According to a report just released by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (U.S. Department of Justice), gangs have been around for centuries.
Long before the Crips, the Bloods, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mexican Mafia and MS13 started fighting each other and the police here in America, England had its own street gang problem. In the 1600s, London was “terrorized by a series of organized gangs calling themselves the Mims, Hectors, Bugles, Dead Boys … who found amusement in breaking windows, [and] demolishing taverns, [and they] also fought pitched battles among themselves dressed with colored ribbons to distinguish the different factions” (Pearson, 1983, p. 188).
Sounds a lot like today’s gangs, doesn’t it?
To read the U.S. DOJ’s history of street gangs, click here.
