included it under "gangs". Sure, some of it's groups have more than just criminal tendencies (tendencies that are not political motivated violence or crimes (like extortion and robberies) to provide the money for such violence or the organization) ut started to become big in the drug market of Belfats, but some of these splinters were excecuted by the IRA themself for going "mafia".

But the IRA is not a gang that is in it for the money. It's political power by means of violence. Totally different from the Russian Mafia, Yakuza or the Crips.

 

Didn't know about the MS13 gang. Otherwise I am pretty much inimpressed by the content of the list.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

I suspect there's an intersection between living in poverty/living in an urban environment/single parent household' date=' and gang membership.[/quote']Though, also sadly, I find that most of the traffic in that intersection runs the opposite way that most people assume it does... that is to say, crime tends to cause poverty rather than vice versa.

[megaplayboy]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

Though' date=' also sadly, I find that most of the traffic in that intersection runs the opposite way that most people assume it does... that is to say, crime tends to cause poverty rather than vice versa.[/quote']

 

Well, substance abuse and deterioration of property values tend to contribute to a vicious cycle, I'd tend to agree.

Absent the revenues from the illicit drug trade, most street gangs would likely tend to do a slow fade.

[ghost-angel]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

While the list is interesting... It feels very suspect to me.

 

Not that I have any counter evidence to dispute it....

[CorPse]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

Oddly, the part I find most interesting is that it took two days before any of the commenters made note of the fact that this list of "5 of the biggest gangs and criminal groups in existence today" is actually 6 strong.

 

Maybe it's Iron Enforcer math....

 

Yeah, I noticed that too... funny.

[CorPse]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

While the list is interesting... It feels very suspect to me.

 

Not that I have any counter evidence to dispute it....

 

Interesting... does something seem missing?

[Toadmaster]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

I don't know but it seems like even the author admits that these were just chosen to provide a cross section of gangs, nothing really scientific about the choices.

 

Seems like he missed a lot though, I mean if the IRA counts as a gang where are the islamic terrorist organizations? I'm pretty sure they are larger than the IRA.

 

La Cosa Nostra seems like a pretty big ommission to me.

 

My guess is this is a good example of what happens when you don't specify what the requirements are to qualify for the list before you start the list.

[ghost-angel]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

Interesting... does something seem missing?

 

Toadmaster kind of touched on it...

 

but some of those are Gangs, some Organized Criminal Outfits, some Terrorist Organizations. They are three distinctly different levels of operation.

 

For instance, the Inca Boys are a large (estimated 5000 member strong) Mexican US Gang (with a really good sized contingent in Denver) that run guns down to Mexico for the Zaptistas - who are either a Rebel Force or Terrorist Organization (depending on who you ask, much like the IRA).

 

Al Queda is probably amongst one of the most dangerous and far reaching Terrorist Organizations.

 

La Cosa Nostra controls a good bit of the worlds drugs and drug trafficking.

 

The Chinese Triads aren't there, they must have thousands of members doing all kinds of things.

 

YACS (Yugoslovian Armenian Croation Serbian) is an up and coming group of organizations that are becoming increasingly dangerous.

 

It just seems like a very sloppy, broad and unorganized list "gangs" from around the world - some of which are no longer simply gangs.

[Susano]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

All that aside, it at least should help anyone running a DC game, right?

 

Right?

 

uhmm... right?

 

i'll go away now....

[ghost-angel]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

It's cool info. Yes. Thanks

[BobGreenwade]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

All that aside' date=' it at least should help anyone running a DC game, right?[/quote']Absolutely! At the worst, it updates some of the information in the DC genre book.

[Toadmaster]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

All that aside, it at least should help anyone running a DC game, right?

 

Right?

 

uhmm... right?

 

i'll go away now....

 

 

Yes its good info, and it highlights a good use for Wikipedia.

 

You often post a link to a list of things, some of these are good some ehhh, but even the not so great ones usually inspire a good discussion of what should have been on the list.

 

This list also serves as an example of why its a good idea to have a solid concept before writing an article. If the author had simply changed the title to 6 of the worlds dangerous organizations selected at random would have avoided 90% of the criticisms.

[Alverant]

Re: 5 Of The Biggest Gangs

 

How does one separate a gang from a hate group from a terrorist group? Both use fear and intimidation to get what they want. Neither like being questioned. Both think they can do what they want and are above (earthly) authority.

 

I am glad the DC book included the KKK in their list of terrorist groups though. Personally I see no real difference between a hate crime and a terrorist attack. The only differences seem to be scale and who is the victim.