Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street Gangs

Scheming Legality, Resisting Criminalization

Tereza Kuldova, Martín Sánchez-Jankowski, Tereza Kuldova, Martín Sánchez-Jankowski

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319761190
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319761206
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This edited collection offers in-depth essays on outlaw motorcycle clubs and street gangs. Written by sociologists, anthropologists and criminologists, it asks the question of how the self-proclaimed 'outlaws' integrate into society. While these groups may cultivate a deviant image, these original studies show that we should not let ourselves be deceived by appearances. These 'outlaws' are, paradoxically, well integrated into mainstream society. The essays read the relationship of these groups to the media, law enforcement and society through the lens of their strategies of 'scheming legality' and 'resisting criminalization'. These reveal most strikingly how the knowledge of social codes, norms and mechanisms is put to use by these groups.

 

This groundbreaking volume provides answers to previously understudied questions through well-researched case studies drawn from across Europe and United States. With wide-reaching implications for communities around the world, this exciting collection of essays will be of great interest to academics and governmental institutions as well as students and general readers of anthropology, sociology and criminology.

 

© The Author(s) 2018

Tereza Kuldova and Martín Sánchez-Jankowski (eds.)Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Street GangsPalgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Societyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76120-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Scheming Legality and Resisting Criminalization

Tereza Kuldova^{1, 2}

(1)

University of Oslo, Blindern, Oslo, Norway

(2)

University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Tereza Kuldova

End Abstract

Members of outlaw motorcycle clubs and street gangs have been repeatedly labelled as ‘deviant ’ and ‘anti-social,’ presumed unable to integrate into mainstream society. Given this persistent common-sense assumption, public and academic talk has been dominated by calls to ‘reintegrate’ 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 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 attributed to organized crime – monolithic, anti-democratic, tyrannical and globally disastrous – which are the defining attributes and ultimate consequences 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 reputation 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, ‘deviants ’ or criminals act precisely with this formula in mind. Paradoxically, 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 commodified gang and biker subculture testifies to this (Van Hellemont 2018, Kuldova 2017a). Outlaw bikers , gang members and other ‘terrifying 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 lectures onto the general market as ‘commodities.’ (…) The criminal moreover 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 different capacities of the human spirit, create new needs and new ways of satisfying them. (…) The criminal produces an impression, partly moral and partly tragic, as the case may be, and in this way renders a ‘service’ by arousing 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 considers 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 , legislation and policing —in particular, in their strategies of scheming legality and resisting criminalization. These speak to both their desire for and strategic need to appear and be considered by others as ‘legal.’ At the same, 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 criminalization not only to plant doubts regarding the official narratives about the clubs—and thus, legitimize their informal power —but also to attract new members.

Unsettling the Distinction Between Organized 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-collar crime. Indirectly, the diverse contributions in th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Scheming Legality and Resisting Criminalization
• 2. Gangs, Culture, and Society in the United States
• 3. Legalization by Commodification: The (Ir)relevance of Fashion Styles and Brands in Street Gangster Performance
• 4. Dutch Gang Talk: A Reflection on the Use of the Gang Label in the Netherlands
• 5. From Bikers to Gangsters: On the Development of and the Public Response to Outlaw Biker Clubs in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium
• 6. Men with a Hobby: Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs, News Media and Image Politics
• 7. Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Struggles over Legitimation
• 8. Outlaw Bikers Between Identity Politics and Civil Rights
• 9. Inside the Brotherhood: Some Theoretical Aspects of Group Dynamics in Biker Clubs
• Back Matter