Take off your patch????

A group of mongrel mob and black power members protested against the new laws banning patches in Wangnaui. They didn’t wear their patches  Banning patches Michael Laws believes will eradicate gangs – what a joke – Michael laws knows sweet fuck all about gangs becoz he is another upper-middleclass man sitting safely away from the likelihood of ever having to engaging with any of these people.


And anyone who has had the misfortune of being involved with these gangs would tell him banning patches won’t work.

Yes the patch is the mantle of brotherhood but take it away and they still kill – deal drugs and run our prisons. As Cam Stokes suggests – There are a large number of legitimate items of clothing that may indicate support for a gang, for example a shirt bearing the number 81. – Hells angels = 8 for the eighth number of the alphabet H – 1 for A…” So do we ban shirts??? And what about gang members who are tattooed? As he points out “Patches may come and go tattoos are forever”

So striping them of their patches might have a short term effect but really depending which gang they belong to they dress in a colour – the whole time I sat through the depositions re: Jordan Herewini’s murder case mongrel mob members didn’t wear their patches – if they did they turned them inside out or they wore red scarves, hats, socks, shoe’s, socks etc…

So again what do we do about gangs?

One thing I think is we stop making new ineffective bloody laws. Instead we demand that the laws that exist be utilised more effectively. Gangs are criminal organisations – with or without patches…they rob – maim – deal in drugs and kill people.

Again drawing on Cam Stokes “our existing laws have worked well against gang members. Offences found in the Crimes Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act, the Arms Act, the Summary offences Act and the Land Transport Act…have been effective…(http://www.gangscene.co.nz/).

So lets strengthen these laws and let’s not overlook listening to ex-gang members – they are they ones who joined and then got away…

And let’s not overlook those wriring and working with youth and gang members - nor should we overlook community initiations to change towns and people in their communities around.

Greg Newbold argues that gang members do not join gangs to commit crime, but to experience a sense of brotherhood and belonging that has been denied to them by their families, schools and society at large. He argues that “…they commit crime not for the sake of it, but because it strengthens the bonds of brotherhood”. Sadly no one who joins a gang is naive enough to believe that they can join for male bonding and camaraderie and not be involved in crime. Whether we like it or not both is true boys join gangs because they feel alienated – they also enjoy the crime.

Denis O’Reilly a lifetime member of the Black Power gang said “…the best way to address gang behaviour is to give young prospects something better to do, be it sports, a job or involvement in their marae, since “gang life isn’t all that attractive, really, it’s a default mechanism for those with nothing better to do” (http://www.salient.org.nz/features/gang-land)

Gangs from what I am coming to understand – particularly Maori and Pacific Island gangs – or what people identify as ‘ethnic’ gangs, have no allegiance to anyone but themselves. They no longer have any connection with anything outside the gang.

As Tuhoe Isaac points out in his book TrueRed taking on the mob patch meant having to sever all ties to family “… being a patched member of the Mongrel Mob meant that from that point on your first allegiance was to the gang brotherhood…All relationships from our pasts just evaporated. Those of our blood families in rival gangs were just as much enemies as their peers we had no connection with”

So we’ll take their patches and the gangs will continue to wander around in their colours – something that I have learnt they will die for. Whatever the answer is it must be multi pronged and I am starting to wonder if just concentrating on ‘gangs’ as the problem is enough. Take away the patches, hand-signals – colours and what are you left with? Men behaving like animals or worse. So maybe we need to take about such things as male behaviour. Isolation in predominantly rural areas, class, racism and all the old isms we hate to talk about. And maybe it is time to stop standing in one ideological space and saying this is the answer. Taking on gangs as I suggested must be a multi-pronged initiative and in Tuhoe Isaac word I lived a life of extremes and it was going to take another ‘extreme’ to replace it.