Abstract
Developing a typology for delinquent and criminal gangs has a long history in criminology and criminal justice. Although many typologies have been proposed in the past eight decades, the great majority of these classifications are based on the consideration of one single factor. This approach obviously oversimplifies the nature of gangs and may give gang researchers an impression that gangs of a certain category differ totally from those of another category. The author of this paper argues that differences between gangs are relative, not absolute. To demonstrate this point, a nomenclature on Asian gangs based on the different combinations of the three factors of political belief, organizational layout, and political connection is suggested. According to this nomenclature, Asian gangs can be conceptually categorized as STP, SEP, STN, SEN, ITP, IEP, ITN, and IEN types.
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Notes
This variable includes 12 indicators: group function, group size, weapon use, criminal justice impact, meeting resources, leadership styles, conduct codes, income sources, crime involvement, extent of leadership insulation, internal organizational structure, and membership commitment (Knox 2000: p 537).
There are two reasons why political belief, organizational layout, and political connection were chosen as the index variables for socio-cultural, managerial, and political factors. First, gang formation, in one way or another, will entail these three variables as the universal aspects. More specifically, when a delinquent gang takes shape and functions as an entity, its possible course of development can usually be summarized by these three variables (e.g., some gangs may become susceptible to certain ideologies, some may become hierarchical entities, some may establish reciprocal relationships with the authorities, while some may exhibit all of these features). Besides serving as “cultural universals” in gangology, these three variables are quantifiable. Using these three variables to construct typologies for gangs will lay a foundation for the empirical study of gang classification systems in the future.
In Chinese, the Amur River is called Hei Long Jiang (i.e., the Black Dragon River). Because of this, Koku Ryu Kai can either be translated as the Black Dragon Society or the Amur River Society in English. For Westerners, however, the term Black Dragon Society seems to be better known than the Amur River Society.
For a detailed discussion of the origins of the Chinese Triads, see Murray (1994).
These versions can be seen in Murray (1994: pp 197–228).
There are numerous books and articles on theories about social movements. One such representative work is Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (Morris and Mueller 1992).
As minorities, Muslims have been dominated by Catholic/Christian politics in the southern Philippines over the past two centuries. This domination has caused numerous frictions between Islamic and Catholic/Christians Filipinos in the period of the 1970s to 1990s. For a detailed discussion of the historical roots of these clashes, see Islam (2003).
Knox (2000: pp 536–537) calls this type of gangs “super gangs.”
For a brief history of the emergence and evolution of the Yamaguchi gumi, see Devito (2004: pp 343–349).
For a detailed history of the conflict between the Nationalists and the Communists, see Hsu (2000).
Before the Sino-Japan war of 1937, the most powerful criminal society in China was the Shanghai Green Gang led by Du Yue-Sheng. In April, 1927, Du, after siding with the Nationalist regime, ordered the Green Gang “pickets” to arrest and execute communists and communist suspects. More than 5,000 leftists were killed. For a detailed discussion about this event, see Martin (1996: pp 79–112).
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Huang, HL. From the Asian Boyz to the Zhu Lian Bang (the Bamboo Union Gang): A Typological Analysis of Delinquent Asian Gangs. Asian Criminology 2, 127–143 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-007-9033-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-007-9033-0