Approximately 1.4 million people in the United States were part of gangs as of 2011, and more than 33,000 gangs were active in the country. These include national street gangs, local street gangs, prison gangs, outlaw motorcycle clubs, and ethnic and organized crime gangs.
Many American gangs began, and still exist, in urban areas. In many cases, national street gangs originated in major cities such as New York City and Chicago but they later grew in other American cities like Albuquerque and Washington, D.C.
History
The earliest American street gangs emerged at the end of the American Revolutionary War in the early 1780s. However, these early street gangs had questionable legitimacy, and more serious gangs did not form until at least the early 1800s. The earliest of these serious gangs formed in northeastern American cities, particularly in New York.
Early street gangs in the Northeast: 1780–1870
Three main immigrant groups entered the Northeast US via New York in the early 1800s: English, Irish, and German. On the Lower East Side of New York, these immigrant groups formed into gangs in an area known as the Five Points. Of these were the Smiths's Vly gang, the Bowery Boys, and the Broadway Boys, all three of which were predominantly Irish immigrants. These early gangs were not exclusively engaged in criminal activity; their members often were employed as common laborers. Slaves living in New York formed two paramilitary groups which could be seen as "gang" like, Smith's Fly Boys and the Long Bridge Boys. Notable examples of slave rebellions (as well as white backlash to the perceived threat of them) in colonial New York include the New York Slave Revolt of 1712 and the New York Conspiracy of 1741.
After the early 1820s, however, gangs began to focus on criminal activity, one example being the Forty Thieves, which began in the late 1820s in the Five Points area. Other criminal gangs of the pre-Civil War era included the Dead Rabbits and the Five Points Gang. The Five Points Gang in particular became influential in recruiting membership to gangs and toward establishing gang relationships with politicians. The New York City draft riots were said to have been ignited by young Irish street gangs. Herbert Asbury depicted some of these groups in his history of Irish and American gangs in Manhattan, and his work was later used by Martin Scorsese as the basis for the motion picture Gangs of New York. However, these early gangs reached their peak in the years immediately prior to the Civil War, and gang activity had largely dissipated by the 1870s.
Reemergence and growth: 1870–1940
During the late 1800s, gangs reemerged as a criminal force in the Northeast, and they emerged as new criminal enterprises in the American West and the Midwest. In New York after the Civil War, the most powerful gang to emerge was the Whyos, which included reconstituted members of previous Five Points area gangs. Another late 19th century New York gang was the Jewish Eastman Gang. Meanwhile, Chinese immigrants formed tongs, which were highly structured gangs involved in gambling and drug trafficking. These tongs were matched in strength by an emerging Italian organized crime network that became the American Mafia.
Gangs emerged in the Midwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Chicago. European immigrant groups such as Poles and Italians formed the core membership of Chicago gangs, while only 1% of gangs were black. However, gangs in the 19th century were often multiethnic, as neighborhoods did not display the social polarization that has segregated different ethnic groups in the postmodern city (see Edward Soja). The gangs of Chicago in the late 19th century were particularly powerful in the areas around the Chicago Stockyards, and engaged in robbery and violent crime.
As in New York and northeastern gangs, it was during the early period of Chicago gang growth that gangs connected themselves politically to local leaders. Such gangs as Ragen's Colts became influential in Chicago politics. By the 1920s, several gangs had grown to the point of becoming organized crime groups in Chicago (e.g. the Chicago Outfit under Al Capone), and gang warfare was common among them. Street gang activity continued alongside these larger criminal organizations; contemporary estimates suggested some 25,000 gang members and 1,300 gangs in Chicago during the late 1920s. By the early 1930s, however, these immigrant-dominated gangs largely died out.