ABSTRACT
In regards to a motorcycle club the label “organized crime” was first associated with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC), an international club, which formed in 1948 in California, USA. This chapter explores spontaneous collective violence, which is generally overlooked in collective violence scholarship. It illustrates how spontaneous acts of collective violence are welcomed by outlaw clubs, as they contribute towards the clubs’ maintenance of symbolic boundaries and “brotherhood”. The chapter considers how collective violence, like most violence, involves symbolic-expressive action. In the political sense, the upshot of collective violence encompasses the expectation of instrumental gain, which Ray argues includes a “complex play of control, policing, and mobility through space”. The chapter highlights the symbolic capital that outlaw clubs such as the HAMC acquire based on their image, and while outlaw clubs are vilified in media and popular culture based on their physical appearance, T. Kuldova notes how large numbers of people have gravitated towards outlaw groups.
