World's Tattoo- Gangs in the United Kingdom

World's Tattoo- Gangs in the United Kingdom

Gang-related organised crime in the United Kingdom according to the Serious Organised Crime Agency is concentrated around the cities of London, Manchester and Liverpool and regionally across the West Midlands region, south coast and northern England. With regards to street gangs the cities identified as having the most serious gang problems, which also accounted for 65% of firearm homicides in England and Wales, were London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Glasgow in Scotland also has a historical gang culture with the city having 6 times as many teenage gangs as London, which has ten times the population, per capita.

In the early part of the millennium the cities of Leeds, Bristol, Bradford (including Keighley) and Nottingham all commanded headlines pertaining to street gangs and suffered their share of high-profile firearms murders. Sheffield, which has a long history of gangs traced back to the 1920s in the book "The Sheffield Gang Wars", along with Leicester is one of numerous urban centres seen to have an emerging or re-emerging gang problem.

On 28 November 2007, a major offensive against gun crime by gangs in Birmingham, Liverpool, London and Manchester led to 118 arrests. More than 1,000 police officers were involved in the raids. Not all of the 118 arrests were gun related; others were linked to drugs, prostitution and other crimes. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said it showed the police could "fight back against gangs".

Increasingly, Britain's street gangs in certain inner city areas such as London and Manchester are becoming more of a cultural transmission of America's Crips and Bloods. This is evidenced by identification with colours, hand signs, graffiti tags[9] and in some cases gang names, for example Old Trafford Cripz and Moss Side Bloods or 031 (O-Tray-One) Bloods gang and ABM (All Bout Money) Crips.