What was being a criminal, gangster, thug, or general bad guy llike before the 18th century?
Were they as flashy as criminals now?
Were gangs all about the loyalty and respect like today?
What was a prison sentence like?
Did criminals tattoo themselves like the Russian mob or Aryan Brotherhood?
Did they form gangs in prison ?
Where? The world is a big fucking place with a lot of different views of crime.
>>1345706
just for starters ancient Rome just to keep it simple.
>>1345715
Have you ever heard of the circus factions in the late Roman/ Byzantine empire?
Basically the circus factions were the different factions who fought in the horse races, named simply by colors. The two big ones were the greens and the blues, but there were other smaller ones (like the yellows). While they started as simple chariot racing teams, they quickly grew to become essentially gangs. People from the blues would specifically cause violence against the greens, and vice versa. Both recruited from the younger male population, and were thought to have used most of the same methods that gangs today use (being part of something, having a brotherhood, etc). The greens and the blues basically ended up becoming incredibly widespread in most major cities, and were the cause of a ton of civil disturbances in the Roman/ Byzantine empire. They quickly took on political stances of their own, and basically evolved into ultra violent gang political parties. As such, they were responsible for quite a few overthrows of emperors, including Maurice, but they are probably most well known for the Nika riots in Byzantium under Justinian where half the city was burned down.
So anyways, theres my input. Its pretty interesting stuff, and if youre looking into the history of gangs, I would start here.
Pre modern times had a STAGGERINGLY high crime rate
A lot of horrors attributed to monsters were likely the work of criminals
>>1345762
Sauce please.
>>1345696
Nothing but duels! It was socially acceptable if not legally.
>>1345935
Lies
>>1345696
>What was a prison sentence like?
Death sentence for relatively light crimes. Only thing they would keep you alive for is if you were still of need (penal army, debt repayment). If you got off with a prison sentence it would be a heavy one and you would probably get starved and tortured in prison by everyone including your fellow prisoners.
>>1346763
Was prison used as a rite of passage like it is today in some criminal gangs?
>>1346789
Depends on "when" you are talking about. Mass incarceration is a relatively new concept as repeat prisoners who simply be executed, sold into "indentured" servitude, force to join the army etc. Prison isn't so much a rite of passage as it is a way for criminals to vet each other. Even if someone did do prison time, no one is going to respect him if he was a shemale whore on the inside but acts straight out in the world
>>1345696
They were 'flashy', as the slang used in prisons was known as 'flash' language. There was a very complex heirarchy of ciminals in 18-19th C London.
https://archive.org/details/modernflashdicti00kent
>>1346814
Any sauces on the London criminals?
>>1346814
>Frigate
>A well dressed wench
>>1345762
>Pre modern times had a STAGGERINGLY high crime rate
Calm down Hobbes.
>>1346814
>French faggot-stick
>>1347732
It's true though. And that's not especially Hobbesian.
>>1345830
It's too broad a statement for a single source, but you can get the idea pretty easily by googling stuff like "medieval murder rate."
>>1345696
The Gang Tattoos are fairly recent for the west. Emerging from sailors in the 18th Century.
In East Asia however, it's old as fuck. It started with the Chinese practice of tattooing convicts with a statement telling the public of their crimes, on highly visible areas such as forearms, necks, or even faces. Words like MURDERER, THIEF, or RAPIST.
Sometime between the Song-Yuan Dynasties, Chinese criminals, as a fuck-you to society, covered these tattoos with other images such as religious/mythical/martial imagery. They even cleverly had tattooists modify the characters for their crimes to say something ferocious instead, like "Murderously Brave" or "Thief of Lives."
The practice skyrocketed when the novel "Water Margin" came out in the 14th Century, which is about a band of 105 outlaws who had the Tattoo thing going on. :ater on in the 20th Century, Yakuza and Triad members even tattoo the Novel's characters on their skin.
>>1347988
Noice ty for info.
he was a good outlawe,
And dyde pore men moch god.
>>1345696
>Were they as flashy as criminals now?
>Were gangs all about the loyalty and respect like today?
Nobles were not completely unlike the mafia nowadays.
Most criminals were low-lives like the ones today, with little romance to it.
Prison as you understand it is kinda new. Holding someone captive, keeping them healthy, not forcing labor from them or expect a ransom down the line - that just wasn't a practical way to punish someone.
>>1345750
So basically football hooligans but more organized?
The term thug is derived from the name of the worshippers of the black goddess Kali in India, Thuggee, which means deceiver. Bands of Thugs traveled among Muslim and Hindu tribes as professional thieves and murderers.
>>1350592
I have a hard time believing they killed 1,000,000+ people though.
>>1350532
If the only way a person could have a voice in politics was through football hooliganism then yes. While the average person had no say in politics, he could however support a sports team that was financed by a political figure who represented their interests. The bigger the support a chariot team had meant that the politicians that owned the team had a large support base
>>1351036
Intriguing.
>>1351036
I think stuff like that happened during the wars following the break up of Yugoslavia where football hooligan groups with political links evolved into paramilitary groups.
Is it true that serial killing was far more common back then, they got away with it?
>>1347988
Wonder how they could modify 'rapist' into something remotely venerable like 'murderously brave' or 'thief of lives'
