Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs 1St Ed Edition Tereza Kuldova Full Chapter

Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street
Gangs 1st ed. Edition Tereza Kuldova

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/outlaw-motorcycle-clubs-and-street-gangs-1st-ed-edit
ion-tereza-kuldova/
OUTLAW
MOTORCYCLE
CLUBS AND
STREET GANGS
Scheming Legality,
Resisting Criminalization
Edited by
Tereza Kuldova and
Martín Sánchez-
Jankowski
Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society
Series Editors
Kieran McCartan
Department of Health & Social Science
University of the West of England
Bristol, UK
Philip N. S. Rumney
Frenchay Campus
University of the West of England
Bristol, UK
“‘Easy Riders?’ or ‘Born to be Wild?’ Or perhaps none of these clichés, according

to this new book Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs edited by Tereza
Kuldova and Martín Sánchez-Jankowski. In this vibrant and varied collection,
world experts use their theoretical skill as well academic savvy to produce dis-
tinct essays which unsettle standardized narratives. A must read for students and
academics across social sciences.”
—Daniel Briggs, Universidad Europea of Madrid, Spain;
author of Dead-end Lives (Policy Press, 2017)
“In this superb collection, Kuldova and Sánchez-Jankowski have recruited a

number of researchers whose finely detailed empirical work and sophisticated
theoretical work help the criminological research field to rethink the assump-
tions on which rest the core concepts of ‘deviance’ and ‘integration’. Essential
reading for all those who wish to move the social sciences forward.”
—Steve Hall, Emeritus Professor of Criminology, Teesside University, UK
“A rich analysis of contemporary organized crime that will be of interest to the

wide popular and scholarly audience.”
—Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, University of Oslo, Norway
Risk is a major contemporary issue which has widespread implications
for theory, policy, governance, public protection, professional practice
and societal understandings of crime and criminal justice. The potential
harm associated with risk can lead to uncertainty, fear and conflict as well
as disproportionate, ineffective and ill-judged state responses to perceived
risk and risky groups. Risk, Crime and Society is a series featuring
monographs and edited collections which examine the notion of risk, the
risky behaviour of individuals and groups, as well as state responses to
risk and its consequences in contemporary society. The series will include
critical examinations of the notion of risk and the problematic nature of
state responses to perceived risk. While Risk, Crime and Society will
consider the problems associated with ‘mainstream’ risky groups including
sex offenders, terrorists and white collar criminals, it welcomes scholarly
analysis which broadens our understanding of how risk is defined,
interpreted and managed. Risk, Crime and Society examines risk in
contemporary society through the multi-disciplinary perspectives of law,
criminology and socio-legal studies and will feature work that is theoretical
as well as empirical in nature.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14593
Tereza Kuldova
Martín Sánchez-Jankowski
Editors
Outlaw Motorcycle
Clubs and Street
Gangs
Scheming Legality, Resisting
Criminalization
Editors
Tereza Kuldova Martín Sánchez-Jankowski
University of Oslo University of California
Blindern, Oslo, Norway Berkeley, CA, USA
University of Vienna
Vienna, Austria
Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society

ISBN 978-3-319-76119-0 ISBN 978-3-319-76120-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76120-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018935937
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Tereza Kuldova
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer International Publishing
AG part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
In Memory of Carmen
Acknowledgements
In May 2016, Martín Sánchez-Jankowski and me, Tereza Kuldova, have

organized a conference at the University of Oslo, titled Scheming Legality,
Resisting Criminalization: How Do Outlaw Groups Integrate into Society?
The conference set out to explore how different ‘deviant’ groups and self-
proclaimed outlaws integrate into society and in what manner society
attempts to assimilate them. The conference was enabled by a Peder
Sather research grant from the University of Berkeley, California, for our
joint project in 2015/2016, Gangs, Brands and Intellectual Property Rights:
Outlaw Bikers, Luxury Brands and Legal Battles Over Trademarked Insignia.
This volume grew out of the ideas discussed at the conference, and
includes several contributions by presenters who have participated in it
back then, as well as others who have joined us later to think through the
notions of scheming legality and resisting criminalization. Furthermore,
this volume would not be possible without further funding for my indi-
vidual research project Gangs, Brands and Intellectual Property Rights:
Interdisciplinary Comparative Study of Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and
Luxury Brands, funded by The Research Council of Norway through a
FRIPRO Mobility Grant, contract no 250716 (the FRIPRO Mobility
grant scheme (FRICON) is co-funded by the European Union’s Seventh
Framework Programme for research, technological development and
vii
viii Acknowledgements
demonstration under Marie Curie grant agreement no 608695). We

would like to thank both funding agencies for enabling us to pursue this
project. This volume would also not be possible without the support of
our colleagues, informants and no less family. We would like to thank all
contributors to this volume and all the always inspiring colleagues and
intellectual companions – Robert Pfaller, Steve Hall, Slavoj Žižek, Simon
Winlow, Mladen Dolar, Japhy Wilson, Alexandra Hall, Simon Hallsworth,
Mathew A. Varghese, Michal Tošner, Lill-Ann Chepstow-Lusty, Øivind
Fuglerud, Arne Røkkum, Melia Belli Bose, Graham Roberts, John
Armitage, Joanna Roberts, Marco Pedroni, Barbora Půtová, Lisa-Nike
Bühring, David Montejano.
Contents
1 Introduction: Scheming Legality and Resisting

Criminalization 1
Tereza Kuldova
2 Gangs, Culture, and Society in the United States 25

3 Legalization by Commodification: The (Ir)relevance

of Fashion Styles and Brands in Street Gangster
Performance 45
Elke Van Hellemont
4 Dutch Gang Talk: A Reflection on the Use of the Gang

Label in the Netherlands 69
Robert A. Roks and Teun Van Ruitenburg
5 From Bikers to Gangsters: On the Development

of and the Public Response to Outlaw Biker Clubs
in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium 93
Kim Geurtjens, Hans Nelen, and Miet Vanderhallen
ix
x Contents
6 Men with a Hobby: Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs, News

Media and Image Politics 123
Willem Koetsenruijter and Peter Burger
7 Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Struggles over Legitimation 145

Tereza Kuldova and James Quinn
8 Outlaw Bikers Between Identity Politics and Civil Rights 175

Tereza Kuldova
9 Inside the Brotherhood: Some Theoretical Aspects

of Group Dynamics in Biker Clubs 205
Stig Grundvall
Index225
Contributors
Peter Burger is Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and New

Media at Leiden University. He applies rhetorical perspectives to journalism,
narrative folklore, and social media discourse, with a special interest in crime
stories.
Kim Geurtjens is a PhD Candidate at the Institute for Transnational and
Euregional cross-border cooperation and Mobility at Maastricht University. Her
research focuses on the cross-border activities and organization of outlaw motor-
cycle gangs in the Meuse-Rhine Euregion and the cross-border cooperation
between authorities to tackle outlaw biker related crime.
Stig Grundvall is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Systemic Therapy at the
University of Gothenburg. He obtained his PhD in 2005 with the dissertation
Vagabond MC – Community, Masculinity and Marginality, which is an ethno-
graphic study of a West Swedish biker club. Recently he has also been involved
in urban studies and research on crime victims.
Elke Van Hellemont is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Kent.
Her research interests focus on the seduction of crime, gangs, media mythmak-
ing, multi-method research designs, gang policing and cybercrime. She is cur-
rently preparing a book on Congolese gangs in Brussels that reassembles data of
a 7-year fieldwork including a 4-year ethnographic study with gangs in Brussels.
Willem Koetsenruijter is an Assistant Professor at Leiden University in the
Netherlands, where he is a faculty member since 2000. He started his career as an
editor and writer for magazines. He has published work about the representation of
xi
xii Contributors
crime in the news and about visual language, including Visual Language: Perspectives
for both Makers and Users (co-authored), Methods of Journalism Studies (co-authored
with Tom Van Hout), and Numbers in the News (sole-authored in Dutch).
Tereza Kuldova is a social anthropologist and Researcher at the University of
Oslo. Currently she works on an individual research project ‘Gangs, Brands and
Intellectual Property Rights’. She is the author, among others, of Luxury Indian
Fashion: A Social Critique (2016) and Urban Utopias: Excess and Expulsion in
Neoliberal South Asia (2017). She is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Extreme
Anthropology.
Hans Nelen is Professor of Criminology at the faculty of law of Maastricht
University. He has published a large number of books and articles on a variety
of criminological subjects, including drugs, corruption and fraud, organized
crime, corporate and occupational crime and money laundering.
James Quinn is an Independent Researcher and former professor of
Rehabilitative Studies at the University of North Texas. Quinn is a noted expert
on the outlaw motorcycle subculture, criminal justice system, rehabilitation and
a prolific writer.
Robert A. Roks is assistant professor of Criminology at the Erasmus University
of Rotterdam. For his PhD-thesis, he conducted an ethnographic study on the
embeddedness of crime and identity in a small neighborhood in The Hague.
Teun van Ruitenburg is PhD Candidate at the Erasmus University of
Rotterdam. In his current research, he focuses on the Dutch Approach towards
Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. By interviewing various professionals in Law
Enforcement Agencies and by analyzing policy documents, he aims to untangle
how the Dutch Government tackles OMCGs as well as how this approach has
changed over time.
Martín Sánchez-Jankowski directs the Institute for the Study of Societal
Issues and the Center for Urban Ethnography at the UC Berkeley. He is the
author of, among others, Islands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban
Society (1991), Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth (1996) and
Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods (2008).
Miet Vanderhallen is an Assistant Professor Criminology at Maastricht
University and an Associate Professor Legal Psychology at Antwerp University.
Her main research interest concerns police investigation (in the Euregion) and
investigative interviewing. More in particular she focuses on the interviewing of
young suspects and the provision of legal assistance at the police station.
1
Introduction: Scheming Legality
and Resisting Criminalization
Tereza Kuldova
Members of outlaw motorcycle clubs and street gangs have been repeat-
edly labelled as ‘deviant’ and ‘anti-social,’ presumed unable to integrate
into mainstream society. Given this persistent common-sense assump-
tion, public and academic talk has been dominated by calls to ‘reinte-
grate’ these ‘deviants,’ to ‘include’ those that have been ‘socially
excluded’—paradoxically, into the very system of capitalist socio-symbolic
competition that has excluded them in the first place (Hall and Winlow
2013). Steve Hall and Simon Winlow, in their seminal work Rethinking
Social Exclusion, hit hard at the underlying troubles with the logic of
‘inclusion.’ They argued that the exclusion ‘we have seen in impoverished
areas of our cities,’ a criminogenic condition contributing to the gang
phenomena, ‘does not suggest something going wrong with capitalism;
instead, this marginality is deeply indicative of a capitalist labor market
T. Kuldova (*)
University of Oslo, Blindern, Oslo, Norway
University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
© The Author(s) 2018 1

T. Kuldova, M. Sánchez-Jankowski (eds.), Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs
and Street Gangs, Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76120-6_1
2 T. Kuldova
that no longer has any direct and immediate need for these populations’
(Hall and Winlow 2013, 143). Or, to put it even more brutally:
Organized crime flourishes because it is constantly able to feed from the

growing pile of human and social debris left by global capitalism. Its
bloated belly shows no signs of shrinking despite the best efforts of policy
makers and policing institutions. This is because the real war is against the
dominant ethos of the day. (…) For it is those very characteristics attrib-
uted to organized crime – monolithic, anti-democratic, tyrannical and
globally disastrous – which are the defining attributes and ultimate conse-
quences of global capitalism. (Rawlinson 2002, 304)
Hence, we must ask—inclusion into what? Or better, are these so-

called deviants precisely not already well-integrated ‘rejects’?
While this volume does not set out to offer a comparable critique of
the underlying dynamics of devastation of lives by the neoliberal system,
its contribution cannot be read without keeping this critique in mind.
The chapters in this volume show that not only are outlaw motorcycle
clubs and street gangs already an integrated part of the system, but more
importantly, they do not lack knowledge or understanding of social
norms. They often know their rights better than the law-abiding. Their
skill in this respect has more in common with white-collar criminals; the
only thing separating them is their intimidating appearance, violent rep-
utation and a lifestyle that screams ‘lack of elitist cultural capital!’
(Sandberg and Shammas 2015; Bourdieu 1984). Money, connections
and knowledge can make up for a great deal of that lack, but not for all
of it. Their strategies of scheming legality and resisting criminalization
testify to their active use of social, legal and economic knowledge.
The problem is, thus, not that they do not know, but that they act
against their better knowledge—either because they choose to, because
they have the opportunity or because they see no other option left (this
distinguishes them from elite criminals). Moreover, there is an amount of
cultural pleasure to be gained from the psychoanalytic formula at play
here: ‘I know quite well, but still…,’ as Robert Pfaller argued in his book
On the Pleasure Principle in Culture (Pfaller 2014). Most outcasts, ‘devi-
ants’ or criminals act precisely with this formula in mind. Paradoxically,
Introduction: Scheming Legality and Resisting Criminalization 3
severe collective and individual transgressions may be one of the few

sources of pleasure and sovereignty left to those with limited resources—
even if they have to bear their humiliating consequences (Pedroni 2017).
However, these transgressions produce cultural pleasure also for the law-
abiding observer—but only provided this observation takes place from a
position of safe distance, unable to cause real harm. Our obsession with
crime series, movies, literature, reality shows and consumption of com-
modified gang and biker subculture testifies to this (Van Hellemont
2018, Kuldova 2017a). Outlaw bikers, gang members and other ‘terrify-
ing deviants’ fulfill a special function for the society at large—theirs is
both a cultural and productive force. As Karl Marx observed:
The criminal produces not only crimes but also criminal law, and with this
also the professor who gives lectures on criminal law and in addition to this
the inevitable compendium in which this same professor throws his lec-
tures onto the general market as ‘commodities.’ (…) The criminal more-
over produces the whole of the police and of criminal justice, constables,
judges, hangmen, juries, etc.; and all these different lines of business, which
form equally many categories of the social division of labor, develop differ-
ent capacities of the human spirit, create new needs and new ways of satis-
fying them. (…) The criminal produces an impression, partly moral and
partly tragic, as the case may be, and in this way renders a ‘service’ by arous-
ing the moral and aesthetic feelings of the public. He produces not only
compendia on Criminal Law, not only penal codes and along with them
legislators in this field, but also art, belles-lettres, novels and even tragedies,
as not only Müllner’s Schuld and Schiller’s Räuber show, but also [Sophocles’]
Oedipus and [Shakespeare’s] Richard the Third. The criminal breaks the
monotony and everyday security of bourgeois life. (Marx 2016, 387)
This volume positions outlaw motorcycle clubs (OMCs) and street

gangs precisely at this nexus—as produced, but also as productive. It con-
siders them as agents using their resources to combat dominant narratives
about who they are, and as agents in their own commodification. We are
interested in how they act at the nexus of media, commercial culture, legis-
lation and policing—in particular, in their strategies of scheming legality
and resisting criminalization. These speak to both their desire for and stra-
tegic need to appear and be considered by others as ‘legal.’ At the same,
4 T. Kuldova
however, they need to protect their ‘outlaw’ image and violent reputation—
a tricky balance to achieve. Both are equally important sources of cultural
and economic value needed for the survival and growth of the clubs. As
with any other organization, outlaw motorcycle clubs and street gangs are
organizations set out to expand and conquer new territories. In order to
grow, they use diverse strategies of scheming legality and resisting criminal-
ization not only to plant doubts regarding the official narratives about the
clubs—and thus, legitimize their informal power—but also to attract new
members.
nsettling the Distinction Between Organized

U
Crime and White-Collar Crime
In order to understand these strategies, it is necessary to think for a bit about
the uncanny relationship between so-called organized crime and white-col-
lar crime. Indirectly, the diverse contributions in this volume show that we
must question the artificial distinction between organized crime, associated
with a certain ‘deviant’ appearance, ‘foreign background’—the who rather
than the what of a crime (Geary 2002; Rawlinson 2002; Edwards and Gill
2002; Walle 2002)—and white-collar crime. Increasingly, strategies used by
white-collar corporate criminals are also used by outlaw motorcycle clubs,
even if the clubs have considerably less prestige, status and general goodwill
than the elites. Here, we mean both strategies of doing business (using
manipulations of the law to scheme technically ‘legal’ frauds) and strategies
of reputational damage control (e.g. from techniques of neutralization to acts
of charity and philanthropy). This may also help us ‘challenge the view, so
deeply ingrained in public policy discourse and popular narratives on crime,
that criminality is the exceptional behavior of pathological, excluded, “oth-
ers”’ (Edwards and Gill 2002, 203).
As we know, we tend to be more reluctant to label elite CEOs, who
hide behind the veneer of respectability, and their ilk as ‘criminals’ when
they commit comparable crimes to those of members of what are labelled
as ‘criminal organizations’ and to punish them for these (Gottschalk
2017). It is no secret that ‘those holding political power are generally
reluctant to define the acts of close associates and beneficiaries as deviant
and criminal’ (Pontell et al. 2014, 7). Even academia is complicit in this
negligence—research on white-collar crime remains underfunded, not
least because it could potentially threaten state legitimacy (Shichor 2009;
Tombs and Whyte 2007). Already, Edwin Sutherland in his seminal work
on White-Collar Crime noted that the crimes of the powerful are not
considered with the same seriousness as opposed to the crimes of the vis-
ibly ‘deviant’ belonging to the lower socio-economic classes. Elite crimi-
nals’ membership in—and relationship to—political and public
institutions protects them from the ‘criminal’ label and associated stigma-
tization (Sutherland 1983). There is a common-sense assumption, that
white-collar crime is not ‘real crime’ (Friedrichs 2010; Whyte 2016;
Whyte and Tombs 2015). While not endorsing the position of the out-
law motorcycle clubs, we may see that they have a point in their motto,
the real criminals are those with ties. The fact that they repeatedly mobilize
this motto in their public statements tells us that they cannot be thought
of without considering the white-collar criminal. While they on the one
hand shun this white-collar criminal, casting him as ‘the real criminal,’ in
practice they increasingly imitate him, even if with limited success. It is
clear that for instance OMCs tax evasion or money laundry, for which
some members have faced jail time, is miniature compared to the wide-
spread ‘tax avoidance’ schemes by the elites revealed in the Panama and
Paradise Papers, robbing governments worldwide of billions. Not to
mention the frauds, the ‘crimes without criminals’ (Ruggiero 2017), that
have led to the financial crisis of 2008 and caused considerably more
harm, but for which no one was ever punished (Pontell et al. 2014; Will
et al. 2013; Barak 2012).
Hence, it is no wonder that with growth, consolidation and transna-
tional expansion, certain outlaw motorcycle clubs seek to up their game
and appropriate the very successful strategies of corporate criminals—they
too want to get away unpunished. Alas, typically, the state does not col-
lude with members of outlaw motorcycle clubs the way it does with pow-
erful corporations. As opposed to the crimes perpetrated by members of
outlaw motorcycle clubs, including financial crimes, ‘major white-collar
crimes’ perpetrated by the elites ‘are relegated to “non-issue” status, (…)
the state selectively adopts the tactic of “damage control” over “crime con-
trol” in response to massive lawbreaking by elites’ (Pontell et al. 2014, 3).
6 T. Kuldova
But outlaw motorcycle clubs too are becoming capable of skillfully

‘manipulating the law,’ the same way those with enough capital are capa-
ble of ‘legally’ evading taxes (tax avoidance, rather than tax evasion), find-
ing loopholes and committing fraud (McBarnet 1992). They, too, wish to
become ‘people who, far from breaking the law, go to great lengths to
ensure they abide by it; yet, while abiding by the law they also escape its
impact’ (McBarnet 1992, 56), and thus, successfully thread the fine line
between the legal and the illegal. They, too, can see that ‘it’s not what you
do but the way you do it’ (McBarnet 1992, 64), especially when it comes
to financial schemes. They are transforming from the foot soldiers into the
untouchable commanders. Already Edwin Sutherland noted that ‘protec-
tion against arrest and conviction is a necessary part of organized crime.
(…) The techniques of fixing crimes are much more important than the
techniques of executing crimes’ (Sutherland 1934, 189–90). It is precisely
these strategies of ‘fixing’ or scheming that we see emerge among the out-
law motorcycle clubs as they resist criminalization, and the ‘gang’ label.
Outlaw motorcycle clubs increasingly act like big companies engaging in
corporate crime, in particular in the way they manage their reputation and
influence public opinion, and acquire the power to ‘condemn the con-
demners’ and to be believed when they do so (Whyte 2016).
The fact that the similarities between white-collar crime and groups
like the outlaw motorcycle clubs are increasing might be a part of the
reason why law enforcement agencies and governments feel an increasing
discomfort when trying to act against these groups. As a result, it is
increasingly difficult to maintain the artificial and misleading boundary
between ‘organized crime’ and ‘white collar crime.’ As Sutherland noted,
big corporations have—not unlike OMCs—a great antipathy to the
police and judicial authorities, contempt of the law, and they carefully
organize their misconduct (Sutherland 1983, 1934; Fijnaut 2017). They
have more in common than not—appearances are deceiving. When fac-
ing threats to their power, attacks on their organization, they engage in
skillful ‘techniques of neutralization’ (Whyte 2016). Already Sutherland
revealed that ‘when the pressure is on, businesses (…) engage in “fixing,”
i.e. they not only attempt to avoid prosecution but also try to prevent the
law being enforced and even try to ensure good will towards them on the
part of the general public’ (Fijnaut 2017, 441). As Ruggiero noted, ‘in a
reversible learning process, the official economy adopts illegitimate prac-

tices while illegitimate entrepreneurs strive to get access to the official
economy’ (Ruggiero 2000, 304).
However, OMCs and street gangs deal with the additional problem of
their ‘deviant’ appearance, a source of their power in the illegal market on
the one hand, but also of their weakness in the legal market on the other—
something the white-collar criminal does not have to think about.
Moreover, public opinion, media attention and pressure from academia is
unequally distributed here—in reverse proportion to the scale of the crimes
(Tombs and Whyte 2007; Walle 2002). Even though ‘the social and eco-
nomic impact of corporate and white-collar crimes upon their victims
massively exceeds the corresponding impact of conventional crimes’
(Tombs and Whyte 2007, 125), disproportionate attention is paid to con-
ventional crime, and very miniscule to white-collar crime. Similarly, in
2002, Rawlinson, for instance, wrote: ‘damage impact from dirty money
is miniscule compared with the financial chaos and knock on social effects,
caused by for example the stock exchange crash of 1997, known as Black
Monday, yet the trend continues towards regulation in areas perceived as
being vulnerable to organized crime and in the opposite direction, de-
regulation in the precarious world of global markets’ (Rawlinson 2002,
297–8). The scale of the damage and widespread harm caused by ‘gangster
capitalists’ getting away unpunished has been growing (Woodiwiss 2005;
Pontell et al. 2014). Indeed, part of the problem here is that ‘very few
frauds or other “white-collar” crimes constitute “signal crimes” which
evoke and symbolize wider problems in society (…), whereby seemingly
“low-level” crimes such as graffiti are amplified into indicators of a wider
lack of community spirit or social decay’ (Levi 2009, 86) even though the
causes of social decay lie precisely in elite frauds, the very nature of neolib-
eralism (Winlow et al. 2017; Pfaller 2017). Even under such conditions,
appropriating some of the strategies of white-collar criminals, from effec-
tive PR to CSR, can be successful. It also shows that ‘those “subject” to the
law can play with, work on, the boundaries of deviance, the “labelled” can
sometimes be in control of the labelling process’ (McBarnet 1992, 70).
The fact that such strategies are used in the first place, often very skillfully,
shows us again that ‘integration’ is not a problem. On the contrary, these
strategies display a high level of awareness, knowledge and integration.
8 T. Kuldova
We must not underestimate the role of state legitimacy in these pro-

cesses, as some chapters in this volume also go to show—a legitimacy that
is often dependent on the way in which states are able to or fail to control
economic forces beyond the control of the individual (Mitchell and Fazi
2017) and on the way they handle more visible street crime. Following
the financial crises and corporate scandals, the image of the state suffered
yet another blow, and resulted in an acute crisis of legitimacy across the
West. As Pontell et al. point out:
In responding to financial crises at the very heart of economy, the state

must deal with a major contradiction. It must preserve economic order
without delegitimizing itself by criminalizing senior executives of large
firms who represent the very captains of the economy that it serves to pro-
tect. At the same time, by not criminalizing these elites, the state risks
appearing to favor these elites. In the current meltdown, the state has taken
the risk. (Pontell et al. 2014, 11)
The state being weak in its ability to control global capital and white-
collar crime—or directly colluding with the elites—has to show strength
elsewhere (Kuldova 2017b; Garland 1996). The dominance of research
on ‘street crimes’ over white-collar crimes testifies to this—‘critical atten-
tion to corporate and white-collar crime entails critical attention to states.
If research is itself funded by the state, then clear tensions are raised’
(Tombs and Whyte 2007, 135). As a result, the state chooses instead to
engage in periodic ‘punitive display’ (Garland 1996) and enforcement of
‘zero tolerance’ on street crimes, crimes committed by the poor or visibly
‘deviant,’ which are considerably easier to prosecute. This strategy has
been popular since the Reagan era, and has increasingly taken hold in
Europe as well, as Geurtjens et al. show in this volume (Geurtjens et al.
2018). Zero tolerance is also accompanied by increased control exercised
over the individual, as opposed to control over corporations. But this
strategy does not go unnoticed by the masses. It has become a source of
widespread resentment against the state, which is increasingly perceived
as illegitimate—in particular, in low-income and over-policed neighbor-
hoods. But it has also become a form of critique of the state and its legiti-
macy used by street gangs as well as outlaw motorcycle clubs. Outlaw
motorcycle clubs utilize this critique of the state to acquire legitimacy and
gain support, and position themselves as a new legitimate force of resis-
tance against the unjust and illegitimate state power (Kuldova and Quinn
2018; Kuldova 2018, 2017b). In the process, they mobilize the counter-
cultural narratives and fantasies dating back to the 1960s. This is pre-
cisely some of the dynamics this volume attempts to capture.
There can be a lot said about outlaw motorcycle clubs and street gangs,
and many different dimensions can be considered. This volume does not
aim to be exhaustive, but instead focuses on certain phenomena that
emerge in respect to these organizations at the crossroads of the state,
capital, media and law enforcement; these can only be thought of when
considering the larger socio-economic and political structures into which
the clubs and gangs are integrated.
The reason why we have brought outlaw motorcycle clubs and street
gangs together here, even if they are generally kept apart, is precisely
because of the productive comparison they can offer. Outlaw motorcycle
clubs have been too often recast as gangs in the public and academic dis-
course—the ‘gang’ label being imposed on a phenomenon of a different
nature. Several chapters in this volume address the consequences of this
gang label, showing, among other things, that while street gangs may
aspire to this label, outlaw motorcycle clubs resist it at all costs (Roks and
Ruitenburg 2018). At the same time, however, both outlaw motorcycle
clubs and street gangs share certain underlying characteristics and values
that set them in opposition to the ‘criminals in ties’ as well as the state. To
understand this, we have brought together scholars from across a range of
disciplines—from sociology, social anthropology, psychology, media
studies, to criminology—also encouraging thinking across disciplines.
tructure of the Book: Spotting

S
the Connections
The volume opens with a contribution by the renowned sociologist and
expert on gangs, Martín Sánchez-Jankowski, who sets the stage for the
contributions to follow (Sánchez-Jankowski 2018). The chapter, Gangs,
Culture and Society in the United States (Chap. 2), provides a general per-
10 T. Kuldova
spective on the gang phenomenon in America—crucial for any under-

standing of street gangs and outlaw motorcycle clubs elsewhere. American
gangs have been exported and imitated across the world, inspiring many.
Sánchez-Jankowski argues that despite the fact that street gangs—but this
goes also for outlaw motorcycle clubs—have been widely labelled as
‘deviant,’ they have been an integral, persistent and integrated part of the
American society for over 200 years. Even though they, at times, may
engage in anti-social behavior, they have been repeatedly used by legiti-
mate entrepreneurs across the board to further their interests. Sánchez-
Jankowski pays special attention to the phenomenon of the ‘gang legend,’
a mythical narrative about gangs created by the media, academia, legal
profession as well as police, but also gang members themselves, endowing
them with an equal measure of attraction and repulsion (Kuldova 2017a).
The gang legend is an ‘iconic element of American cultural identity, as
well as a functional political resource for the maintenance of the existing
social system’ (Sánchez-Jankowski 2018). Moreover, Sánchez-Jankowski
shows that the gang member—and this also goes for any outlaw biker—
embodies the core American values of individualism, self-sufficiency and
self-reliance, regardless of the risks, and a capitalist winner-take-all man-
tra; he appeals to the imaginary of the gallant ‘frontiersman.’ ‘Thus, it is
the gang who at some more elementary level pursues these same American
Dreams and keeps the foundation of American political and economic
culture alive’ (Sánchez-Jankowski 2018). As Sánchez-Jankowski writes,
‘since American society has generally carried an image of the state as
being both necessary for social order and yet susceptible to despotism,
any group that challenges the state’s omnipresent and omnipotent char-
acter is regarded as a “guardian” or “defender” of what is considered civi-
cally at least “sacred”’ (Sánchez-Jankowski 2018). This popular narrative
about the power of countercultures to challenge the status quo by pro-
tecting liberalism’s core values comes alive also in the public statements
and demonstrations organized by outlaw motorcycle clubs against the
state, analyzed in Kuldova’s contribution on the politics of the clubs
(Kuldova 2018). But we may also spot a parallel to the white-collar crimi-
nals and robber barons who often embody the same (celebrated) rogue
spirit (Sutherland 1983; Woodiwiss 2005; Wilson 2014), the two being
not unlike each other. As Sánchez-Jankowski also notes, ‘it should not
come as a surprise that people who were particularly nasty and vicious in
gaining wealth – from the Robber Barons and mafia to politicians and
bankers – are mentioned by gang members as not being stigmatized in
American culture, but celebrated in movies, TV shows, and books’
(Sánchez-Jankowski 2018). The gang culture itself has been successfully
commercialized, and more and more gang members, as well as outlaw
motorcycle club members, engage in self-commodification, using the
gang legends that have been produced about them and by them, as a
source of commercial gain, legality and legitimacy (Kuldova and Quinn
2018). Or as Sánchez-Jankowski puts it, ‘the commercialization of these
styles symbolizes the full circle with which the gang sheds the label of
deviance and is integrated into American society’ (Sánchez-Jankowski
2018). This commercialization also turns the gang styles into ‘legitimate’
cultural forms, and thus, integrates them as objects of consumer desire.
In her chapter, Legalization by Commodification (Chap. 3), grounded in
ethnographic research with Belgian Congolese gangs in Brussels, Elke van
Hellemont develops this point closer and shows how gang members play
with the boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate commodified
‘street style,’ while aspiring to the real gang label, and, at the same time,
using the commodities as a cover (Van Hellemont 2018). As she writes,
while the gang members ‘may use it as a sign of gangness to peers, the com-
modification process also allows them to downplay its delinquent mean-
ing in a law enforcement or school context. On the other hand, this
semantic ambiguity also requires extra steps in gang performance. These
men have to prove the truthfulness of the delinquent meaning of their
fashion style and thus their overall subcultural performance’ (Van
Hellemont 2018). She also shows that unlike in the case of outlaw motor-
cycle clubs, where the iconic clubs have themselves become recognized
brands with trademarked logos (Kuldova 2016; Kuldova and Quinn
2018), these gang members rely on the ‘conspicuous consumption’ (Veblen
1970) of luxury brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Lacoste, Burberry
and Prada for their gang performance. Developing the right gangster look
is thus inevitably connected to consumption of luxury (Hall et al. 2012).
For the uninitiated observer, this form of consumption blurs the distinc-
tion between gang aesthetics, available for anyone, and gang performance,
crafted to create a credible gang reputation. This form of fashion thus
12 T. Kuldova
allows one to carefully thread the border between legality and illegality, or
else, to scheme legality—and alternatively, illegality—through aesthetics.
This is not unlike the opposite drive toward the ‘performance of respecta-
bility’ to be found among white-collar criminals. Even the Yakuza has now
been turned into a worldwide clothing brand.1 This goes also for the dis-
tinction between the real outlaw biker and the weekend hobby rider con-
suming outlaw biker aesthetics, or those consuming outlaw biker support
merchandize in an attempt to appropriate, through sympathetic magic
(Frazer 1894), some of the power of the original biker (Kuldova 2017a).
Van Hellemont argues that ‘the success of gangster fashion resides within
this ambiguity as it enables consumers to play safely with its criminal con-
notations,’ and thus, that ‘a criminalization process can even stimulate the
commodification process and the more a style is commodified, the more
it becomes normal.’ Moreover, ‘the fact these styles remain to be criminal-
ized by judicial and other societal agents such as schools, may help the
sales of the fashion and music industry’ (Van Hellemont 2018).
Paradoxically, and this goes also for the outlaw biker fashion styles, crimi-
nalization and the ‘zero tolerance’ approach may drive not only the desire
to consume and imitate these characters, but also to join these groups.
However, in the gang context itself, ‘the credibility afforded to the gossip
and street corner stories told about (…) illicit activities’ (Van Hellemont
2018) is vital to a convincing gang performance, relying on gossip, rumor
and reputation management. Another important ingredient in managing
reputation and gang performance is the (re)production of mystique
around one’s business through secretiveness; as Van Hellemont writes,
‘respondents were professionals in preserving mystery’ (Van Hellemont
2018). Stig Grundvall, in his contribution to this volume, develops this
point further and a nalyzes the role of secrets for the inner and inter-group
dynamics among outlaw bikers, and their reputation management
(Grundvall 2018). Van Hellemont thus opens up the questions of self-
representation and self-commodification as a strategy of scheming legality
and resisting criminalization, while pointing out the role of social media
in the process, taken up later by other chapters.
1
https://www.yakuzastore.com (accessed 10 November 2017).
In Chap. 4, Dutch Gang Talk, Robert A. Roks and Teun Van Ruitenburg
explore the effect of the ‘gang label’ in the Netherlands—one used increas-
ingly by the media, government, law enforcement, and both desired (by
street gangs) and resisted (by outlaw motorcycle clubs). In order to prob-
lematize this loaded and obfuscating gang label and its effects, they use
two case studies: (1) Rollin 200 Crips, a Dutch street gang that merged
with a local outlaw motorcycle club into a hybrid motor-street gang, and
(2) the government framing of outlaw motorcycle clubs in the Netherlands.
They trace the historical introduction of the ‘gang label’ in the Dutch law
enforcement, government and media contexts, showing how it promoted
‘a fundamental binary’ (Hallsworth and Young 2008; Hallsworth 2013)
between ‘bad’ and ‘good’ motorcycle clubs—or else, a logic of ‘singular-
ization’ (Sanbonmatsu 2009), described also by Kuldova in her chapter
on outlaw bikers and identity politics (Kuldova 2018). Pointing toward
the importance of popular culture in the gang phenomena, the authors
note that the first Crips gang in the Netherlands was formed by Keylow
and his friends in 1988 after they watched the movie Colors (1988)—
launched 19 years later after Dennis Hoppers’ Easy Rider (1969), equally
influential within the biker subculture both in the United States and
abroad. Similarly, Elke Van Hellemont notes that in Belgium, the ‘gang
phenomenon can be traced back to the release of the film: New Jack City,’
an American Blaxploitation movie from 1991 that ‘details the rise and fall
of a black (megalomaniacal) drug lord,’ (Van Hellemont 2018) a modern
violent twist on the Robin Hood. Gang movies contributed to the cre-
ation of the ‘gang label’ as an object of desire. Paradoxically, the Dutch
Rollin 200 Crips officially acquired this gang label, which they have been
desiring for many years, first when they formed an outlaw motorcycle
gang—Calog Wagoh Main Triad MC. ‘However, the downside of this
transformation is that this new identity results in a much more repressive
and stringent reaction and approach by law enforcement agencies’ (Roks
and Ruitenburg 2018). For this reason, ‘in sharp contrast to ways these
Dutch Crips have aspired to the gang label, several OMCGs in the
Netherlands have been actively fighting the gang label cast upon them by
the government’ (Roks and Ruitenburg 2018). Outlaw motorcycle clubs
in the Netherlands, like elsewhere, have thus been actively resisting crimi-
nalization, be it by engaging in charitable acts or taking the judicial path
14 T. Kuldova
and filing ‘complaints about how they are framed and approached. In
2009, for instance, the chapter of the Hells Angels in Amsterdam initi-
ated a legal proceeding against the Dutch State’ (Roks and Ruitenburg
2018). The authors show how gang talk not only masks existing differ-
ences between various biker groups and street gangs, thus preventing
understanding rather than facilitating it, but also how it produces a devi-
ant and delinquent imagery. Hence, they warn of the danger of reifying
the gang ‘as an objective, criminal entity, offering justification for increas-
ingly punitive policy responses’ (Fraser and Hagedorn 2016, 4).
In Chap. 5, From Bikers to Gangsters, Kim Geurtjens, Hans Nelen and
Miet Vanderhallen analyze and trace the history of the trend toward ‘zero
tolerance’ vis-à-vis outlaw motorcycle clubs in Germany, the Netherlands
and Belgium. They show precisely what types of measures the outlaw
biker clubs resist. Moreover, these measures are also increasingly imple-
mented beyond the boundaries of the aforementioned countries. The
chapter expands on the troubles with the ‘gang label’ exposed by Roks
and Ruitenburg, and focuses on the policies that have resulted from this
change in categorization, showing how the perception of outlaw motor-
cycle clubs by the states shifted from viewing them as a counterculture,
via seeing them as gangs, and finally, categorizing them as organized
crime groups. They show, in particular, how the now dominant zero-
tolerance approach became intertwined with strategies of ‘responsibiliza-
tion,’ that is, a strategy that ‘involves a way of thinking and a variety of
techniques designed to change the manner in which governments act
upon crime by activating action from non-state organizations and actors,
rather than addressing crime (solely) through police, courts and prisons’
(Geurtjens et al. 2018). ‘A responsibilization strategy is therefore charac-
terized by raising awareness among the broader public about the criminal
activities of outlaw biker clubs and actively encouraging various authori-
ties to cooperate in securing that outlaw bikers have the least possible
opportunities to “score” – that is, to successfully engage in (organized)
crimes’ (Geurtjens et al. 2018). This strategy is oriented toward tackling
of future risks, while trying to make membership less attractive—be it by
awareness raising, club or color bans. This has fundamentally transformed
the perception of the outlaw bikers: ‘instead of viewing outlaw bikers as
regular citizens with families, daily activities and a biker club member-
ship, crime has become their primary identifying characteristic; at least

for the authorities. This depiction of outlaw bikers as inherently criminal
has paved the way to further alienate them from society and implement
strict measures’ (Geurtjens et al. 2018). The authors conclude that this is
symptomatic of the wider tendency to ‘focus on criminal groups rather
than individuals and acts’ (Geurtjens et al. 2018). As mentioned earlier,
what matters less than the who. The authors warn that it is ‘dangerous to
apply a zero-tolerance strategy that is aimed at not only prosecuting crim-
inal individuals, but also excluding the broader (outlaw) biker milieu
from the public space’ and that ‘viewing an outlaw biker club as a sepa-
rate entity which places itself outside of regular society, does no justice to
the dynamic field it operates in and the various relations members main-
tain inside and outside of the biker milieu’ (Geurtjens et al. 2018).
In Chap. 6, Men with a Hobby, the media and journalism scholars
Willem Koetsenruijter and Peter Burger analyze the news media strate-
gies used by Dutch outlaw motorcycle clubs to counter the image the
same media and criminal justice system produce, and to mobilize public
sympathy. They look at the typical frames mobilized by outlaw bikers in
response to their media representation, showing how the media and out-
law bikers reciprocally influence each other. They point out that ‘clubs
regularly seek out the media themselves to limit the damage to their repu-
tation’ (Koetsenruijter and Burger 2018), and when they do so, appeal to
their right to their subcultural lifestyle, claiming they are merely ‘men
with hobby.’ Koetsenruijter and Burger analyze this proliferation of nar-
ratives and counter-narratives as a struggle between frames, the outlaw
motorcycle clubs putting ‘forward their own counter-frame to oppose the
criminalizing frame presented by the courts’ (Koetsenruijter and Burger
2018). The typical line of defense used by the clubs is thus to insist that
the ‘news media should stop publishing “lies” and that the police and the
law should stop their smear campaign against motorcycle clubs. The
moral basis for this position can be found in the principles of the Dutch
legal state and the right to fair treatment’ (Koetsenruijter and Burger
2018). Kuldova’s chapter then develops this point further when showing
how outlaw bikers mobilize the discourse of civil rights in their fight
against what they perceive as excessive criminalization based on group
membership, leading to discriminatory practices and injustice (Kuldova
16 T. Kuldova
2018). The ‘mitigating strategies’ analyzed by the authors in the case of

the Netherlands are used with varying degrees of success also in other
countries. They can also be compared to corporate strategies of reputa-
tional management, or corporate ‘techniques of neutralization’ (Whyte
2016) mentioned earlier. For instance, one of the frames identified by the
authors mobilizes the claim that individual members are responsible for
their own actions, hence the club as a whole should not be persecuted.
This is also a known popular strategy among corporations, the so-called
‘“bad apple” denial – where the behavior in question was caused by one
or a small group of individuals that can be purged from the corporation
and make it better again’ (Whyte 2016, 168). The strategy is the same,
what matters is who is more believable in making such claims—and
believable for whom.
In Chap. 7, Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Struggles over Legitimation,
Tereza Kuldova and James Quinn bring the aforementioned insights a
step further. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork across Europe and in
the United States, respectively, they look at the dominant strategies of
legitimation of the informal power used by outlaw motorcycle clubs.
They argue that given the transnational nature of these clubs, their
increasing consolidation and professionalization over the last decades, it
is imperative to move away from the limitations of national borders, even
if national differences may exist. The strategies of scheming legality and
resisting criminalization, as other chapters also go to show, are at the core
the same—what may vary is the success of their implementation in any
given culture and socio-economic and political context. It is also precisely
in these strategies of legitimation that we see the outlaw motorcycle clubs
interact most forcefully with the majority society, playing by its rules and
using its laws to their own advantage, and hence, displaying a high level
of integration rather than exclusion (Kuldova and Quinn 2018). The
authors argue that outlaw motorcycle clubs worldwide, in particular the
leading clubs such as Hells Angels MC, increasingly operate as corpora-
tions—indeed, in this case they are even registered as a corporation
(Kuldova 2016). They operate like any other business, and react as any
other business when faced with charges threatening to destroy its reputa-
tion. This is most visible in the impulse toward charity and philanthropy,
mirroring the trend toward ‘philanthrocapitalism’ (Nickel and Eikenberry
2009; McGoey 2012; Kuldova 2017b) or ‘capitalism with a human face’

(Žižek 2009). But the authors also point out that this urge toward legiti-
macy on the side of the clubs has to be read within the wider socio-
economic and political context—their need for legitimacy is greatest
precisely there, where the clubs grow rapidly, namely, often in locations
that are increasingly impoverished and where inequality and poverty are
on the rise. These are also locations where the legitimacy of the state and
the state’s ability to control the forces beyond the control of the individ-
ual are questioned. This in turn contributes to the popularity of outlaw
motorcycle clubs and similar organizations as well as their ability to
mobilize broader support among the public. But ‘legitimacy is an unsta-
ble quality that needs to be constantly reproduced’ (Kuldova and Quinn
2018). The authors show the different strategies that are used, often at the
same time, to build up a perception of legitimacy—from (self-)commod-
ification of the subculture, incorporation, establishment of legal busi-
nesses, engagement in charity, civil and vigilante organizations, to lobby
groups, PR and media influence. But most importantly, they show how
the attempts at acquiring legitimacy for their informal power at the same
time inevitably use strategies intended to further delegitimize the state.
In Chap. 8, Outlaw Bikers Between Identity Politics and Civil Rights,
Tereza Kuldova elaborates on this thesis, focusing on the ways in which
the outlaw bikers argue their case within the political field, and how they
precisely use the strategy of delegitimization of the state to their own
advantage. Moreover, the chapter shows that while the clubs do not
engage in classical party politics, they mobilize in their defense discourses
of both identity politics and liberal universalism or civil rights, thus using
a trans-ideological mixture to respond to the challenges to their image by
media, governments and law enforcement. They can as skillfully identify
themselves with oppressed minorities as they can cast themselves as free-
dom and civil rights fighters. The chapter also analyzes the way in which
the proprietary understanding of culture emerged out of cultural com-
modification, and the ‘trademarking of culture,’ only to be transformed
into a politics of recognition and identity politics dominating political
discourse and cultural politics since the 1990s. In this context, it becomes
less surprising that claims to the sacred character of the counterculture
are made, along with its trademarked symbols, only to be positioned
18 T. Kuldova
alongside claims made by diverse indigenous groups. Again, this displays

a high level of integration even into the political, rather than deviance
and exclusion. Identity politics has been embraced by the clubs as one
possible strategy of legitimization as well as a way of resisting criminaliza-
tion through claiming injustice and victimhood status. However, an even
more effective strategy is one of claiming civil rights, as it enables the
clubs to expand their pool of supporters, instead of limiting it to those
most likely to sympathize, and those close to the members. Even outlaw
motorcycle clubs come together when it comes to fighting for their rights,
dropping their animosities in face of the larger cause. Focusing on what
people share, rather than on what separates them, is always a winning
strategy. However, what is particularly startling is how both discourses—
those framing the OMCs and those used by the OMCs to resist this
framing—systematically evade the very criminogenic socio-economic
and political conditions that are at the core of the phenomena itself. In
this sense, for both parties involved—law enforcement, politicians, media
versus the bikers—‘this kind of identitarian pseudo-politics serves a
source of legitimization and self-worth – the bikers, the persecuted, cast
unjustly as evil vs. the police, the unjustly vilified fighters for justice –
both are effectively constructed as victims and heroes at the same time, as
mirror images of each other’ (Kuldova 2018). The debate thus remains
trapped in an ideological loop that focuses on the who, instead of focus-
ing on the why—something that has to be read also in the context of
previous chapters on the effects of and obsession with labelling.
The final Chap. 9, Inside the Brotherhood, by Stig Grundvall, focuses on
the inner group dynamics within outlaw motorcycle clubs. However, the
findings can be generalized and would also apply to gangs. In particular,
Grundvall explores the ways in which external pressure and stigmatiza-
tion create cohesion within the clubs, while also illuminating the nature
of the mimetic conflict between competing or enemy biker groups. As he
points out, ‘to exclude, ridicule, reduce, or criticize an outsider is a way of
building community and cohesion,’ (Grundvall 2018), and yet, this is,
paradoxically, precisely the thing which the clubs are fighting when they
put to use their strategies of resisting criminalization. Paradoxically, it is
precisely this fight that strengthens the bonds of their brotherhood and
Gemeinschaft. ‘A group under pressure tends to close its boundaries as a
protection against the outside world; the demarcation is amplified. In

this situation, the group members are forced to trust each other to a great
extent. This compact unit is the strength of the club, but can also contrib-
ute to further introversion and secrecy’ (Grundvall 2018). This creates a
system where the outside world is intimidating, and hence, secrets become
central not only for survival, but also for the ‘gang performance,’ as Van
Hellemont points out (Van Hellemont 2018). Secrecy becomes as impor-
tant as maintenance of reputation and sticking with the codes and inter-
nal laws of the clubs. Here, we may pause to think about the role of
secrecy in white-collar crime. However, outlaw motorcycle clubs do not
only stand in opposition to authorities, but also to each other. The fact
that they are very similar to each other is precisely what drives the conflict
between them—not difference. This is another inevitable source of trou-
ble. As Grundvall concludes, returning us to where we began, ‘the fact
that law and order does not apply equally to all citizens is becoming more
evident to those who are excluded and relegated to the margins of society.
In the outlaw biker world, legal justice is not always perceived as an alter-
native to regulating internal or external conflict; therefore, they tend to
refer to their own system of justice. But in the lack of trust in the superior
power of the state, they also become more vulnerable and more unpro-
tected in upcoming mimetic struggles’ (Grundvall 2018).
We encourage the reader to think these chapters together and to also
think of their implications beyond the very immediate realities they deal
with.
Bibliography
Barak, Gregg. 2012. Theft of a Nation: Wall St. Looting and Federal Regulatory
Colluding. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Edwards, Adam, and Pete Gill. 2002. Crime as Enterprise? The Case of
‘Transnational Organised Crime’. Crime, Law and Social Change 37:
203–223.
Fijnaut, Cyrille. 2017. Criminology and the Criminal Justice System. Cambridge:
Intersentia.
20 T. Kuldova
Fraser, Alistair, and John M. Hagedorn. 2016. Gangs and a Global

Sociological Imagination. Theoretical Criminology: 1–21. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1362480616659129.
Frazer, J.G. 1894. The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion. https://
archive.org/details/goldenboughstudy01fraz. Accessed 10 Nov 2017.
Friedrichs, David O. 2010. Trusted Criminals: White-collar Crime in Contemporary
Society. Belmont: Wadsworth.
Garland, David. 1996. Limits of the Sovereign State: Contemporary Crime
Control Strategies. British Journal of Criminology 36 (4): 445–471.
Geary, William R. 2002. The Legislative Recreation of RICO: Reinforcing the
‘Myth’ of Organized Crime. Crime, Law and Social Change 38: 311–356.
Geurtjens, Kim, Hans Nelen, and Miet Vanderhallen. 2018. From Bikers to
Gangsters: On the Development of and the Public Response to Outlaw Biker
Clubs in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. In Outlaw Motorcycle
Clubs and Street Gangs: Scheming Legality, Resisting Criminalization, ed.
Tereza Kuldova and Martin Sanchez-Jankowski. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Gottschalk, Petter. 2017. CEO’s and White-Collar Crime: A Convenience
Perspective. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Grundvall, Stig. 2018. Inside the Brotherhood: Some Theoretical Aspects of
Groups Dynamics in Biker Clubs. In Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street
Gangs: Scheming Legitimacy, Resisting Criminalization, ed. Tereza Kuldova
and Martin Sanchez-Jankowski. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hall, Steve, and Simon Winlow. 2013. Rethinking Social Exclusion: The End of
the Social? London: SAGE.
Hall, Steve, Simon Winlow, and Craig Ancrum. 2012. Criminal Identities and
Consumer Culture: Crime, Exclusion and the New Culture of Narcissism.
New York: Routledge.
Hallsworth, Simon. 2013. The Gang and Beyond: Interpreting Violent Street
Worlds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hallsworth, Simon, and Tara Young. 2008. Gang Talk and Gang Talkers: A
Critique. Crime, Media, Culture 4 (2): 175–195.
Koetsenruijter, Willem, and Peter Burger. 2018. Men with a Hobby: Outlaw
Motorcycle Clubs, News Media and Image Politics. In Outlaw Motorcycle
Clubs and Street Gangs: Scheming Legality, Resisting Criminalization, ed.
Tereza Kuldova and Martin Sanchez-Jankowski. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Kuldova, Tereza. 2016. Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation in Fashion

Business: On the Fetishism of the Trademark Law. Journal of Design History
4 (3): 389–407. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epw041.
———. 2017a. The Sublime Splendour of Intimidation: On the Outlaw Biker
Aesthetics of Power. Visual Anthropology 30 (5): 379–402. https://doi.org/10.
1080/08949468.2017.1371545.
———. 2017b. When Elites and Outlaws Do Philanthropy: On the Limits of
Private Vices for Public Benefit. Trends in Organized Crime. https://doi.
org/10.1007/s12117-017-9323-6.
———. 2018. Outlaw Bikers Between Identity Politics and Civil Rights. In
Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs: Scheming Legality, Resisting
Criminalization, ed. Tereza Kuldova and Martin Sanchez-Jankowski.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kuldova, Tereza, and James Quinn. 2018. Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and
Struggles over Legitimization. In Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs:
Scheming Legality, Resisting Criminalization, ed. Tereza Kuldova and Martin
Sanchez-Jankowski. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Levi, Michael. 2009. White-Collar Crimes and the Fear of Crime: A Review. In
The Criminology of White-Collar Crime, ed. Sally S. Simpson and David
Weisburd. New York: Springer.
Marx, Karl. 2016. Theories of Surplus-Value (Volume IV of Capital). Moscow:
Progress Publishers (Digital reprints http://www.marx2mao.com/).
McBarnet, Doreen. 1992. Legitimate Rackets: Tax Evasion, Tax Avoidance, and
the Boundaries of Legality. The Journal of Human Justice 3 (2): 56–74.
McGoey, Linsey. 2012. Philanthrocapitalism and Its Critics. Poetics 40: 185–199.
Mitchell, William, and Thomas Fazi. 2017. Reclaiming the State: A Progressive
Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World. London: Pluto Press.
Nickel, Patricia M., and Angela M. Eikenberry. 2009. A Critique of the
Discourse of Marketized Philanthropy. American Behavioral Scientist 52 (7):
974–989.
Pedroni, Marco. 2017. Extreme Losers: On Excess and Profitless Expenditure of
Male Gamblers. Journal of Extreme Anthropology. Online First. doi:https://
doi.org/10.5617/jea.5574.
Pfaller, Robert. 2014. On the Pleasure Principle in Culture: Illusions Without
Owners. London: Verso.
———. 2017. Erwachsenensprache: Über ihr Verschwinden aus Politik und
Kultur. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.
22 T. Kuldova
Pontell, Henry N., William K. Black, and Gilbert Geis. 2014. Too Big to Fail,
Too Powerful to Jail? On the Absence of Criminal Prosecutions After the
2008 Financial Meltdown. Crime, Law and Social Change 61: 1–13.
Rawlinson, Paddy. 2002. Capitalists, Criminals and Oligarchs – Sutherland and
the New ‘Robber Barons’. Crime, Law and Social Change 37: 293–307.
Roks, Robert A., and Teun Van Ruitenburg. 2018. Dutch Gang Talk: A
Reflection on the Use of the Gang Label in the Netherlands. In Outlaw
Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs: Scheming Legality, Resisting Criminalization,
ed. Tereza Kuldova and Martin Sanchez-Jankowski. New York: Palgrave.
Ruggiero, Vincenzo. 2000. Crime and Markets. Oxford: University of Oxford.
———. 2017. Dirty Money: On Financial Delinquency. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sanbonmatsu, John. 2009. The Holocaust Sublime: Singularity, Representation
and the Violence of Everyday Life. The American Journal of Economics and
Sociology 68 (1): 101–126.
Sánchez-Jankowski, Mártin. 2018. Gangs, Culture and Society in United States.
In Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs: Scheming Legality, Resisting
Criminalization, ed. Tereza Kuldova and Mártin Sánchez-Jankowski.
Sandberg, Sveinung, and Victor L. Shammas. 2015. Habitus, Capital, and
Conflict: Bringing Bourdieusian Field Theory to Criminology. Criminology
& Criminal Justice: 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895815603774.
Shichor, David. 2009. ‘Scholarly Influence’ and White Collar Crime Scholarship.
Crime, Law and Social Change 51: 175–187.
Sutherland, Edwin. 1934. Principles of Criminology. Chicago: J.B. Lippincott.
———. 1983. White Collar Crime: The Uncut Version. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Tombs, Steve, and Dave Whyte. 2007. Researching Corporate and White-
Collar Crimeinan Eraof Neo-Liberalism. In International Handbook of White-
Collar and Corporate Crime, ed. Gilbert Geis and Henry N. Pontell, 125–147.
Boston: Springer.
Van Hellemont, Elke. 2018. Legalization by Commodification: The (Ir)rele-
vance of Fashion Styles and Brands in Street Gangster Performance. In
Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs: Scheming Legality, Resisting
Criminalization, ed. Tereza Kuldova and Martin Sanchez-Jankowski.
Veblen, T. 1970. The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions.
London: Unwin Books.
Walle, Gudrun Vande. 2002. ‘The Collar Makes the Difference’ – Masculine
Criminology and Its Refusal to Recognize Markets as Criminogenic. Crime,
Law and Social Change 37: 277–291.
Whyte, David. 2016. It’s Common Sense, Stupid! Corporate Crime and the
Techniques of Neutralization in the Automobile Industry. Crime, Law and
Social Change 66: 165–181. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-016-9616-8.
Whyte, David, and Steve Tombs. 2015. The Corporate Criminal: Why Corporations
Must Be Abolished. London: Routledge.
Will, Susan, Stephen Handleman, and David C. Brotherton, eds. 2013. How
They Got Away With It. New York: Columbia University Press.
Wilson, Japhy. 2014. Jeffrey Sachs: The Strange Case of Dr. Shock and Mr. Aid.
London: Verso.
Winlow, Simon, Steve Hall, and James Treadwell. 2017. The Rise of the Right:
English Nationalism and the Transformation of Working-Class Politics. Bristol:
Policy Press.
Woodiwiss, Michael. 2005. Gangster Capitalism: The United States and the Global
Rise of Organized Crime. London: Constable.
Žižek, Slavoj. 2009. First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. London: Verso.
2
Gangs, Culture, and Society
in the United States
The literature on gangs in America begins in the nineteenth century and it

establishes the framework for the long and continuous portrait drawn by
scholars of this particular form of collective organization. Gangs in urban
and rural America are depicted as deviant, engaging in illegal activity, such
as robbing banks and stagecoaches, stealing cattle, and the running of gam-
bling joints and uncertified taverns. These gangs, such as the James and
Dalton Gangs in rural areas and the Roche Guard and Bowery Boys in
New York’s urban spaces, were most often referred to as outlaws because
they operated beyond the existing legal codes regarding property rights and
personal safety (Anonymous [sic] 1886; An Eye Witness [sic] 1892; Ashbury
1927; Thrasher 1928; Abiner 2010). Yet, despite being labeled ‘deviant’ and
‘criminal’ by members of the legal profession and general public, gangs have
been a persistent part of American society for more than 200 years. So, how
does a phenomenon like ‘gangs’ remain active in America if everyone
M. Sánchez-Jankowski (*)
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
© The Author(s) 2018 25

T. Kuldova, M. Sánchez-Jankowski (eds.), Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs
and Street Gangs, Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76120-6_2
26 M. Sánchez-Jankowski
c onsiders this phenomenon ‘criminal’? This chapter offers an alternative to

the ‘criminal’ framework by presenting gangs as an integrated part of
American society. A number of arguments form the heart of this paper: first,
gangs have not been ‘deviants’ in American culture, though they often have
engaged in anti-social behavior. Second, because gangs have both engaged in
anti-social behavior and been integrated within the broader culture, they
have been used by various entrepreneurs in society to advance the entrepre-
neurs’ interests. Third, the functional use of gangs by legitimate elements in
society has endured for so long that it has resulted in them becoming an
integrated part of American identity and culture. Thus, the creation of a
gang legend as an iconic element of American cultural identity, as well as a
functional political resource for the maintenance of the existing social sys-
tem, is the reason for the apparent categorical paradox.
The Gang and Its Legend

The gang has a long history, but much of this history involves it donning
a paradoxical characterization: one, as something socially deviant from
the mainstream of American society, while the other, as a rogue version of
American individualism. This paradoxical image has been woven together
to create the gang as a mythical object in American culture, one that has
been used over the years to establish a ‘gang legend.’ This legend has a
number of properties. First, the members of the gang, and by extension
the gang, represent a form of rugged individualism found throughout
American history, one that symbolizes self-sufficiency in the pursuit of
economic goals regardless of the risks involved, with a profound disregard
of ‘gentile’ behavior that is so idealized among the middle and upper
classes. The second has to do with the violence associated with gangs.
Although the public would generally disapprove of violence perpetrated
on innocent victims, due to the fact that much of gang violence occurs
between rivals within the illegal segment of the society, the gang member
assumes a connection to the gallant ‘frontiersman.’ Third, since American
society has generally carried an image of the state as being both necessary
for social order and yet susceptible to despotism, any group that c hallenges
the state’s omnipresent and omnipotent character is regarded as a ‘guard-
ian’ or ‘defender’ of what is considered at least civically ‘sacred.’
Gangs, Culture, and Society in the United States 27
It is the gang legend that has produced the most important impact on
American society and its creation has many contributors: the legal profes-
sion, the academy, the news and entertainment industry, and members of
the gangs themselves.
To begin, it is important to understand that individuals and groups
who are considered ‘deviant’ are so labeled using some normative criteria
associated with a particular sector of society—usually the middle class—
that the general public has accepted as legitimate. As such, the ‘deviant’
person or group stands apart from the acknowledged governing norms,
but not all forms of deviance are considered bad. In this regard, the devi-
ant behaviors of most concern for society’s institutions are those that vio-
late an official law, and so, it is not surprising that legal institutions have
played an important role in the gang’s integration into American culture.
The term ‘gang’ is generally used and confused with a number of other
forms of collective behavior such as a mob or a band. The term itself has
two components: the existence of a collective of individuals who are asso-
ciated with each other as some type of ‘social group,’ and engaging in
cooperative action directed at an object as captured in the term ‘ganging’
(Sánchez-Jankowski 2003, 1991). While it has often been the case that
observers have confused the use of the concept of a ‘gang’ as an organized
association of individuals with that of some immediate form of collective
action (i.e. ‘ganging’ behavior), historically, the term ‘gang’ has focused
on groups of individuals who have violated formal laws. Consequently,
legal institutions, which are tasked with prosecuting individuals that vio-
late society’s legal codes, become a primary agent in establishing the ‘devi-
ant’ label assigned to those who are implicated in a transgression. Gangs
throughout history have been implicated in ‘deviant’ illegal behavior
both as organizations and simply as groups collectively acting in an ad
hoc marauding fashion.1 In both cases, there can be devastating effects
1
Examples of depictions of marauding groups include the acts reported in various New York news-
papers around the killing of an African-American named Michael Griffith by a ‘gang’ of individuals
in Queens, and the various groups that were engaged in violent structural damage in the Los
Angeles Rodney King Riots reported in both the newspapers and some research monographs. See
Elka Worner (1992), New York Times (1986).
resulting from their actions, but it has been the formal organized gang’s
deviant behavior that has caused the most concern for society and its legal
institutions. This stems from the belief that an organized group has the
capability of planning and executing actions on a continuous basis, and
because gangs have a formal, or quasi-formal, organization with leader-
ship considered by law enforcement to pose an incessant threat to social
order. This belief has been shown to form the basis of a persistent vigi-
lance on the part of law enforcement to break up collective gatherings of
individuals who live in a lower social class neighborhood and appear to
share a particular race or ethnicity, dress, and age (Rios 2010).
Since the police know before they begin patrolling a particular area if
it is a poor neighborhood, they bring a number of expectations to their
work having to do with social life and crime associated with neighbor-
hoods of this type. One of these expectations is that the gang is a persis-
tent presence in these neighborhoods and that young males are more
likely to be in a gang than not. A second expectation is that the gang
exists to break the law. This is particularly the case for police officers who
patrol areas where specific gangs have operated for multiple generations,
such as the Latin Kings in New York and Chicago, the Vice Lords in
Chicago, and the Bloods, Crips, and White Fence in parts of Los Angeles.
Whatever deviant acts were committed by each of these gangs in the past
are believed to have been passed on in symbolic rituals from one genera-
tion to another, like the assigning of the term ‘OG’ (original gangster) to
gang retirees, passing along the various stories of previous illegal activi-
ties, and the requiring of certain behavior such as promoting the gang’s
image, aiding fellow members, engaging in physical violence, and abstain-
ing from cooperating with police and implicating other members in ille-
gal activity—i.e. ‘snitching.’ In this way, a reputation is developed, and
over time, a legacy is advanced that serves both the gang and its antago-
nists—the police and district attorneys—in carrying out their respective
societal roles. In turn, both the arrests that are made, and the defiance of
existing societal and legal norms by both the gang and police, result in
the onset, maintenance, and advancement of the gang’s legend.
The existing gang legend is comprised of three elements. The first ele-
ment concerns the reputation of the gang, which is based on (1) the
individual member’s and gang’s resistance to the will of societal officials
to make them comply with the existing laws and norms; (2) the individ-
ual’s and gang’s accomplishments of dominating competitors; and (3) the
appeal of their continued existence in the neighborhood. This reputation
is achieved through the medium of stories told and retold by ex-members
of the gang, especially those who have assumed the title of ‘Original
Gangster’; rumors circulating as to who has or has not maintained the
expectations of a member; the ability to recruit new members from the
community; the local community’s acceptance, or lack of complaint, that
the gang continues to exist within it; and the formal media’s coverage that
brings to the general public’s attention the members’ or collectives’ defi-
ance of society’s effort to thwart the fulfillment of their goals (Sánchez-
Jankowski 1991, 284–309).
The second element on which the legend of the gang is based concerns
local residents’ view of the gang as having established for the neighbor-
hood a tradition of existence in which the continuing participation of
specific families and their succeeding generations sustains its mythical
qualities.
The third element is the gang’s ability to provide social status to mem-
bers within the organization, the neighborhood, and society’s penal sys-
tem (Moore 1978; Vigil 1988). In sum, the gang as legend is composed
of an image that presents an association of individuals who are defiant to
where society has socioeconomically placed them and labeled as ‘deviant,’
who identify with the residents of the community, will aid the commu-
nity when asked, and resist attempts by state and local constituents to
prey on them, their families, and their community (ethnic, social class,
and neighbors). They are social bandits who take on the image of menac-
ing and engaging rogues.
If legends were simply made by the people who are the object of them,
they would not present any long-term significance, but in the case of
gangs there are a number of actors who not only contribute to the gang
legend, but continuously promote it. However, the content of the legend
need not be the same for those active in promoting it. I start with the
legal profession, which has an ongoing historical relationship with gangs
because gang members are regularly arrested and prosecuted for violating
society’s laws. There are a number of ways in which members of the legal
profession contribute to promoting the gang and its legend. The first
involves the police and their investigatory practices. When a crime has
been reported involving young males (two or more) who are non-white
the police generally begin with the assumption that the crime has some-
thing to do with gangs. Once the process has begun, the police proceed
with this suspicion before any other evidence is present; and while this
could very well be true, they begin their formal investigation by gathering
evidence to support their suspicion that a particular incident was a ‘gang-
related crime’ rather than determining what evidence would suggest it is
not a ‘gang-related crime.’ This promotes the gathering of evidence that
leads to a crime being ‘gang-related,’ which is often reinforced when there
is an absence of evidence to suggest any motive at all in the case. Many
times, convenience and the pressure to ‘solve’ the crime encourage both
the police and the district attorney to declare that a crime involving non-
white young men in poor neighborhoods is in some way ‘gang-related.’
Such a declaration of a crime being ‘gang-related’ is also used when
only one person who has been associated (not necessarily a member) with
a gang at some time in his life has been identified as involved. This occurs
because the police can use other evidence such as police ‘Field Notecards’
that document an individual’s relationship with a gang2 and/or manipu-
late the evidence into a scenario suggesting a gang crime through the
logic that: gangs are known to do X; this person did X; therefore, this is
a gang crime. A good example of this occurs at trial when the police are
called as ‘Expert Witnesses’ to testify as to whether the crime committed
was done for the ‘benefit of the gang.’3 In California, though this hap-
pens in other states as well, the police will readily testify that a crime was
done to benefit the gang. Thus, crimes where a male attacked another
male at a party over some dispute involving a girl is often considered
2
The police could check a box on a card indicating one or more of the following about an indi-
vidual: the individual had friends known to be (i.e. previously identified) gang members, had gang
tattoos, wore gang-identified clothing, said they were in a gang, had other gang members say they
were in a gang, or was previously sentenced for a gang-related crime; or acted with others who were
identified as being in a gang.
3
This language is often used in California because the state has an anti-gang ‘Street Terrorism
Enforcement and Prevention Act’ (California Penal Code 186.0), which allows the prosecution to
ask the court to sentence a guilty individual to extra years of prison for the commission of a crime
for the ‘benefit of the gang.’
‘gang-related,’ though most of the time, the evidence is thoroughly cir-

cumstantial at best. In a great many cases, the crimes committed by indi-
viduals, even individuals who say they are in a gang, would have occurred,
irrespective of whether one or more of the individuals involved were gang
members. In brief, their gang affiliation was irrelevant to their guilt or
innocence in the crime. Ironically, the fact that the police continue to
argue, in most cases with no direct evidence, that a gang member com-
mitting a crime benefits the gang by enhancing its reputation, uninten-
tionally reinforces the gang’s legendary status and promotes the very
actions they are trying to eliminate in the future.
The second way in which members of the legal profession strengthen
the gang legend involves the Office of the District Attorney. District
Attorneys in general, and particularly in California, where there exists the
anti-gang ‘Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act,’ use some
alleged crime related to gangs as the standard preferred motive for indi-
viduals committing a crime involving young non-white males from known
low-income areas.4 This tactic has several advantages. First, there are mul-
tiple options available that could be used to argue that a gang has had an
indirect influence on the perpetration of a crime, and these provide the
prosecution with the flexibility to strategically shift the focus of explana-
tion within a particular case in order to establish a motive. Given this situ-
ation, prosecutors will allege ‘gang circumstances’ because the word ‘gang’
itself evokes negative images of deviance and guilt in the general public’s
mind, and for the people composing the jury, just as the word ‘commu-
nist’ did for Americans during the Cold War era (Rogin 1987, 63–80).
The second reason that prosecutors use the ‘gang allegation’ is to strategi-
cally position themselves to achieve a negotiated settlement (i.e. a ‘plea
agreement’) that allows the defense to accept an offer of removing the gang
enhancement charge for a guilty plea to a lesser offense. This works particu-
larly well in situations like those in California, where the gang enhance-
ment statute mandates additional years in prison if a person is convicted of
4
I have been called as an ‘Expert Witness’ on gangs, mostly by the defense, in 30 or more cases
where the District Attorneys added the ‘gang enhancement’ to the charges even though there was
very weak evidence that the alleged crime was done for the benefit of the gang, or part of a gang
operation.
a crime and that crime was done with gang members or for the benefit of
the gang, and where there is a ‘Three Strikes Statute.’ Thus, often those
charged will take the ‘plea agreement’ rather than going to court and risk
being found guilty on both counts (the crime and it being related to a gang)
and a longer prison term; and, in addition, risk obtaining two or even three
strikes that could lead to the statute’s mandatory ‘life in prison without the
chance of parole’ sentence. The upshot of the District Attorney’s use of the
gang enhancement statute in the committing of a crime is the advancement
of the gang’s legend, and ultimately the gang phenomenon itself.
Television and print media is the second area where we find the promo-
tion of the gang legend. For television, which is concerned with ratings,
and ratings being predicated on viewer interest, there is a focus on violence
and the bizarre. Gangs are a perfect topic to generate interest because they
can illicit fear and insecurity that generates public interest that results in
more advertisements and greater income. In this regard, the local news sta-
tions will regularly report gang violence, particularly lethal violence, while
the national networks are more likely to provide a documentary program
on gangs and gang violence.5 For the print media, unlike with television,
the most common story is a featured investigative reporting piece rather
than the simple reportage story found in daily television news segments.6
Related to investigative reporting, there are a number of books produced
by individuals trained as reporters that have centered on gangs. These books
are pop sociology in that they were written with the general readership as a
target and thus focus on non-technical aspects of any issue related to gangs
(Ashbury 1927; Bing 1992; Kotlowitz 1992; Venkatesh 2008). Rarely, if
ever, do these authors and books draw upon theories or evidence from
5
The first of these documentaries, one that provided the template for most documentaries on gangs,
is Who Killed Michael Farmer? made by the famous journalist Edward R. Murrow on CBS. There
were others that followed, such as Why We Bang (2006); La Vida Loca (2008); and Interrupters
(2011). Some documentaries applied a more creative approach, such as the Discovery Channel’s
Lord of the Flies, which applied themes presented in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies (1952)
to delve into the issue of gangs.
6
For example, see Marisa Gerber, ‘With Gentrification, Echo Park Gang Members Move Outside
Their Turf,’ The Los Angeles Times, February 3, 2014; Annie Sweeney and Jeremy Gorner, ‘Tyshaun
Lee’s Killing The Fourth in Recent Feud Between Gang Factions,’ The Chicago Tribune, December
1, 2015; and Benjamin Mueller and Al Baker, ‘A Cloak of Silence After South Bronx Killing,’ The
New York Times, March 18, 2016.
existing research on gangs. Their product is simply an effort to inform and

entertain the reader, but in so doing they extend the gang legend.
Lastly, the academic treatment of gangs, that is, those scholars that
have utilized theory and method to analyze gangs, share some of the same
tendencies as seen in the journalistic accounts that describe the gang as
composed of either ominous predators or victims acting out of despera-
tion.7 In either case, the legendary quality of the deviant is advanced.
The Gang and Culture

Gangs are not simply a product of culture but a producer of culture as
well. In the role of a product, they represent the cultural values and
behaviors of the lower-class communities from which they emerge. Thus,
they both act and assume the role of actors in a social environment simi-
lar to the one vividly described by Thomas Hobbes as the state of nature
(i.e. societies where there is no government) (Hobbes 1651). In poor
neighborhoods, where the Hobbesian world is most clearly displayed, the
gang simply behaves in a manner that expresses the ‘brutish’ values per-
meating it (Sánchez-Jankowski 1991, 22, 26, 29, 139). Therefore, the
gang, as an accumulation of the values and norms in the lower class of a
particular ethnic group, acts as both a reinforcing and reproduction force
for those who share this social space (Vigil 1988; Sánchez-Jankowski
2008, 243–298).
Gangs can also produce culture, that is to say they can be the primary
agents in creating symbols and products that shape the elements of both
the local culture in which they interact and that of the larger society. They
do this by using deviance to create new forms of symbolic objects related
to taste and personal-group expression—objects like clothing, cars, and
drugs, as well as speech and personal interaction styles (Schneider 1999,
137–163). Many of these were initially considered deviant in the lower-
7
There are many examples of both, but I shall simply offer a few from each descriptive form. For
the gang as predator, see Yablonsky (1962), Klein (1995), and Katz (1988: 80–115). For gangs as
victims acting out of some form of desperation, see Moore (1978), Hagedorn (1988), and Vigil
(2002).
class communities out of which they emerged in that they were clear
breaks from the cultural forms currently in vogue; but after the initial
reflect response (often rejected and ridiculed) they, like other forms of art,
were incrementally adopted by elements within the larger society pre-
cisely because they constituted something new and unique that individu-
als could utilize in establishing a desired identity. Consequently, as the
number of users of the deviant object or symbol grows, it becomes inte-
grated into the society as legitimate cultural form. An example that
involves clothing was when Mexican-American gang members (referred
to as Pachucos) historically adopted clothing denoted as ‘zoot-suits’ to
establish a sense of style and identity. The ‘zoot suit’ had its origins in the
African-American community and represented an elaborate ‘affected’
look. Mexican gang members embraced it as a statement of ‘individuality
and rebelliousness.’ Historically, because the ‘zoot suit’ was both an
‘affected’ look and worn by non-white minorities who themselves were
marginalized, American society (i.e. white American society) considered
it to affront the modesty norms existing during World War II, which led
a number of military servicemen to attack the Mexican Americans who
donned it. The infamous Zoot-suit Riots of 1942 were the result of such
incidents (Mazón 1989; Alvarez 2009; Gutierrez 1995).
Further, in the 1950s and 1960s, gang members wore jean jackets that
had the sleeves removed from the shoulder along with the name of the
gang written at the top and bottom of the jacket’s back with the official
insignia in the middle. These were referred to as the gang’s colors, and
while they were the official uniform of gangs at that time, they became a
part of local and societal fashion as well. Many gangs would regulate
through violence the use of their name and insignia by non-gang mem-
bers, but they did nothing to those who used the style of a sleeveless jean
jacket with non-gang insignia because in so doing they felt the users were
legitimizing them through the adoption of ‘their’ style (Schneider 1999,
143–145; Kuldova 2016).
Other examples include the use of Pendleton shirts (or else shirts made
by the Pendleton clothing company of Oregon) by Mexican-American
gangs during the 1970s and 1980s. Most gang members would purchase
a larger size of the shirt than they required so that it would wear loose on
them and then button the top so that it would be closed around the neck.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Madidu Elaui Agola Badjehun Karikari
(present Chief) (dead) (dead)
Assalm El Musa Mursa Djamarata Imuhadjil 1 son (?)

i Mekki
ALIMSAR
Durrata Azuhur Fihirun 3 other sons (?)

(dead)
Aneirum. 2 other 2 sons 1 son

sons (?) (?)
Here too is a list of the tribes making up the Awellimiden

Confederation, with the names of their present chiefs.
THE NOBLE OR IHAGGAREN TRIBES.

Kel Kumeden—Chief Madidu. Kel Tekeniuen—Chief Burhan.
Kel Ahara—Chief El Yasan. Kel Takabut—Chief Aluania.
Kel Tedjiuane—Chief Arreian. Teradabeben—Chief Sidauat.
Iderragagen. Tenguereguedeche—Chief Warigoru.
Tarkaitamut. Tademeket—Chief Yunès.
Tahabanat. Idalbabu—Chief Ihuar.
Ibehauen—Chief Sar’adu. Ahianallan.
Ifoghas—Chief Waruziga.
Ihegaren—Chief El Auedech.
SERFS OR IMRADS.
Kel Gossi—Chief Ur illies. Tar’ahil—Chief Ekerech.
Irreganaten—Chief Ur orda. Ikairiraen—Chief Ezemek.
Iueraruarar’en—Chief Mahamud. Erkaten—Chief Elanusi.
Imideddar’en—Chief Huberzan. Ikawellaten—Chief Ibunafan.
Ibongitan—Chief Allabi. Ihaiauen—Chief Abba.
Tafagagat—Chief Karrabau. Kel R’ezafan—Chief Amachecha.
To these tribes making up the actual Confederation must be

added the following, who were brought into it by force, and have long
since submitted with a good grace to be under the protection of the
Awellimiden:
Wadalen—Chief Niugi. Eratafan—Chief Yoba.
Cheibatan—Chief Rafiek. Ibendasan.
Logomaten—Chief Bokar Wandieïdu. Ahiananurde—Chief Amadida.
Tabotan—Chief Muley.
Subject to each of these last-named tribes are imrads, but I only

know the name of one of their tribes, that of the Ekono, vassals of
the Wadalen.
In addition to their predatory excursions the Tuaregs on the right
and left bank of the Niger make two annual migrations, the time of
which is generally the same.
During the dry season, from December to May, the higher districts
are sterile and dry, the ponds and wells empty of water. Then the
Tuaregs move down to the river-banks and their flocks and herds
graze on the coarse weeds which line them. To avoid the sickness
amongst the camels which results from eating damp food, and to
which I alluded in speaking of Timbuktu, they generally leave them a
little further inland. It is at this time that the negroes pay their tribute
of maize and tobacco, and it is also during this same season that
warlike expeditions are generally undertaken.
For the rest of the year the rain pours down in torrents in the
riverside districts, and although its fall is not so constant or so heavy
in the higher lands, they too are fertilized by the filling up of the
ponds and the wells, many of which even overflow.
Then the nomad tribes go back again to their old haunts, and
settle down for the winter in their camps about the wâdies,
resembling those of Algeria, which begin near Gao.
These wâdies are such very characteristic features of Central
Africa, that a description of one of them may be useful. The word
wâdy means the channel of a watercourse which is dry except in the
rainy season, but there is water in the upper portion of that of Gao in
every season. Its source is far away in the north, and it seems to be
identical with the Igharghar of the south, alluded to by Duveyrier, the
Astapus of the ancients, which comes down from the Atakor or
Ahaggar.
This would confirm Barth’s suggestion, that the marshy
depressions which debouch on the Ngiti Sokoto do not extend
beyond the district of Air.
My own opinion is that the Gao Wâdy, before it became choked
up with sand, was a tributary of the Niger when the course of that
river was far more rapid than it is now.
An examination of its banks does in fact lead to the conclusion,
that nearly if not quite all along them a line of cliffs, eroded by the
action of water, marks what was once the bed of part of the old
Niger. In their annual migration the Awellimiden go up as far as the
districts near Air, where they come in contact with their enemies the
Kel Gheres. Probably competition for the ownership of the
pasturages yielding food in the dry season, was the original cause of
the feud between the two races, which dates from centuries ago.
The tribes from the left bank of the Niger also move into the kind
of islet formed by the bend of the river, advancing to near Dori,
where they find a series of ponds and lakes known as Oursi Beli,
etc., an idea of which I have tried to give in the map accompanying
this volume, but I do not know how far I have succeeded.
There are many very curious and interesting hydrographical
problems connected with this bend of the Niger reserved for the
future explorer to solve.
Well, what do my readers think of the Tuaregs after the picture I
have endeavoured to give of them? I certainly have not represented
them as saints, living in a kind of Utopia, where all is well, where the
men have no vices and the women no faults.
You will perhaps, however, agree with me that they have very
decided characters, and many fine qualities, if also many defects.
Their intelligence is certainly great, making it well worth while to try
and win them to a better mode of life, and one more conducive to the
comfort of their neighbours.
I do not of course fail to recognize what hard work it is to row
against the current or to contend against pre-conceived ideas. It is
always difficult, and sometimes dangerous.
In 1859 a young Frenchman, not more than twenty years old at
the most, disembarked at Constantine. He spent three years
travelling about the Algerian Sahara, and under the powerful
protection of the Emir Ikhenukhen, chief of the Azguers, he lived for
more than a year amongst the Tuaregs.
After his return an expedition was sent out by the Governor of
Algeria, and the treaty of Rhadamès was signed.
Then, in accordance with the traditional French policy in matters
colonial, instead of profiting by the results already acquired,
absolutely nothing further was done. Duveyrier described the
Tuaregs as he had found them, just as I have tried to do; he spoke
quite frankly of their faults as well as of their virtues, and insisted on
the possibility of treating with them on favourable terms. He might
well do so, for he had already succeeded in that direction himself.
When twenty years later Flatters was assassinated, Duveyrier
was accused of mendacious optimism, and every one was ready to
cast a stone at him.
As a matter of fact, however, Flatters was killed by the Hoggars,
and Duveyrier had mentioned that they were living in a state of
anarchy, which seemed likely to get worse and worse rather than to
improve. Flatters insisted on going through their territory, although
the Amrar had told him he could not protect him. Now Duveyrier had
made a special point of never going into any district without first
securing an efficacious safe-conduct, yet in spite of all this he is
made responsible for the disaster.
A fitting epilogue ensued, for Duveyrier, disquieted at the
accusations brought against him, weakened by fever contracted in
his journey, and cut to the heart by the ingratitude of his fellow-
countrymen, committed suicide by shooting himself with his revolver,
in the hope perchance of finding the justice denied him here in
another world, if there be indeed such a thing as justice anywhere.
The English would have made him
a peer, and put up statues in his
honour; the ignorance of the French, I
will not use a harsher word, drove him
to commit suicide.
The example is certainly not
encouraging to us later explorers.
I should have been more likely to
win applause if I had pictured the
TUAREGS.
Tuaregs as irreclaimable savages,
relating a thousand entanglements
with them, such as imaginary conflicts with their armed bands, where
my own presence of mind and the courage of my party saved the
expedition from massacre.
I have preferred in the interests of my country to tell the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Even as I write these words, I hear of the death of two young
officers and their men, who were killed near Timbuktu in a fight with
a Hoggar razzi. The Hoggars again!
This does but confirm what I insisted on when I was at Timbuktu,
that we shall never succeed in getting en rapport with the nomad
tribes except with the aid of those tribes themselves.
We must first subjugate certain tribes, and then form from
amongst them auxiliary levies, or, as the natives call them, maghzen,
which will aid us, at a minimum cost to ourselves, to establish French
influence over the Tuaregs.
Amongst the tribes who would best lend themselves to this
purpose, I place the Awellimiden in the very first rank, and they are
the hereditary enemies of the Hoggars. Or perhaps I should rather
have said, if we wish to bring about a complete pacification of the
country, and at the same time win the friendship of the Awellimiden
chief, we ought to strengthen his hands.
With this idea in my mind I make the following suggestions. We
should arm the Awellimiden with a hundred or a couple of hundreds
of percussion rifles, with very large nipples, which would only admit
of the use of special caps turned out in French manufactories.
With one hundred such guns the Awellimiden would be invincible,
and could soon butcher all their enemies, whether Kel Gheres or
Hoggars.
The absolute necessity of having French percussion caps would
place them entirely in our hands, and by doling out the ammunition
needed little by little, we should force them to submit to and serve
us. We should, moreover, have it in our power to break up their
strength directly they showed any reluctance to fall in with our
wishes.
In return for a service such as this supply of fire-arms, the
Amenokal would protect our traders; he has already in fact promised
to do so, not only by word of mouth but in writing.
These traders must, however, act with prudence and
circumspection. I am quite convinced that I and my companions
might fearlessly return to the Awellimiden because they know us
now. I have suggested to our Government that we should return, but
I have not been more successful in that direction than I have in
getting the rifles I asked for.
Strangers must not attempt with a light heart to penetrate into the
Tuareg districts, without having secured the formal protection of the
chief.
What would you have? When a Grand Duke announces his
intention of visiting the wine-shops of the outlying boulevards, don’t
we always take care to send an habitué of those boulevards with him
to look after him? A Jaume or a Rossignol[8] is always in attendance.
And if a protector is useful in Paris, can we not well understand that
one would be indispensable in the Sahara?
When Madidu has once said to a traveller “Yes, come,” or “You
can go,” I am convinced that no danger would be run in the districts
subject to him.
With the Awellimiden on our side we could conquer the Sahara,
and the Tuaregs would help us to push on towards Lake Tchad, Air,
Tunis and Algeria. He would find it to his own advantage to do so,
and the conditions of his existence would be manifestly ameliorated.
Do you imagine that these Tuaregs are stupid enough to miss a
chance of getting stuffs for clothes, coverlids, glass beads, and all
the things they covet? If the men were sufficiently blind to their own
interests, I’ll warrant you their wives would not be.
The Tuareg race will be tamed at last, their faults, all the result of
the fierce struggle for existence, will disappear, and modern
civilization will have conquered a new district in Africa!
One afterthought does, however, occur to me. Will the change be
a good thing for the Tuaregs themselves?
When I think of their wandering life, free from all restraint, when I
remember their courage, which to them is the highest of virtues,
when I consider how truly equal all those worthy of equality are, I ask
myself whether after all they are not happier than we Europeans?
Their life is a hard one, and their habits are frugal, but has not
custom made this life natural to them, and are they really sensible of
its privations?
Good fortune with them is the reward of the brave who know how
to win the victory, and it is in razzis that the victory is gained. To spoil
the vanquished is also to wash out the stain of an hereditary injury,
for the vendetta is not confined to Italy, but often makes friendship
impossible between certain tribes in Africa. The goods of him who
perishes by the sword are the property of the wielder of that sword,
and the death of the vanquished avenges some pillaged or
massacred ancestor, as well as enriches the conqueror.
A rough rendering is given below of the Song of R’Otman, quoted
by Duveyrier, who justly calls it the Tuareg Marseillaise, which is
chanted in defiance of the Chambas by the Azgueurs, who are their
hereditary enemies.
Death to thy mother! Ma’atalla the devil is in thee!
Call’st thou the Tuaregs traitors, the men of the plain?
Ha! but they know how to travel, to fight in the battle,
Sally at morn and return in the evening again!
Aye, and they know how to fall on the enemy sleeping—
Sleeping at ease in the tent with his flocks at his side,
Lapped in his fine woollen garments, his curtains and carpets
Spreading full length in the shade of the canopy wide.
What though with milk newly-drawn from the udders of camels,
What though with meat and with butter his paunch he has filled,
Straight as a nail to the ground pins the lance of the victor,
Out with a shriek and a yell flies the soul of the killed!
Sunk in despair lies the heart-broken wife of the victim,
Scattered and vanished their goods like as water o’erspilled!
Wild manners truly do these lines describe, but they also express
proud and heroic sentiments. What will the Tuaregs gain by their
transformation into civilized people?
In a few centuries, where the tents of the Amezzar are pitched
there will be permanent towns. The descendants of the Ihaggaren of
the present day will be citizens. There will be nothing about them to
remind their contemporaries of the wild knights of the desert.
No more will they go to war; no more will they lead razzis to
ravage the camps of their neighbours, for they will have given up
pillage altogether; but perhaps in a bank, which will take the place of
the tent of their Amenokal, they will try to float rotten companies, and
mines which exist nowhere but in the imagination of their chiefs.
What will they be then? Not pillagers but thieves!
Truth to tell, I think I prefer my marauders, who fall on their prey
like the lion Ahar!
AN AFRICAN CAMEL.
AN ISOLATED TREE AT FAFA.
CHAPTER VI
FROM FAFA TO SAY
Our dread of the passage of the river at Fafa may have seemed
almost childish, and we have since had experience of many another
like it, but for a first attempt it must be admitted it was rather a
teaser.
Narrow and much encumbered, made more difficult by a violent
current, such is the pass of Fafa.
We took as guide the son of the chief of the village, who was later
to pay us a visit at Say. Thanks to him and with the help of his men
we crossed the first rapids without too much difficulty; but, alas! the
rope which was used to transmit to the rudder the movements of the
helm broke just as we emerged from them. Had this happened thirty
seconds sooner the Davoust could not have answered to her helm,
and would have been flung upon the rocks. The damage repaired,
we steered once more into the current, wending our way cautiously
amongst the numerous islands, skirting the course of the reef, our
good star bringing us safely into a quiet reach extending as far as
Wataguna, where we again came to flints lining the bed of the
stream.
In the evening we reached Karu, the Aube having struck once by
the way, but without sustaining much damage; still all these shocks
did not add to her waterproof qualities, and as she shipped more and
more water our anxiety and fatigue became greater and greater. We
had constantly to empty the hold, which did not conduce to the
repose of the passengers, who were often woke up by the noise we
made with our buckets.
FAFA.
Karu is a pretty little village with thatched huts, amongst which

were many of the barns of a bee-hive shape used for storing millet
alluded to by Barth. We had noticed a good number during the last
few days. The inhabitants of this village are Rimaïbes or serfs of the
Fulahs and Bellates or slaves of the Tuaregs.
The chief of the latter told us how glad he was to see some white
men before he died. He added that he would like to give us some
sheep, but he understood that we never ate anything except the
flesh of black animals, and he had none of that colour.
I said that the colour of the wool did not trouble us at all; all we
cared for was the quality of the flesh, and he went and fetched us a
fine ram. It was the marabouts, who, to add to the probability of their
report that we were sorcerers, had made this assertion about black
animals. There is a custom in the Sudan that animals given as
presents should be as white as possible, as a sign of peace between
donor and receiver. We were now told that Bokar Wandieïdu, chief of
the Logomaten, had assembled a column of troops and was about to
attack us.
At Karu the mountains were
pointed out to us which line the
famous rapid of Labezenga, which we
expected to reach the next day. A
guide was given to us who was said to
be wonderfully clever, but we saw no
particular sign of his intelligence.
It was on March 14 that we first
saw the terrible Labezenga rapid, and
KARU WITH MILLET I am very sure that we shall none of
GRANARIES. us ever forget it.
Our guide began the day by
performing a number of mummeries, the aim of which appears to
have been to make various evil genii propitious to us. From a leather
bag he took out a lot of flat and shaly flints which had been picked up
in the rapid. He wrapped each one of these flints in a separate piece
of cloth, spat upon them, and arranged them here and there all over
the boat.
The current rapidly swept us into a part of the river pretty free
from obstruction, and every now and then I tried to distract our
guide’s attention from his spells and to get him to give me a little
information, but he merely replied without looking at me that there
was no danger, and that he would stop us at the right time.
THE LABEZENGA RAPIDS.
Often from behind some little jutting out point which intercepted
our view I heard a peculiar noise, a sort of dull but vague roar. The
rate of the current too increased rapidly, and we rushed along at a
rate of five miles an hour at the least. We listened eagerly, but all of a
sudden we saw that the stream was barred from side to side, a
distance of something like a thousand yards, by a positive wall of
rocks against which the water was dashing up in foam.
Our idiot of a guide looked up at last and saw the danger. He
motioned to us to steer for the bank, but rushing along as we were
with the tremendous current, to attempt to do so would have been
merely to drift helplessly on to the line of rocks, so we continued to
dash on with a speed which almost made me giddy, and presently, to
my intense relief, I saw a place on the right where there was less
foam. Yes, it was the pass, it was the gate of safety, we must make
for it, but was there any hope of our reaching it?
Our coolies bent to their oars and rowed so hard that they were in
danger of breaking them, whilst the sweat poured down their shining
black skins. I had just time to hoist the signal “Do as we do!” which
most fortunately Baudry and the captain of the Dantec understood.
They were just behind us. Now up with the oars and trust to our luck!
The speed increases yet more, the stream sweeps the boat towards
the pass, where it flings itself into the lower reach: we feel ourselves
falling, we shudder, we realize the fatal attraction drawing us in the
direction of the whirlpool; then like an arrow we shoot safely through
the opening. All is well with us at least. Our next anxiety is for our
comrades; we look behind, and a cry of terror bursts from our lips.
The Dantec, which is the next to attempt the pass, has stopped
suddenly; her mast is swept asunder, and has been flung across the
bow by the violence of the shock. All the men were thrown at the
same moment to the bottom of the boat, for the unlucky barge, which
had tried to pass about three feet on one side of the place where we
had got safely through, had struck against a rock which was hidden
by the whirling foam. She received a tremendous blow, but
fortunately did not sink.
But where was the Aube? That was our care now. She was
approaching rapidly, borne on by the current, but the whole pass was
blocked before her. She would crash into the Dantec, and both
vessels must inevitably be wrecked.
But no! Clouds of spray dash up over bow and stern alike; Baudry
has flung out the anchor and the grappling-iron: oh that they may
grip properly!
Thank God! They have. The Aube stops short some three
hundred yards at least from the Dantec at the brink of the rapid.
But what in the world is up now? The Aube is tilted at an angle of
some 45 degrees! The force of the current is such that it has taken
her in the rear and forced her into this extraordinary position, whilst
the grappling-chains and those of the anchor are strained to the
uttermost, producing the terrifying result described.
I now moored the Davoust to the bank, for we must try to save our
other boats.
With regard to the Dantec it was a simple affair enough, for she is
a wonderful little craft, answering readily to the helm, and so buoyant
that we got off with no worse damage than the bursting asunder of a
couple of planks of her bottom. I sent Digui to help the men on board
of her, and she got safely through.
The rescue of the Aube was a more difficult matter, especially as
her rudder had got broken in the struggle. The anchor was raised all
right, but when it came to the grappling-iron we could not make it
budge; it had probably got jammed between two rocks, and all our
efforts to move it were in vain, indeed they only seemed to fix it more
firmly.
Driven on by the wind and whirled round by the strong eddies of
the current, the unfortunate barge began to describe semicircles
round her own grappling-iron. Of course when we once cut the chain
there would be no time to steer her, and we must therefore manage
to divide it exactly at the moment when she was opposite to the
opening she had to pass through. One second too soon or too late
and she would be lost.
I had climbed to the top of a little ridge, and with fast beating heart
I watched Baudry making his dispositions for the manœuvre he had
to attempt. A Tuareg chose this moment of awful suspense to tap me
on the shoulder and greet me with the formal salutation, Salam
radicum mahindia, and you can imagine how much notice I took of
him.
Without being at all put out by my silence, however, he went on—
“I see that you are in trouble. I have watched all that has been
going on from my camp behind the hills, and ever since early
morning I have felt sure that you were all lost. But God has saved
you and your people. I have forbidden my tribe to come and bother
you, for you know that we always beg of every one. Well, I am going
now, but if you have need of us, Tuaregs and negroes alike are
ready to help you, you have only to send me a messenger. Our
Amenokal has ordered us to meet your wishes.”
As he finished his speech, I saw Digui deal a great blow to the
chain of the grappling-iron. The Aube fell into the rapid, but she
could not avoid the rock on which the Dantec had struck already.
She strikes, and the whole of her starboard side is completely
immersed. Is she staved in? No, her speed is such that she rushes
on as if nothing had happened. She is saved. A moment later she is
moored beside the Davoust.
“Not so much as a hole in her, Baudry!” I cried.
“No, I don’t think there is,” he replied, “but we had a narrow
escape.” We overhauled her, and there was not a leak anywhere. In
fact, Baudry declared that her planks were really more watertight
than ever.
Then my Tuareg, who had not gone away after all, but whom I
had completely forgotten, spoke to me again: “Enhi!” he said, which
means simply “look!” but his great wild black eyes shone with
pleasure from out of his veil as if some piece of good luck had
happened to himself.
Now are these Tuaregs brutes? are they men who can only be
swayed by interested motives? What nonsense to say they are!
Where did the interested motives come in here? Would it not have
been better for him if our boats had all been sucked down in the
rapids? We ourselves and all our goods would then have been his
lawful prey.
May Providence only grant that I never find any of my fellow-
countrymen worse than the Tuaregs.
You may be sure the brave fellow got his parcel of goods and
many other things as well. With his long swinging step he went off to
his people again, shouting to us by way of adieu, “Ikfak iallah el
Kheir” (“may God give thee all good things!”)
This was, however, but the first of the Labezenga rapids, and that
the easiest. We had scarcely gone a hundred yards further when we
came to a regular cataract some two feet high, barring our passage.
On one side rose lofty heights, on the left the stream was broken into
several arms by islands. In fact, there did not seem to be any
opening on either side, and we were all but in despair of getting
through this time.
Baudry spent the whole afternoon with our guide from Karu,
seeking a practicable pass, but everywhere the scene before him
was most forbidding, one cataract succeeding another and
alternating with boiling whirlpools, whilst the current rushed on at a
rate of seven or eight miles at the least. The river simply seems to
writhe in its course, and here and there it dashes backwards and
forwards from one side to the other of its bed as if in a state of
frenzy. There must be a difference of something like seven feet in the
height of the water.
The least impracticable place seemed to be on the left of our
anchorage between two islands, but I never should have believed
that any boat could pass through even that. We had, however, to
make the venture, and any delay would only render it more difficult,
for the water was falling rapidly.
On the morning of Sunday the 15th
Father Hacquart celebrated mass and
we then prepared for the passage.
The crew of our two big barges was
not strong enough to navigate both at
once, so we decided to send each
vessel separately past the dangerous
THE ‘AUBE’ IN THE RAPIDS. spots, supplementing one crew from
the other, and later we always
adopted this plan, which worked well on emergencies.
Digui was the only one of our captains who could manage such
tours de force, for really there is no other word for the work he had to
perform. Idris, the quarter-master of the Aube, rather loses his head
amongst the rapids, and is absolutely no good as a leader. Of course
all that can be done is to give a general indication of the course to be
pursued, and when the manœuvre has once begun everything must
be left to the intelligence of the pilot, and Digui alone of all my men
was really worthy to be trusted at the helm.
We fortified ourselves with a good cup of coffee, feeling that it
might be our last, and the Davoust started, Baudry following us in a
canoe.
The scene before us was very much what it had been the day
before—a narrow pass, a diabolical current producing an impression
of unfathomable depth, which made our hearts sink and our breath
come in gasps. On either side the water whirled and surged and
roared unceasingly as it dashed over the huge rocks. Suddenly there
was a tremendous shock, and the boat seemed to slide away from
under our feet. It was the Davoust’s turn to-day. A hidden rock had
battered a hole in her bow in my cabin. Through the gap, some 20
inches big, the water came in in floods, and in less than ten seconds
it was a couple of feet deep.
But it was written in the book of fate that we were to go down to
the sea in the Davoust, and in spite of all our misfortunes, in spite of
everything being against us, in spite of reason, in spite of logic,
something always turned up to save us even at what seemed the
very last moment. The expected miracle always happened, and it is
no exaggeration to say that we experienced dozens of such
miracles.
We were going at such a rate when we struck the rock that for
one instant the barge remained as it were suspended on it, but the
next it was over it and in deep water again.
It so happened, as good luck would have it, that my servant
Mamé was in my cabin when the boat struck, and the water rushed
in at his very feet.
For the brave fellow to tear off his burnous, roll it into a ball and
shove it into the gap in the planks was the work of a few seconds;
that is to say, of just the time during which the rock held us fixed,
preventing us from settling down. We were saved once more. The
miracle had been performed. Only do not fail to notice what a
combination of circumstances was required to bring about the result:
the immense speed with which we were going making us actually
mount the rock, with the presence of Mamé in my cabin all ready to
stop up the hole!
The Dantec passed through with us without difficulty, and it was
now the turn of the Aube. Digui attempted a manœuvre with her of
positively extraordinary audacity. Knowing all too well that the rock
which had been nearly fatal to us could not possibly be evaded, he
simply flung the boat upon the grass-covered bank, and she climbed
up, driven on by the great speed of the current. Then he let her slide
down again backwards, or, to use the strictly nautical term, to fall
astern.
For all this, however, we every one of us had to pay toll in one
way or another at this infernal Labezenga. The Aube grated on the
point of a hidden rock just as she was about to join us again in quiet
water.
It was now two o’clock in the afternoon, and we had been eight
hours getting over a little more than half a mile in a straight line. We
were famished with hunger, and our craving for food became almost
unbearable. I constituted myself cook, and drawing upon our
reserves of tinned meats and preserved vegetables, which we all felt
we were justified in doing under the circumstances, I seized what
came first, and tumbled everything helter-skelter into a saucepan.
We all devoured the result, which I called tripes à la Labezenga,
without in the least knowing what we were eating. I will give the
recipe to all who wish to emulate Vatel: tripes à la mode de Caen,
truffles, esculent boletus, haricots verts, with plenty of pepper and
spice, served hot. In N. Lat. 14° 57′ 30″, after just escaping from
drowning or from death in the jaws of a crocodile, nothing could be
more delicious, but somehow I have never ventured to try my olla
podrida again in France.
After a little rest, which was indeed well earned, Baudry went with
Digui to the village of Labezenga to try and get guides. He came
back in a state of terror at what he had seen.
For more than a month we had to lead a life such as I have just
described. What I have said will give an idea of all we went through. I
don’t want to dwell too much on our sufferings now that they are
over. Once embarked on such an enterprise as this there is nothing
for it but to go straight ahead, and by degrees one gets accustomed

Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs 1St Ed Edition Tereza Kuldova Full Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs 1St Ed Edition Tereza Kuldova Full Chapter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs 1St Ed Edition Tereza Kuldova Full Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street

Gangs 1st ed. Edition Tereza Kuldova

“‘Easy Riders?’ or ‘Born to be Wild?’ Or perhaps none of these clichés, according

“In this superb collection, Kuldova and Sánchez-Jankowski have recruited a

“A rich analysis of contemporary organized crime that will be of interest to the

More information about this series at

Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018935937

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover illustration: Tereza Kuldova

Printed on acid-free paper

In May 2016, Martín Sánchez-Jankowski and me, Tereza Kuldova, have

demonstration under Marie Curie grant agreement no 608695). We

1 Introduction: Scheming Legality and Resisting

2 Gangs, Culture, and Society in the United States 25

3 Legalization by Commodification: The (Ir)relevance

4 Dutch Gang Talk: A Reflection on the Use of the Gang

5 From Bikers to Gangsters: On the Development

6 Men with a Hobby: Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs, News

7 Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Struggles over Legitimation 145

8 Outlaw Bikers Between Identity Politics and Civil Rights 175

9 Inside the Brotherhood: Some Theoretical Aspects

Peter Burger is Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and New

© The Author(s) 2018 1

Organized crime flourishes because it is constantly able to feed from the

Hence, we must ask—inclusion into what? Or better, are these so-­

severe collective and individual transgressions may be one of the few

This volume positions outlaw motorcycle clubs (OMCs) and street

 nsettling the Distinction Between Organized

But outlaw motorcycle clubs too are becoming capable of skillfully

reversible learning process, the official economy adopts illegitimate prac-

We must not underestimate the role of state legitimacy in these pro-

In responding to financial crises at the very heart of economy, the state

 tructure of the Book: Spotting

spective on the gang phenomenon in America—crucial for any under-

ship, crime has become their primary identifying characteristic; at least

2018). The ‘mitigating strategies’ analyzed by the authors in the case of

2009; McGoey 2012; Kuldova 2017b) or ‘capitalism with a human face’

alongside claims made by diverse indigenous groups. Again, this displays

protection against the outside world; the demarcation is amplified. In

Fraser, Alistair, and John M. Hagedorn. 2016. Gangs and a Global

Kuldova, Tereza. 2016. Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation in Fashion

The literature on gangs in America begins in the nineteenth century and it

© The Author(s) 2018 25

c­ onsiders this phenomenon ‘criminal’? This chapter offers an alternative to

The Gang and Its Legend

‘gang-related,’ though most of the time, the evidence is thoroughly cir-

existing research on gangs. Their product is simply an effort to inform and

The Gang and Culture

Assalm El Musa Mursa Djamarata Imuhadjil 1 son (?)

Durrata Azuhur Fihirun 3 other sons (?)

Aneirum. 2 other 2 sons 1 son

Here too is a list of the tribes making up the Awellimiden

THE NOBLE OR IHAGGAREN TRIBES.

To these tribes making up the actual Confederation must be

Subject to each of these last-named tribes are imrads, but I only

FROM FAFA TO SAY

Karu is a pretty little village with thatched huts, amongst which

1 Introduction: Scheming Legality and Resisting

2 Gangs, Culture, and Society in the United States 25

3 Legalization by Commodification: The (Ir)relevance

4 Dutch Gang Talk: A Reflection on the Use of the Gang

5 From Bikers to Gangsters: On the Development

6 Men with a Hobby: Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs, News

7 Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Struggles over Legitimation 145

8 Outlaw Bikers Between Identity Politics and Civil Rights 175

9 Inside the Brotherhood: Some Theoretical Aspects

Hence, we must ask—inclusion into what? Or better, are these so-

nsettling the Distinction Between Organized

tructure of the Book: Spotting

c onsiders this phenomenon ‘criminal’? This chapter offers an alternative to

The Gang and Its Legend

The Gang and Culture