Outlaw bikers represent a very small percentage of motorcycle riders who join motorcycle clubs, but they receive disproportionate attention due to their mystique, unconventional behavior, and violence. Although the outlaw biker phenomenon started in the United States, it has since spread throughout the world. The involvement of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMGs) in organized crime at the local, regional, national, and transnational levels fosters violence that puts innocent persons at risk for death or injury and leads to the demonization of “bikers” and the overcriminalization of motorcycle enthusiasts and club members. The Outlaw Biker Legacy of Violence, written by internationally known expert Thomas Barker, addresses the legacy of violence in the outlaw biker culture and tackles the implications of the violence that progressed as outlaw biker clubs evolved into adult criminal gangs engaged in crimes for profit over long periods of time and across borders. Beginning with a history of outlaw bikers and the construction of the “folk devil” of the biker, the book outlines the distinctions between conventional motorcycle clubs, Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs, and Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, and then traces the expansion of these groups across the globe. This book will be relevant to those interested in the examination or investigation of biker gangs in particular or organized criminal groups in general. It is essential reading for criminal justice students and others studying social groups, gangs, and organizations, or the sociology of deviance, and is also relevant for law enforcement professionals dealing with these organizations

The title of this volume Outlaw Bikers as Organized Crime reluctantly combines two highly contested concepts into a statement that is perhaps disputed even more. Who and what do we refer to when we talk about ‘outlaw bikers’ and ‘outlaw biker clubs’? What is meant by ‘organized crime’? And, how – if at all – are these two concepts related? All the chapters in this volume deal with these questions some way or the other, either explicitly or implicitly, each providing its own answers based on the data and methods at hand. This volume presents cutting-edge research on outlaw bikers and outlaw biker clubs from countries all over the globe and reflects the different ways that academic researchers have approached the outlaw biker phenomenon from the theoretical and methodological vantage point of organized crime research.

This book is the first to compare the shared cultural tenets of ancient warbands and outlaw biker gangs. It argues that the values of hyper-masculinity can be traced from the former into the contemporary environment of the latter: codes of honour, loyalty and bravery have prioritised small groups of males over women and other men, creating a history of hyper-masculinity that shows little sign of stopping. Indeed, Outlaw Bikers and Ancient Warbands: Hyper-Masculinity and Cultural Continuity argues that such hyper-masculine culture can be found in many male groups such as the police, military and sports, and that if we want to understand hyper-masculinity and face it as a society then we need to recognize that outlaw bikers are a reflection of behavior that has a very long tradition. This pioneering work explores these issues from ancient times and into the future.

Women’s Criminalisation and Offending in Australia and New Zealand offers new research and analysis of women’s offending and criminalisation in Australia and New Zealand from British settlement through to the late twentieth/early twenty-first centuries. Drawing attention to women as offenders as understood in a multitude of ways, this collection highlights how women have been involved with crime and criminal behaviour, their treatment inside and outside of courts and prisons, and how women’s deviation from societal norms have attracted negative attention throughout the decades. For Aboriginal and Māori women especially, the responses were harsher than what they could be for non-indigenous women. The chapters cover a broad range of transgressions that women have been actively involved with, including theft, drug and alcohol abuse and offences, organised crime, and homicide, as well as how women’s behaviour and their bodies have been criminalised and responded to by authorities. What this collection demonstrates is that women have often chosen to be involved with crime and criminality, while on other occasions their behaviour, innocent as it was, was not considered acceptable by contemporaries, resulting in confusion and misapprehension of women who refused to fit a mould. Women’s Criminalisation and Offending in Australia and New Zealand brings together historical and criminological methods, theories, and scholars to shed light on how Australia and New Zealand’s colonial, later state, and national governments have sought to understand, control, and punish women. This collection will be of interest and value to scholars, students, and everyone with an interest in criminology, history, law, sociology, Indigenous studies, and Australian and New Zealand studies.

Based on personal experience and academic research, Tom Barker shines a light on the dark side of American policing by examining misconduct and corruption as occupational and workplace forms of deviance. Barker outlines patterns of rule breaking and criminal behavior while providing strategies for management and control. This textbook is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate courses in criminal justice, criminology, justice studies, sociology, and public administration.

Biker Gangs and Transnational Organized Crime, Second Edition, describes and analyzes a rapidly expanding global problem: criminal acts committed by motorcycle gangs. Thomas Barker, one of the world’s top experts on outlaw biker gangs, offers fascinating details about the Bandidos, the Vagos, the Mongols, and other "one percenters" (criminal biker gangs, as opposed to the vast majority of motorcycle enthusiasts). He combines this data with a strengthened conceptual framework that makes sense of this complicated picture. U.S.-based motorcycle gangs like the Hells Angels have proliferated, especially in Canada and Europe, to the point where these gangs have more members in other countries than in the United States. Increasingly more often in recent years their crimes are not limited to rumbles or drug use—these gangs challenge the dominance of organized crime, leading to violent conflicts between the rivals. Germany, Scandinavia, the UK, the Netherlands, and Canada are particularly hard-hit by this rising violence. One of Barker’s unique contributions is his Criminal Organization Continuum, building on the groundbreaking network approach to organized crime proposed by Klaus von Lampe. Introduced in the first edition, Barker elaborates his continuum tool and makes it more multi-dimensional to help refine the definition of adult criminal gangs. The product of years of research, this book lays the groundwork for further study by offering students, police, and researchers the most thorough account available of outlaw motorcycle gangs.

​​This brief covers the unique crime group of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs are adult criminal associations composed of “bikers” living a deviant lifestyle that includes individual, group, and club criminal behavior. These groups are sometimes called one percenters, due to the American Motorcycle Association statement that ninety-nine percent of motorcyclists are law abiding citizens. While many may be familiar with the reputation of the Hells' Angels, many may not realize the wide network of other Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs or the extent of their involvement in criminal activities. The brief includes a breakdown of the criminal networks and activities of these groups, which operate similarly to an organized crime group. It also covers the evolution of motorcycle clubs to motorcycle gangs. It examines the recent trend of American-based motorcycle gangs into international organized crime activities. This book will be of interest to researcher studying criminology, particularly organized crime and criminal networks, as well as international and comparative law and public policy.​

Take a wild ride with the Reaper's Motorcycle club in this steamy novel from New York Times bestselling author Joanna Wylde. Eight years ago, Sophie gave her heart—and her virginity—to Zach Barrett on a night that couldn’t have been less romantic or more embarrassing. Zach’s step-brother, a steely-muscled, tattooed biker named Ruger, caught them in the act, getting a peep show of Sophie he’s never forgotten. She may have lost her dignity that fateful night, but Sophie also gained something precious—her son Noah. Unfortunately, Zach’s a deadbeat dad, leaving Ruger to be Noah’s only male role model. When he discovers Sophie and his nephew living in near poverty, Ruger takes matters into his own hands—with the help of the Reapers Motorcycle Club—to give them a better life. Living with outlaw bikers wasn’t Sophie’s plan for her son, but Ruger isn’t giving her a choice. He’ll be there for Noah, whether she wants him or not. But Sophie does want him, has always wanted him. Now she’ll learn that taking a biker to bed can get a girl dirty in every way…

In August 1964, a disheveled band of motorcyclists mysteriously appeared in Milwaukee. Over the course of the next decade, the Outlaws Motorcycle Club (OMC) became synonymous with acts of intimidation and violence. In the ruthless world of renegade bikers, the OMC's Milwaukee chapter became known as the "Wrecking Crew." You Gotta Be Dirty: The Outlaws Motorcycle Club in & Around Wisconsin, examines the evolution of outlaw motorcycle clubs in the United States. From 1947 - the early 1960s, the influence of rogue riders - the one-percent of motorcyclists living outside the law - spread from the west coast and in to America's heartland. In Wisconsin, investigators linked members of the Outlaws to at least eleven murders. Four of the innocent persons killed were women and two were elderly. Three children also lost their lives: A fifteen-year-old boy was killed by an explosive device; an infant perished in an arson fire; and a ten-year-old boy was executed vis-a-vis a gunshot to the head. During the tumultuous 1990s, the Outlaws orchestrated a guerrilla-style offensive in a quest to beat back the expansion of the world's largest one-percent motorcycle club - the Hells Angels (HAMC). During this period, the HAMC began courting the Hell's Henchmen Motorcycle Club, a group with chapters in Chicago, Rockford, and South Bend, Indiana. The Hells Angels' bold move into northern Illinois touched-off a seven-year conflict that was exacerbated by beatings, bombings, and shootings. "As a former outlaw biker investigator," wrote author and retired Milwaukee Police Department Detective Larry Powalisz, "I participated in the investigations of several of the incidents documented in this well-researched book. This history of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club shines a bright light on the one-percent motorcycle subculture.""

This timely collection provides a historical overview of violence in American popular culture from the Puritan era to the present and across a range of media. Few topics are discussed more broadly today than violence in American popular culture. Unfortunately, such discussion is often unsupported by fact and lacking in historical context. This two-volume work aims to remedy that through a series of concise, detailed essays that explore why violence has always been a fundamental part of American popular culture, the ways in which it has appeared, and how the nature and expression of interest in it have changed over time. Each volume of the collection is organized chronologically. The first focuses on violent events and phenomena in American history that have been treated across a range of popular cultural media. Topics include Native American genocide, slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and gender violence. The second volume explores the treatment of violence in popular culture as it relates to specific genres—for example, Puritan "execution sermons," dime novels, television, film, and video games. An afterword looks at the forces that influence how violence is presented, discusses what violence in pop culture tells us about American culture as a whole, and speculates about the future.