Gang History - History of Gangs in America


History of Youth Gangs
Youth gangs may have first appeared in Europe (Klein, 1996) or Mexico (Redfield, 1941; Rubel, 1965). No one is sure when or why they emerged in the United States. The earliest record of their appearance in the United States may have been as early as 1783, as the American Revolution ended (Sante, 1991; Sheldon, 1898). They may have emerged spontaneously from adolescent play groups or as a collective response to urban conditions in this country (Thrasher, 1927). Some suggest they first emerged following the Mexican migration to the Southwest after the Mexican Revolution in 1813 (Redfield, 1941; Rubel, 1965). They may have grown out of difficulties Mexican youth encountered with social and cultural adjustment to the American way of life under extremely poor conditions in the Southwest (Moore, 1978; Vigil, 1988). Gangs appear to have spread in New England in the early 1800's as the Industrial Revolution gained momentum in the first large cities in the United States: New York, Boston, and Philadelphia (Finestone, 1976; Sante, 1991; Spergel, 1995).
Gangs began to flourish in Chicago and other large cities during the industrial era, when immigration and population shifts reached peak levels (Finestone, 1976). Early in American history, gangs seem to have been most visible and most violent during periods of rapid population shifts. Their evolution has been characterized by an ebb and flow pattern that "at any given time more closely resembles that of, say, influenza rather than blindness," as Miller (1992:51) has observed. The United States has seen four distinct periods of gang growth and peak activity: the late 1800's, the 1920's, the 1960's, and the 1990's (Curry and Decker, 1998). Gang proliferation, in other words, is not a constant.
In the modern era, youth gangs have been influenced by several trends. In the 1970's and 1980's, because of increased mobility and access to more lethal weapons, many gangs became more dangerous (Klein, 1995; Klein and Maxson, 1989; Miller, 1974, 1992; Spergel, 1995). Gang fights previously involving fists or brass knuckles increasingly involved guns. The growing availability of automobiles, coupled with the use of more lethal weapons, fueled the growth of drive-by shootings, a tactic that previously took the form of on-foot hit-and-run forays (Miller, 1966). Gangs of the 1980's and 1990's seem to have both more younger and more older members than before (Miller, 1992; Spergel, 1995), more members with prison records or ties to prison inmates (Hagedorn, 1988; Miller, 1992; Moore, 1990; Vigil, 1988), and more weapons of greater lethality (Block and Block, 1993; Miller, 1992; National Drug Intelligence Center, 1995). They are less concerned with territorial affiliations (Fagan, 1990; Klein, 1995), use alcohol and drugs more extensively (Decker and Van Winkle, 1996; Fagan, 1990; Thornberry, 1998), and are more involved in drug trafficking (Battin et al., 1998; Fagan, 1990; Miller, 1992; Taylor, 1989; Thornberry, 1998).
Some youth gangs appear to have been transformed into entrepreneurial organizations by the crack cocaine epidemic that began in the mid-1980's (Sanchez-Jankowski, 1991; Skolnick et al., 1988; Taylor, 1989). However, the extent to which they have become drug-trafficking organizations is unclear (Howell and Decker, in press). Some youth groups, many of which are not considered bona fide gangs, are not seriously involved in illegal activities and provide mainly social opportunities for their membership (Fagan, 1989; Vigil, 1988). Some gangs seldom use drugs and alcohol, and some have close community ties (Fagan, 1989; Sanchez-Jankowski, 1991; Vigil, 1988).
Source: http://www.ojjdp.gov/jjbulletin/9808/history.html


HISTORY OF STREET GANGS IN THE UNITED STATES


Introduction
The first active gangs in Western civilization were reported 
by Pike (1873, pp. 276–277), a widely respected chronicler 
of British crime. He documented the existence of gangs of 
highway robbers in England during the 17th century, and 
he speculates that similar gangs might well have existed 
in our mother country much earlier, perhaps as early as 
the 14th or even the 12th century. But it does not appear 
that these gangs had the features of modern-day, serious 
street gangs.
1
 More structured gangs did not appear 
until the early 1600s, when 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).
The history of street gangs in the United States begins 
with their emergence on the East Coast around 1783, 
as the American Revolution ended (Sante, 1991). But 
there is considerable justification for questioning the 
seriousness of these early gangs. The best available 
evidence suggests that the more serious street 
gangs likely did not emerge until the early part of the 
nineteenth century (Sante, 1991).





Street Gang Emergence in the 
Northeast
Street gangs on the East Coast developed in three 
phases (Adamson, 1998; Sante, 1991). The first ganglike groups began to emerge immediately after the 
American Revolution ended in 1783, but they were 
not seasoned criminals; only youth fighting over local 
turf. The beginning of serious ganging in New York 
City would commence a few years later, around 1820, 
in the wake of far more large-scale immigration. The 
gangs that emerged from this melting pot were far 
more structured and dangerous. A third wave of gang 
activity developed in the 1950s and 1960s when Latino 
and black populations arrived en masse. 
New York City’s Ellis Island was the major port of entry 
to the United States. It “has throughout the country’s 
history been the cauldron into which highly diverse 
immigrant groups have been poured” (Geis, 1965, 
p. 42). The three predominant early immigrant groups 
that arrived in New York City and settled in the Lower 
East Side in large numbers after the War of 1812 were 
English, Irish, and German (Sante, 1991). Their collective 
arrival spurred gang development in the squalor and 
overcrowding of the Lower East Side. That area of the 
city—particularly around the Five Points—fell victim to 
3 The term “Hispanic” is used particularly by federal and state 
bureaucracies to refer to persons who reside in the United States 
who were born in, or trace their ancestry back to, one of 23 
Spanish-speaking nations (Moore and Pinderhughes, 1993, p. xi). 
Many of these individuals prefer to use the term “Latino,” and 
that term is used in this report. “Chicano” is also used to refer to 
Mexican descendants.
rapid immigration and ensuing political, economic, and 
social disorganization. 
First Period of Gang Emergence 
in New York City
The members of the gangs that first drove social stakes 
in the streets of New York in the late 18th century were 
the same age as most members of current street gangs, 
from the early teens to about the mid-twenties (Sante, 
1991). They consisted of five main groups: “The Smiths’s 
Vly gang, the Bowery Boys, and the Broadway Boys 
were white, mainly Irish groups; the Fly Boys and the 
Long Bridge Boys were black” (p. 198). There already 
was a substantial black population in the area (Sante, 
1991, p. 199). 
It is important to examine more closely the racial/ethnic 
character of the early New York gangs described here. 
Overall, the earliest gangs were largely Irish, followed 
after the Civil War by Italian and then Jewish gangs 
with a mixture of Italian, Irish, and Scandavian members 
(Riis, 1902/1969; Sante, 1991). Dutch, Welsh, Scots-Irish, 
Irish Catholic, and German youth, as well as persons 
of mixed ethnicity, soon would expand the melting pot.  
Indeed, early gangs were often multi-ethnic, drawn 
from neighborhoods that were not rigidly segregated 
by ethnicity (Adamson, 2000). 
The earliest gangs of New York were not criminal 
groups. Many street gang members were employed, 
mostly as common laborers (Adamson, 1998; Sante, 
1991).  Some were bouncers in saloons and dance 
halls, as well as longshoremen. A few were apprentice 
butchers, carpenters, sailmakers, and shipbuilders.  
“They engaged in violence, but violence was a normal 
part of their always-contested environment; turf warfare 
was a condition of the neighborhood” (Sante, 1991, 
p. 198). Gangs formed the “basic unit of social life among 
the young males in New York in the nineteenth century” 
(Sante, 1991, p. 198).
More dangerous street gangs than previously seen 
emerged around 1820 from the persistent disorder that 
gripped the city slums, tenements, saloons, and dance 
halls (Riis, 1902/1969; Sante, 1991). The Forty Thieves gang 
was characterized as “the first important and decisively 
dangerous gang of the quarter [century]” (Sante, 1991, 
p. 199). It and other new groups of gangs that emerged in 
this period were centered in criminal enterprises as much 
as in territorial disputes (Sante, 1991). “It is axiomatic 
that the more sophisticated the gangs became, the more 
violent they grew as well” (p. 198).
“Prior to 1840, territorial alliances took precedence over 
ethnic solidarity. Thereafter, in the climate of economic 
restructuring and intense competition for jobs, gang 
warfare replicated ethnic conflict” (Adamson, 1998, 
p. 64). From its early history, ethnic succession and 
invasion has been a regular process in the city. “From its 
earliest days when the Dutch and English struggled for 
political and economic control, through the nineteenth 
Irish settled in great numbers, and up through the century when new groups such as Germans and the early twentieth century with the arrival of southern 
and eastern Europeans, the city has always been an 
ever-evolving mix of ethnic groups” (Lobo, Flores, and 
Salvo, 2002, p. 703). 
The Five Points gangs, such as the Dead Rabbits, 
typically formed in the corner groggeries (selling a 
combination of groceries and cheap liquor) that had 
bars in the rear of the buildings (“speak-easies,” Asbury, 
1927), which became social centers. “As a social unit, 
the gang closely resembled such organizations as the 
fire company, the fraternal order, and the political club, 
all of these formations variously overlapped” (Sante, 
1991, pp. 197–198). Bar room brawling was a common 
denominator. “The majority of dives featured one or 
another of a variation of the basic setup: bar, dance floor, 
private boxes, prostitution, robbery” (p. 112). 
The Five Points Gang was particularly influential, such 
that it is said to be “the most significant street gang 
to form in the United States, ever!” (Savelli, 2001, p. 1). 
Its coleader, Johnny Torrio, became a significant member 
of the Sicilian Mafia (La Cosa Nostra).  He recruited street 
hoodlums from across New York City to the Five Points 
Gang, including a teenaged Brooklyn boy of Italian 
descent named Alphonse Capone, better known as 
Al Capone or “Scarface.” Capone became a member 
of the James Street Gang, which the Five Pointers 
considered a minor-league outfit. The Five Points Gang 
became the major league to many young street gangsters 
and a farm club for the Mafia (Savelli, 2001, p. 1). 
The gang also specialized in supplying bodies to 
political entities, in keeping unsympathetic voters away 
from the election center. It was a symbiotic relationship; 
each group benefitted from the influence of the other.  
The apex of its 25-year history was approximately 1857 
(Sante, 1991). “By the 1870s, few gangs remained in Five 
Points” (Gilfoyle, 2003, p. 622). A 2002 movie, Gangs 
of New York, vividly depicted their reign, with some 
exaggerations and distorted history in “a blood-soaked 
vision of American history” (p. 621). 
Years later, in 1919, being sought by authorities in 
connection with a gangland murder in New York, 
Al “Scarface” Capone moved to Chicago when Torrio 
needed his assistance in maintaining control of Chicago 
mob territories. “Al Capone eventually became the 
most violent and prolific gangster in Chicago, if not…
the United States, that law enforcement has ever 
experienced” (Savelli, 2001, p. 1). 
Second Period of Gang Growth 
in New York City
The arrival of the Poles, Italians, and Jews in 
New York City in the period 1880–1920 ushered in a 
second distinct period of gang activity in the city’s 
slums.  Jacob Riis, a journalist, photographer, and social 
reformer, shocked the conscience of many Americans 
with his factual descriptions of slum conditions in his 
book, The Battle with the Slum (1902/1969). Inundated 
with immigrants, New York City could not provide 
enough homes for the influx that occurred over the next 
30 years. Tenement houses were created as a temporary 
solution that became permanent. Members of a select 
committee (cited in Riis, 1902/1969, p. 12) of the state 
legislature came to the city and saw how crime came 
to be the natural crop of people housed in crowded, 
filthy tenements with “dark, damp basements, leaking 
garrets, shops, outhouses, and stables converted into 
dwellings.” These conditions predated the formation 
of the city Health Department, viable social services, 
and the Children’s Aid Society. Moreover, the New York 
City Police Department was not effective in maintaining 
order. Gangs and other criminal groups were virtually 
unfettered from forging their own wedges in the social 
and physical disorder.  
The Whyos (named for a bird-like call the members used 
to alert one another) is said to have been “the most 
powerful downtown gang between the Civil War and 
the 1890s” (Sante, 1991, p. 214). It appeared to have 
emerged from an earlier gang, the Chichesters. This 
transformed and far more criminal gang actually had a 
take-out menu of its services, including punching ($2), 
nose and jaw bone broken ($10), leg or arm broken ($19), 
shot in the leg ($25), and “doing the big job” ($100 and 
up) (Sante, 1991, p. 215). 
The histories of the city ’s gangs can be 
seen as running a close parallel to the 
progress of commerce. From small, specialized 
establishments narrowly identified with 
particular neighborhoods, gangs branched out, 
diversified, and merged, absorbing smaller and 
less well-organized units and encompassing 
ever-larger swaths of territory. After the Whyos, 
their numbers decimated by jailings and deaths, 
dissolved in the early 1890s, a small number 
of very large gangs, organized as umbrella 
formations made up of smaller entities, came to 
dominate the scene (Sante, 1991, p. 217).
Four gang alliances were longest-lived gangs on the 
Lower East Side of Manhattan—for nearly two decades 
on either side of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: 
the Five Pointers, the Monk Eastman, the Gophers, and 
the Hudson Dusters (Sante, 1991, p. 217). Territorial 
disputes and reorganizations were commonplace, 
but the Jewish Monk Eastman Gang was particularly 
notable for having “terrorized New York City streets” 
(Savelli, 2001, p. 1). 
In the meantime, the Chinese set up their own highly 
structured tongs around 1860, and put the street 
gangs to shame in running a criminal operation that 
controlled opium distribution, gambling, and political 
p a t ro n a g e   ( C h i n ,   1 9 9 5 ) .   “  T h e   t o n g s  me rg e d   t h e 
functions, resources, and techniques of politicians, 
police, financiers, and gangsters, and enforced their 
levy with no opposition” (Sante, 1991, p. 226). Even so, 
the tongs soon were matched in strength by the Mafia, 
which had moved from New Orleans into New York. The 
last major downtown gang fight occurred in 1914; soon 

thereafter, “the gang situation downtown had entered 
its decadent phase. Gangs were splintering into tiny 
groups, while bands of juveniles and amateurs were 
coming up everywhere” (Sante, 1991, p. 231). 
Third Period of Gang Growth in 
New York City 
Youth gangs are presumed to have virtually disappeared 
from New York City by the 1950s, following the West Side 
Story era (Sullivan, 1993). But field observations in the 
city by an anthropologist and adroit gang researcher 
(Miller, 1974) refuted the popular media story that 
the gangs had dissolved. In New York City and other 
places, “mass migration of Southern Blacks (seeking 
better employment opportunities and social conditions) 
landed many of them in urban locales near all White 
neighborhoods, which sparked interracial conflict . . . 
White male youth groups formed and violently resisted 
racial integration of neighborhoods, which led to Black 
brotherhoods evolving into social protection groups” 
(Cureton, 2009, p. 351). Under these conditions, “street 
gangs became entrenched in the social fabric of the 
underclass” (p. 351). 
New York City ’s gangs also were strengthened 
during this period by Latino immigrant groups (from 
Latin America, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico) that 
moved into areas of the city populated by European 
Americans—particularly in the South Bronx (Curtis, 
2003) and Brooklyn (Sullivan, 1993).
U r b a n   p l a n n e r s   b u i l t   h i g h - r i s e   p u b l i c   h o u s i n g 
developments across the country (from the mid-1940s 
to the mid-1960s). Black gangs were very prevalent in 
these and in segregated communities in New York City 
by the 1960s (Gannon, 1967; Miller, 1982/1992). On the 
one hand, high-rise public housing settings provided 
gangs with cohesion because it was an identifiable and 
secure home base (Monti, 1993). On the other hand, the 
creation of low-income, high-rise public housing shifted 
previous inner-city slums and ghettos to outer-city, 
ring-city, or suburban areas (Miller, 1982/1992). The 
scattering of these low-income public housing projects 
around the city served to diffuse to some extent the 
between-gang violence that developed in Chicago. 
By the 1960s, more than two-thirds of the New York 
gangs were Puerto Rican or black (Gannon, 1967, 
p. 122). However, the highly organized Chinatown 
gangs reigned for nearly 20 years—from the mid-
1970s to the mid-1990s—during which they were 
“responsible for systematic extortion and violence” 
(M. L. Sullivan, 2006, p. 22). In this same period, a 
surging Hispanic/Latino population succeeded whites 
across New York City, creating a preponderance of 
both all-minority and multiethnic neighborhoods (Lobo 
et al., 2002). In the post-1990 period, newer Hispanic 
groups began to succeed Puerto Ricans. “In fact, by the 
late 1990s, Hispanics had replaced blacks as the largest 
minority group in the city” (p. 704). “Social observers of 
New York City in the 1880s, when the city was swarming 
with Irish gangs, would have been incredulous had they 
been told that within the century the police would be 
hard put to locate a single Irish gang in the five boroughs 
of the city” (Miller, 1982/1992, p. 79). 
Modern-Day Eastern Gangs
In the 1990s, post-World War II urban renewal, slum 
clearances, and ethnic migration pitted gangs of AfricanAmerican, Puerto Rican, and Euro-American youth 
against each other in battles to dominate changing 
neighborhoods, and to establish and maintain their turf 
and honor (Schneider, 1999). By 2008, “approximately 
640 gangs with more than 17,250 members [were] 
criminally active in the New England region
4
 ” (Federal 
Bureau of Investigation, 2008, p. 17). Most of the gang 
growth in this region has been in the 222 Corridor—so 
named because Pennsylvania Route 222 bisects five 
cities
5
  in the state. In the decade following the late 
1990s, “each of these cities experienced a dramatic 
increase in gangs and their associated criminal 
activities” (Easton Gang Prevention Task Force, 2007).  
“Violent gang members from major metropolitan areas 
such as New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, and 
Baltimore travel to and through the 222 Corridor using 
the smaller urban communities as part of their drug 
distribution networks” (p. 1). 
Another important trend in the broader Northeast 
region is increasing gang-related violence as a result of 
competition among gangs for control of territories (FBI, 
2008).  According to the FBI’s intelligence reports, “the 
most significant gangs operating in the East Region 
are Crips, Latin Kings, MS-13, Ñeta, and United Blood 
Nation” (p. 16). 
A relatively new street gang in the Northeast region, 
the Trinitarios, meaning the Trinity or Special One, 
was formed during the late 1990s for protection from 
Dominican inmates in New York prisons (FBI, 2008). 
Upon leaving prison, members banded together as a 
street gang, calling themselves Trinitarios to separate 
themselves from other Dominican street gangs in 
New York. “Trinitarios members are establishing a 
reputation for extreme violence throughout the area” 
and this gang appears to be increasing its presence 
in the region (p. 16). Its members are particularly 
involved in drug trafficking, robberies, auto theft, and 
murder. Trinitarios also maintains strong, hierarchical 
organizations in correctional facilities.
In addition to the Trinitarios, local law enforcement 
agencies currently identify the East Coast Bloods and 
Dead Man Inc. as presenting enormous threats to 
public safety in the Northeast region. The East Coast 
Bloods were formed in New York City’s Rikers Island 
Jail in 1993 to fight off Ñetas and Latin Kings within 
the facilities.
6
 Members of this gang are predominantly 
African-American males aged 16–35 years. Some gang 
4 This region extends northward from the New York border.
5 Easton, Bethlehem, Allentown, Reading, and Lancaster.
6 Capital Region Gang Prevention Center: http://www.
nysgangprevention.com/).5
sets
7
 on Rikers require an individual to “put in work” 
or “eat food” (cut or slash someone) before they are 
considered Blood members. In the estimation of some 
authorities, the East Coast Bloods is reputed to be the 
largest street gang in New York City, and it operates in 
other East Coast cities as well.
Dead Man Inc. is a white prison gang that reportedly 
was formed in the Maryland Correctional Adjustment 
Center, known as Supermax. It was founded in the late 
1990s by white inmates who desired affiliation with 
the established Black Guerrilla Family, but the group’s 
request was denied because its white race, which 
conflicted with the BGFs Black membership.
8
 Hence, 
Dead Man Inc. was formed.
Street Gang Emergence in 
Chicago
Chicago emerged as an industrial hub between the Civil 
War and the end of the 19th century. The city’s capacity 
to produce gangs was enhanced when it recruited a 
massive labor force from the peasantry of Southern and 
Eastern Europe, becoming “a latter-day tower of Babel” 
(Finestone, 1976, p. 6). Gangs that flourished in Chicago 
in the early part of the 1900s grew mainly from the same 
immigrant groups that populated the early serious street 
gangs of New York City (Thrasher, 1927/2000). By the 
early 20th century, Polish and Italian gangs were the 
most numerous in Chicago. Only 7 percent were black.  
Much like the early New York scene, gangs of mixed 
nationalities were common; in fact, ethnically mixed 
gangs represented almost 40 percent of all gangs in 
Chicago by 1925 (p. 68). Another parallel is that the social 
dynamics associated with gang formation were similar 
in the two cities. Thrasher (1927/2000) stated the case 
for Chicago. The gang, he said, “is one manifestation 
of the disorganization incident to the cultural conflict 
among diverse nations and races gathered in one place 
and themselves in contact with a civilization foreign and 
largely inimical to them” (p. 76). 
Thrasher (1927/1963) dubbed this “economic, moral, 
and cultural frontier” the “zone in transition.” This 
“gangland” between the thriving downtown business 
district and neighborhoods filled with stable, workingclass families was “unattractive, dirty, and filled with 
industry, railroad yards, ghettos, and the city’s recent 
immigrants” (Monti, 1993, p. 4). Thrasher’s study was 
a very broad one. In addition to gangs, he discusses 
other criminal groups: adult hoodlum bands, rings, 
syndicates, political machines, bootleggers, robbers, 
gambling houses, vice resorts, and other crime fixtures 
in the urban landscape of rapidly developing Chicago. Of 
the more than 1,300 gangs that he catalogued, he was 
able to classify 90 percent: 530 were clearly delinquent 
or criminal; 609 were dubious in character; and only 52 
were clearly not delinquent. But this characterization 
7 Gang subgroups or sections.
8 According to intelligence information compiled by the Gang 
Identification Task Force: http://whiteprisongangs.blogspot.
com/2009/05/dead-man-inc.html. 
masked the truly dangerous gangs that already existed 
in the city of Chicago at that time. 
First Period of Chicago Gang 
Growth
Chicago’s first street gangs developed among white 
immigrants along ethnic lines before the American Civil 
War.
9
 Perkins (1987) found evidence of white gangs 
“roving the streets” in the city as far back as the 1860s, 
but it would be 20 years before street gangs had a 
notable presence. Many of the early white gangs may 
have emerged from fire departments.  Carrying names 
such as “Fire Kings,” these companies of young workingclass men brawled in the streets and sponsored social 
events. After the official creation of fire departments 
forced volunteer operations to disband, gang activities 
shifted into saloons. 
Predominant large Irish gangs included the Dukies and 
the Shielders, which exerted a powerful influence on the 
streets around the stockyards—robbing men leaving 
work, fighting among themselves, and terrorizing the 
German, Jewish, and Polish immigrants who settled 
there from the 1870s to the 1890s. These gangs fought 
constantly among themselves, but they occasionally 
united to battle nearby black gangs.
10
 Black gangs did 
not appear until the 1920s, although “the impact of Black 
street gangs on the Black community was minimal, at 
best, prior to the 1940s” (Perkins, 1987, pp. 19, 25). 
During this period, gangs became entrenched in the 
patronage networks operated by ward politicians 
(Adamson, 2000), and the city’s gangs “thrived on 
political corruption” (Moore, 1998, p. 76). Cook County 
Commissioner Frank Ragen established the Ragen 
Athletic Club—home of the Ragen’s Colts gang—on 
Chicago’s Halsted Street. This gang’s mantra was “Hit me 
and you hit a thousand” (p. 278). “The gang masqueraded 
as an athletic club but in fact controlled and protected 
[its] turf, particularly from Blacks who either worked in 
the area or traveled through the area on their way to and 
from work” (Arrendondo, 2004, p. 406). With members 
ranging in age from 17 to 30, it also “provided a de facto
policing service for the community” (Adamson, 2000, p. 
278). Several other athletic clubs hosted gangs, and gangs 
also assisted union leaders and factory workers in the 
protection of their interests (Spergel, 1995). 
During the “Roaring Twenties,” violence among warring 
gangs was a frequent occurrence in Chicago (Block, 
1977). Organized crime mobs were also prevalent, 
the most notable of which was the Al Capone gang 
(Peterson, 1963). Street gangs were said to “prosper in 
the very shadow of these institutions” (McKay, 1949, 
p. 36). Thrasher described the key characteristics of most 
9 The author’s main source for this early history of Chicago gangs 
is the Encyclopedia of Chicago History: http://www.encyclopedia.
chicagohistory.org/pages/27.html. Accessed December 28, 2009.
10 The author’s main source for this early history of Chicago 
gangs is the Encyclopedia of Chicago History: http://www.
encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/27.html. Accessed 
December 28, 2009.6
of the 1,313 gangs (with some 25,000 members)
11
  that he found 
in Chicago and plotted their location on a map of the city. This 
exercise revealed Chicago’s “gangland” (see Sidebar: Chicago’s 
Gangland) within what Thrasher called the “interstitial” or rapidly 
deteriorating transitional areas (ghettos and slums) between the 
central city and the better residential areas. 
The heyday of Chicago’s white ethnic gangs soon came to an 
end, however. As Moore (1998, p. 68) explains it, “the gangs 
of the 1920s were largely “a one-generation immigrant ghetto 
phenomenon.” Perhaps the most important reason for the gangs’ 
dissolution is that their immigrant families were able to move out 
of Chicago’s downtown ghettos and into better areas, into a social 
and economic mainstream. But “they did not take their gangs 
with them.”  These remained and more gangs soon would emerge 
because the whites moved to the suburbs, making room for the 
incipient influx of African Americans in the more impoverished 
central city
http://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/Content/Documents/History-of-Street-Gangs.pdf