Criminal gang

“ The latter consisted in the formation of large criminal units, specially trained by the leaders of the Hitlerite gang. It will, however, be clear to any criminologist that it is not sufficient to create these foul and criminal gangs—it is essential that once the crime has been perpetrated the criminal should feel that he has acted with complete impunity. In order that the crimes envisaged by the major criminals be fulfilled in their monstrous entirety, it became necessary to create for the minor criminals an atmosphere of complete impunity. In accordance with your wishes, Mr. ”

“ In the Criminal Courts, where men are put upon their trial for breaches of the municipal laws, it not infrequently happens that of a gang indicted together in the Dock, one has the master mind, the leading personality. ”

“ The great mass of male offenders haled to our juvenile courts are members of uncontrolled gangs and only rarely is there seen a member of a controlled gang. Street and alley gangs are the training schools for delinquent boys and from them is graduated the juvenile criminal. ”

“ The obstacles which our system opposes to the successful prosecution of robbers of all denominations and descriptions deprive our Government of all popular support in the administration of criminal justice; and this is considered everywhere to be the worst, and, indeed, the only radically bad feature of our government. No magistrate hopes to get a conviction against one in four of the most atrocious gang of robbers and murderers of his district, and his only resource is in the security laws, which enable him to keep them in jail under a requisition of security for short periods. ”

“ It was a dangerous solidarity of crime and mutual protection against which the two deputy marshals started out alone. The Dysert gang had been organized originally as a secret society to further the political ambitions of men who were not overscrupulous as to instruments or methods. But gradually it had drifted into a means of wreaking private revenge and compelling money tribute. Those of its early members who were of the law abiding sort had left it long before, and its membership had dwindled to a handful of Mexicans of the recklessly criminal sort. ”

“ Six murderous assaults were made at one time by these gangs within a single week. One who is caught and does his "bit" or "stretch" is a hero, and when a leader is hanged, as has sometimes happened, he is almost envied for his notoriety. A frequent ideal is to pound a policeman with his own club. The gang federates all nationalities. Property is depreciated and may be ruined if it is frequented by these gangs or becomes their lair or "hang-out." ”

“ With the police unable to function, banks and post-offices offered an easy prey to these ruffians. The meanest form of robbery was the taking of money to pay old-age pensions from mail-cars on their way to outlying districts.
A special murder gang was formed, which went about the country to murder any man—policeman, R.M., or civilian—who was particularly active in trying or helping to restore law and order in the country—that is, any man who was too tough a nut for the locals to crack. ”

“ Without the stabbing' it is common enough. One of the commonest tricks of a well-known gang is to lure a visitor anxious to see life to some questionable haunt, and make him the victim of a bogus police raid. The staid and sober citizens of good repute will generally pay handsomely to avoid publicity.
In the case of the young American, a deliberate scheme of lifelong blackmail was planned. ”

“ This does not mean that every thief ought to be treacherously assassinated in his sleep, or even that every thief ought to be publicly executed after a fair trial, but that every gang, as a gang, ought to be completely broken up, and that whatever severity is indispensably necessary for that end ought to be used. ”

“ For them and for all of us, it is past time to end the violence.
At younger and younger ages, boys and girls are turning to gangs. For a child without an involved family, a gang offers a feeling of belonging. For a young person without options for tomorrow, a gang offers a sense of purpose. For all those born in a home cordoned off against danger, with bars on the windows and chains on the doors, life on the streets seems all too often a taste of freedom they have never known. ”

“ When the necessity presents itself for a descent upon the gang after some particularly flagrant outrage, the police have a task on hand that is not of the easiest. The gangs, like foxes, have more than one hole to their dens. In some localities, where the interior of a block is filled with rear tenements, often set at all sorts of odd angles, surprise alone is practicable. Pursuit through the winding ways and passages is impossible. The young thieves know them all by heart. ”

“ They are in gangs of about fifteen or twenty, and over every gang nearly as many soldiers, and an officer, all armed, are placed to force them [308] to labour. At night they are incarcerated in the gaol, and their bed is composed simply of boards without any covering; they are allowed no supper. Admitting their criminality to be great, and their punishment just, still such a system has a degree of barbarity in it which can never prevail except among savage nations. ”

“ Too many people in too many communities will not testify about gang crimes because they are afraid of violent reprisal. We must not allow the voice of justice to be frightened into silence by the violent threats of gangs. ”

“ Who are these close-nudged folk and whither away?
She who runs may read them for hard-headed, white-handed men in search of "prospects"; brown-throated homesteaders; real-estate agents out for talking points and for snap fortunes; mining engineers with dunnage bags—young fellows all in the full force of life—these, and "the gang," who are ill-looking men and rather dirty. The gang fare forth to work on the railway grades. They are always ganging—that is going—for the words are strictly synonymous. The gang going to the city meet the gang coming out. ”

“ When a gang of bandits commits an assault, responsibility for the raid is also shared by those members of the gang who did not actually take part in the assault. But when the size of the gang attains extraordinary proportions, when the gang happens to be at the helm of the ship of state, when the gang commits numerous and very grave international crimes, then of course, the ties and mutual relations among the members of the gang become entangled to the utmost. ”

“ At first but little notice was taken of these depredations, as they were, for a time, on a very small scale, but the losses being continually reported, aroused a suspicion in the minds of the officials of the road that the goods were more than one man could comfortably get away with, and hence they reasonably concluded that a gang was engaged in the business. ”

“ The gang is an institution in New York. The police deny its existence while nursing the bruises received in nightly battles with it that tax their utmost resources. The newspapers chronicle its doings daily, with a sensational minuteness of detail that does its share toward keeping up its evil traditions and inflaming the ambition of its members to be as bad as the worst. The gang is the ripe fruit of tenement-house growth. ”

“ Such offenses are unnatural manifestations of natural tendencies—exuberance run wild, because unrestrained. The contest of matching wits with the police is thrilling in its possibilities for adventure. Hours of time are occupied in planning depredations and much ingenuity is afterwards shown in evading detection and capture. Their common danger is the bond which knits them together. They have a code of honor—exhibited principally in their dealings with one another—the first and chief rule of which is that no member shall “snitch” on any other member of the gang. ”

“ Will you indicate the character of the disclosure you have to make?"
"I will."
"Do so."
"There is existing in this city a band, an organized gang of the most skillful criminals on earth. Their organization is so complete that a discipline as perfect as military order prevails. These men have defied the police for years; they are doing more harm to the commercial world than ever was suffered before in many years. My brother is a member of this gang. ”

“ Just as our plans were ripe for execution, we were, however, forestalled by the arrest of five members of the dangerous confederacy on two gigantic cases—one for forgery, and the rest for a great railway robbery, which had been suddenly disclosed to the police authorities by a wretch who craved vengeance upon an associate in the gang because he had been successful in carrying off the affections of “a lady” with whom the informer had cohabited. ”

“ It must be clearly understood that the whole power of the murder gang lay in reprisals: they took reprisals against every one who was against them by murder, arson, and intimidation. The Crown forces had only the law, which was paralysed. ”

“ Their inordinate vanity is well called the slum counterpart of self-esteem, and Riis calls the gang a club run wild. They have their own ideality and a gaudy pinchbeck honor. A young tough, when arrested, wrenched away the policeman's club, dashed into the street, rescued a baby from a runaway, and came back and gave himself up. They batten on the yellowest literature. Those of foreign descent, who come to speak our language better than their parents, early learn to despise them. Gangs emulate each other in hardihood, and this is one cause of epidemics in crime. ”

“ I shouted with equal vehemence. “Your hour is come! Officers, enter and do your duty!”
In an instant the room was filled with police; and surprised, panic-stricken, paralysed by the suddenness of the catastrophe, the gang were all secured without the slightest resistance, though most of them were armed, and marched off in custody.
Three—Sandford, or Cardon; but he had half-a-dozen aliases, one of them—were transported for life: the rest were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. ”

“ But since they began to hunt down criminals and this court to sentence them for their crimes, see the change. Why, there has not been a murder in Pocket City for thirty-six hours.
“A short while since this gentleman occupying a seat upon the bench with me, was ambushed by a gang [142] of desperadoes, and would have been hanged but for the intervention of our honored fellow citizen, Deadshot Dean, now absent, who killed the ringleader and saved a valuable life.
“Two of that gang are now arraigned before you as prisoners, charged with another offense against law and order. ”

“ You take a turn on the platform together, and he explains the whole mystery. “The fact is,” he begins, “I am Sergeant Witchem, of the Detective police.”
“And your four victims are?”—
“Members of a crack school of swell-mobsmen.”
“What do you mean by ‘school?’ ”
“Gang. There is a variety of gangs—that is to say, of men who ‘work’ together, who play into one another’s hands. These gentlemen hold the first rank, both for skill and enterprise, and had they been allowed to remain would have brought back a considerable booty. Their chief is the Frenchman.” ”

“ The gunpowder was just a "bluff" to frighten the housekeeper, an installment of the kind of politics it meant to play when it got its chance. There was "nothing against this gang" except a probable row with the saloon keeper, since it applied elsewhere for house-room. Not every gang has a police record of theft and "slugging" beyond the early encounters of the street. "Our honored leader" is not always the captain of a band of cutthroats. He is the honorary president of the "social club" that bears his name, and he counts for something in the ward. ”

“ If, in committing such robbery, they cause another person to suffer injury by shooting him with a firearm, or assaulting him with an explosive, or subjecting him to torture or cruelty so as to have him undergo serious hardship, Lord says that they the gang robbers be punished with twenty years' imprisonment or life imprisonment. ”

“ Then one thing led to another, until he was face to face with dealing that took on crooked form. To protect himself he bound men to him. And so the gang developed. Many powerful gangs have developed that way out here. ”

“ We know that the headquarters of the gang are here in New York somewhere. And we know something about their methods. We also know that they’ve corrupted or intimidated some of the police officials here. That’s why we daren’t call on the police until we have something pretty definite to go on!”
“What about their methods?”
“Well, there’s a lot of money back of the organization for one thing. And money is power wherever officials can be corrupted, and that’s pretty near everywhere. But when they get a little higher up they have subtler and even more effective methods. ”

“ It may be that the leader is neither thief nor thug, but ambitious. In that case the gang is headed for politics by the shortest route. Likewise, sometimes, when he is both. In either case it carries the situation by assault. When the gang wants a thing, the easiest way seems to it always (p. 243) to take it. There was an explosion in a Fifth Street tenement, one winter's night, that threw twenty families into a wild panic, and injured two of the tenants badly. There was much mystery about it, until it came out that the housekeeper had had a "run in" with the gang in the block. ”