Proposal - Speech Package 1

Gang History

Gang-related organised crime in the United Kingdom according to the Serious Organised Crime Agency is concentrated around the cities of London, Manchester and Liverpool and regionally across the West Midlands region, south coast and northern England.^[With regards to street gangs 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, Manchester and Liverpool.Glasgow in Scotland also has a historical gang culture with the city having 6 times as many teenage gangs as London, which has ten times the population.

Increasingly, Britain's street gangs in certain inner city areas such as London and Manchester are becoming more of a cultural transmission of America's Crips and Bloods This is evidenced by identification with colours, hand signs, graffiti tags and in some cases gang names, for example Old Trafford Cripz and Moss Side Bloodsor 031 (O-Tray-One) Bloods gang and ABM (All Bout Money) Crips.

London was the first city documented as the world's gang capital, 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, often referred to as Mobs, including The Yiddishers, Hoxton Mob, Watney Streeters, Aldgate Mob, Whitechapel Mob, Bethnal Green Mob and the organised Italian Mob headed by Charles Sabini. The history of these gangs is well documented in "London's Underworld: Three centuries of vice and crime".

On 21 February 2007, the BBC reported on an unpublished Metropolitan Police report on London's gang culture, identifying 169 separate groups (see Ghetto Boys, Tottenham Mandem and Peckham Boys), with more than a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 in 2009.

There is a modern history of London gangs dating from the 1970s although many of them developed from what Britain labelled as a sub-culture, which included punks, Rastas and football hooligans. Two well known subcultures that had violent clashes during the Notting Hill riots in the 1950s, Teddy Boys and Rudeboys, could well be labelled gangs in today's media. Amongst the current London gangs whose history does go back to the 1970s, there are the Ghetto Boys, Peckham Boys and Tottenham Mandem all of which are predominantly or entirely black. There are a number of historical Asian gangs in London too, many that were initially formed to protect their local communities in response to racist attacks from the native white population, gangs such as the Brick Lane Massive. In the past decade, Tamil gang violence namely in Croydon and Wembley 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.In the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the majority of the gangs are Bangladeshi, it is estimated that there are alone there are 2,500 Bengali youths affiliated to one of the many local gangs,and that 26 out of the 27 gangs in the area are Bangladeshi

London gangs are increasingly marking their territory with gang graffiti, usually a gang name and the Post Code area or Housing Estate 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.

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

Gangs in London also use handsigns and gang tattoos to denote gang membership