User:Rojjen

This article is about groups of individuals who share a common identity. For other uses, see Gang (disambiguation). Mara Salvatrucha suspect bearing gang tattoos is handcuffed. In 2004, the FBI created the MS-13 National Gang Task Force to combat gang activity in the United States. A year later, the FBI helped create National Gang Intelligence Center.

A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. Also, it is three or more who join, act in consort, find a gang name, find a gang territory, commit criminal acts for the further enhancement of antisocial behavior. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen. In the United Kingdom the word is still often used in this sense, but it later underwent pejoration. The word gang often carries a negative connotation; however, within a gang which defines itself in opposition to mainstream norms, members may adopt the phrase as a statement of identity or defiance.

The term gangster (or mobster) refers to a criminal who is a member of a crime organization, such as a gang. The terms are widely used in reference to members of gangs associated with American prohibition and the American offshoot of the Italian Mafia, such as the Chicago Outfit or the Five Families. The related word "mobster" is a term derived from Latin and Aramaic. The word mobi means large gathering in Aramaic, and similarly, mob in Latin means crowd.

Gang is from the past participle of Old English gan "to go". It is cognate with Old Norse gangr "a group of men", and it is in this sense that the word is used today, rather than the older meaning.[1]