The unintended consequences of the gang patch ban

From the Jolly Roger to poison labels, warning symbols have always served a purpose: they communicate danger. New Zealand's gang patch ban has removed visible insignia from public view—but gang membership has grown by over 700. Has the legislation made communities safer, or has it simply made an existing threat harder to identify and more attractive to join?

Introduction

  On 21 November 2024, New Zealand’s Gangs Act 2024 came into force, banning the public display of gang patches and insignia.¹ The stated purpose was unambiguous: to prevent gang patches being used as instruments of intimidation and to restore a sense of safety to public spaces. Within three minutes of the law taking effect, police made their first arrest—a man driving with gang insignia displayed on his dashboard.² Yet as the dust settles on this ambitious piece of legislation, troubling questions emerge about its efficacy and its unintended consequences.

  The removal of visible insignia has created several unforeseen problems. It has made it more difficult to differentiate between gang members and legitimate motorcycle enthusiasts. It has complicated law enforcement surveillance by driving gang activities underground. And perhaps most ironically, gangs have simply adopted alternative forms of identification—from face tattoos to sporting insignia that share their colours. The Mongrel Mob, for instance, now wear Chicago Bulls merchandise—the same red and black that once adorned their patches.³

  Despite the patch ban, gang membership has actually grown. Between October 2024 and August 2025, the National Gang List expanded by more than 700 members.⁴ As one Mongrel Mob member told CNN: “Numbers have grown. They always will.”⁵ A Head Hunters member echoed the sentiment: “Yeah, you can take my patch off me, but it just doesn’t change anything.”⁶

  This article examines the historical precedents for banning offensive symbols, traces the origins of gang culture in New Zealand, and critically assesses whether the prohibition of visible insignia has made communities safer—or whether it has merely rendered an existing threat less visible.

---

Contents

Part I: A history of warning symbols

• The Jolly Roger: pirates, privateers, and the universal symbol of danger

• From pirates to poison: the skull and crossbones as universal warning

• The Jolly Roger in modern iconography

• The swastika: from sacred symbol to icon of hate

• The Confederate flag: pride, heritage, or hate?

Part II: The origins of motorcycle clubs

• From war heroes to outlaws

• The Hollister "riot" and the birth of the one-percenter

Part III: New Zealand gangs—a distinctive history

• Urbanisation, dislocation, and the formation of gang culture

• The birth of the Mongrel Mob

• The provocative symbolism of Nazi imagery

Part IV: How organised crime actually works

• The Yakuza: tattoos as hidden identity

• The Mafia, Camorra, and Triads: secrecy as strategy

Part V: The New Zealand gang patch ban

• How the patch system works

• The legislation

• The Whanganui precedent

• Early results: visibility vs. reality

• The problem of legitimate motorcycle clubs

• Alternative identification: the balloon effect

Part VI: The paradox of visibility

• Patches as early warning systems

• The recruitment paradox

• The failure of symbol bans

• A law without an endgame

Conclusion: addressing root causes

Endnotes

Part I: A history of warning symbols

The Jolly Roger: pirates, privateers, and the universal symbol of danger

  Perhaps no symbol in history has more successfully communicated danger and separation from legitimate society than the skull and crossbones. Its journey from pirate flag to universal hazard warning offers the most instructive precedent for understanding gang insignia—and the limitations of attempting to suppress it.

  The skull and crossbones has ancient origins as a memento mori—a reminder of death—appearing on tombstones and cemetery entrances throughout medieval Europe.⁷ But its transformation into a symbol of active threat began during the Golden Age of Piracy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

  Before regular navies were established, European states relied on privateers—privately owned vessels authorised by governments to attack enemy shipping. A “letter of marque” issued by the Crown converted what would otherwise be piracy into legitimate naval warfare.⁸ Privateers were, in the words of one historian, “pirates who remained within the law only by virtue of paying taxes to the crown.”⁹ The crucial legal distinction was stark: a captured privateer crew was treated as prisoners of war, but a captured pirate could be executed.¹⁰

  When the War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1714, many privateers found themselves without legitimate employment. They continued their trade—but now without state sanction.¹¹ They still used red and black flags, but decorated them with their own designs: skulls, skeletons, bleeding hearts, hourglasses, and crossed bones or swords.

  The black flag—which came to be known as the Jolly Roger—served a specific communicative function. When hoisted, it signalled that the ship was a pirate vessel and offered the target an opportunity to surrender without a fight.¹² If the target refused, the black flag would be replaced with a red one, signalling that no quarter would be given—the pirates would fight to the death and show no mercy.¹³ As one maritime historian noted, the Jolly Roger was “an emblem—real proof that someone is a pirate.”¹⁴

  The name “Jolly Roger” may derive from “Old Roger,” a contemporary term for the Devil, or from the French jolie rouge (“pretty red”), referring to the blood-red flags that preceded the black ones.¹⁵ Whatever its etymology, by 1730 the skull and crossbones had become standardised as the predominant design.¹⁶

  The symbol’s function was precisely analogous to gang patches today: it identified the bearer as operating outside legitimate society, warned potential victims of danger, and established a reputation that preceded the individual. When Bartholomew Roberts sailed into Trepassey harbour in Newfoundland in June 1720 with black flags flying, the crews of all 22 vessels in the harbour abandoned their ships in panic.¹⁷ The symbol communicated everything that needed to be said.

From pirates to poison: the skull and crossbones as universal warning

  The pirate era ended, but the symbol’s association with danger persisted. By the nineteenth century, the skull and crossbones had been repurposed as a warning label for poisonous substances. New York State required the labelling of all containers of poisonous substances in 1829, and by the 1850s the skull and crossbones had become the standard design.¹⁸ The symbol that once warned of pirates now warned of toxic chemicals.

  In 2003, the United Nations adopted the skull and crossbones as part of the Globally Harmonised System for classifying acute toxicity hazards.¹⁹ The pirate’s flag had become an international safety standard—precisely because its association with danger was so deeply embedded in cultural consciousness.

  The evolution demonstrates an important principle: symbols that communicate danger serve a protective function. The skull and crossbones on a bottle of bleach warns the public to exercise caution. Banning the symbol would not make the contents less poisonous; it would simply remove the warning.

The Jolly Roger in modern iconography

  The skull and crossbones has been adopted far beyond its piratical origins. Yale University’s Skull and Bones secret society, founded in 1832, took the symbol as its emblem.²⁰ Members have included three US presidents—William Howard Taft, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush—as well as Secretary of State John Kerry.²¹ The society’s use of the symbol suggests elite power operating behind closed doors, a meaning that would have amused the original pirates.

  American sports teams have embraced the imagery with enthusiasm. The Pittsburgh Pirates, the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers all incorporate skull, crossbones, or pirate imagery into their logos and branding.²² The symbols that once struck terror into merchant sailors now sell merchandise and rally fans.

  Most significantly for this discussion, the United States Navy’s Strike Fighter Squadron 103—the legendary “Jolly Rogers”—has carried the skull and crossbones insignia since 1943.²³ The original VF-17 squadron flew F4U Corsairs in the Pacific theatre during World War II, downing 154.5 Japanese aircraft in just 76 days of combat. Japanese pilots called them “Whispering Death.”²⁴ The skull and crossbones on their aircraft communicated precisely what the pirates’ flags had communicated centuries earlier: fear the bearer.

  The squadron’s insignia has passed through multiple redesignations—VF-17, VF-5B, VF-61, VF-84, and now VFA-103—but the skull and crossbones has remained constant.²⁵ Today’s Jolly Rogers fly F/A-18F Super Hornets from Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, carrying forward a tradition that connects modern naval aviation to the pirates of the Caribbean. In 2024, the Navy Midshipmen football team wore uniforms inspired by the Jolly Rogers insignia for the Army-Navy Game.²⁶

  The lesson is clear: the skull and crossbones communicates danger, rebellion, and separation from conventional society. Attempts to suppress it have consistently failed because the symbol serves a genuine communicative function. When pirates were suppressed, the symbol migrated to poison labels. When poison labels were supplemented with “Mr. Yuk” stickers for children, the American Association of Poison Control voted in 2001 to retain the skull and crossbones.²⁷ The symbol persists because it works.

The swastika: from sacred symbol to icon of hate

  No symbol better illustrates the transformation of meaning through appropriation than the swastika. The word itself derives from the Sanskrit svastika, meaning “conducive to well-being” or “good fortune.”²⁸ The motif—a hooked cross—appears to have been used in Eurasia as early as 7,000 years ago, perhaps representing the movement of the sun through the sky.²⁹ To this day, it remains a sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, appearing commonly on temples and houses throughout India and Indonesia.³⁰

  The symbol’s journey to infamy began in the nineteenth century, when German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered swastika-like decorations at the ancient site of Troy. European scholars connected it with a shared “Aryan” culture spanning Europe and Asia, and by the early twentieth century, the swastika had been appropriated by German völkisch nationalist movements.³¹ Groups like the Reichshammerbund and the Bavarian Freikorps used the swastika to reflect their “newly discovered” identity as the master race.³²

  In 1920, Adolf Hitler adopted the swastika as the symbol of the National Socialist Party, designing a flag with a black swastika in a white circle against a red background—colours deliberately chosen to evoke the German Imperial flag.³³ “I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form,” Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle.”³⁴

  Following the Second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust, the swastika became indelibly associated with genocide and fascism. Post-war Germany enacted Section 86a of the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code), outlawing the public use or dissemination of symbols belonging to unconstitutional organisations, including Nazi emblems.³⁵ The prohibition is not absolute: the law includes exemptions for art, science, research, and teaching, and the swastikas on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples are exempt as religious symbols.³⁶

  The German ban has not eliminated the symbol from the minds of the German people. When Tom Cruise filmed Valkyrie in 2006, swastikas had to be edited from the production. Yet Germans know precisely what the swastika represents. The country undertook a rigorous process of denazification and continues to confront its history through education. The ban serves as a statement of values rather than an attempt to erase historical memory.

  Crucially, the symbol’s prohibition did not eliminate neo-Nazi sentiment. German neo-Nazis simply adopted modified symbols—similar but not identical to those outlawed—demonstrating the inherent limitations of suppressing ideology through symbolic prohibition.³⁷ The rest of the world, meanwhile, generally permits the display of swastikas as a warning and educational tool of history, recognising that awareness of the symbol’s meaning is more valuable than its suppression.

The 1980s hit TV show Dukes of Hazard glamorised symbols of racism and slavery.

The Confederate flag: pride, heritage, or hate?

  The Confederate battle flag presents a different case study in symbolic contestation. The Confederacy was formed explicitly to preserve slavery in the southern United States. As Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens declared in his infamous 1861 “Cornerstone speech,” the new government’s “foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”³⁸

  Following the Confederacy’s defeat in 1865 and the brief period of Reconstruction, the battle flag returned to prominence. Statues commemorating “heroes of the South” appeared across the former Confederate states during two distinct periods: the first around 1900, coinciding with the enactment of Jim Crow laws and a dramatic resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, and the second during the 1950s and 1960s, in direct response to the civil rights movement.³⁹

  The flag probably would have been relegated to Civil War museums if it had not been resurrected by the resurgent KKK and used by Southern “Dixiecrats” during the 1948 presidential election.⁴⁰ Southern historian Gordon Rhea wrote: “It is no accident that Confederate symbols have been the mainstay of white supremacist organizations, from the Ku Klux Klan to the skinheads. They did not appropriate the Confederate battle flag simply because it was pretty. They picked it because it was the flag of a nation dedicated to their ideals.”⁴¹

  Yet by the late twentieth century, the symbol had undergone a remarkable transformation in popular culture. It flew onstage with Lynyrd Skynyrd and adorned the roof of the orange Dodge Charger in the hit television series The Dukes of Hazzard.⁴² For some, the flag came to represent “Southern pride” and regional identity, divorced from its origins in the defence of slavery—a historical amnesia that critics argue perpetuates the erasure of slavery’s centrality to the Confederacy’s founding.

  The Confederate flag example illustrates a crucial point: symbols cannot be stripped of their historical meaning simply by asserting new interpretations. The flag’s resurgences have consistently coincided with resistance to Black civil rights, from Reconstruction through the 1960s to the present day.

The name Hell's Angels originated from famous World War II fighter and bomber squadrons.

Part II: The origins of motorcycle clubs

From war heroes to outlaws

  The name “Hell’s Angels” has a distinguished military pedigree. During World War II, it was adopted by multiple American military units, including the 3rd Pursuit Squadron of the American Volunteer Group—the famed “Flying Tigers” who fought Japanese forces in China—and the 303rd Bombardment Group, whose B-17F bomber Hell’s Angels was the first Eighth Air Force aircraft to complete 25 combat missions over Europe.⁴³ The name itself was inspired by the 1930 Howard Hughes film Hell’s Angels, about World War I aviators.⁴⁴

  Following the war, American streets filled with military surplus motorcycles. Veterans, many struggling to readjust to civilian life after years of combat, sought the camaraderie and adrenaline they had known during wartime. Bomber crews had experienced among the highest casualty rates of any military service; many returned with what we would now recognise as post-traumatic stress disorder. It was from this crucible of social dislocation that motorcycle clubs emerged.

  The first Hells Angels Motorcycle Club was founded on 17 March 1948 in Fontana, California, when several small motorcycle clubs agreed to merge. Otto Friedli, a World War II veteran, is credited with starting the club after breaking from another group called the Pissed Off Bastards.⁴⁵ According to the club’s official history, the name was suggested by Arvid Olsen, an associate of the founders who had served in the Flying Tigers’ “Hell’s Angels” squadron.⁴⁶ The club’s copyrighted “Death’s Head” insignia can be traced to the patches of the 85th Fighter Squadron and the 552nd Medium Bomber Squadron.⁴⁷

Eddie Davenport of Tulare, California on a motorcycle, with Gus Deserpa standing at left, outside 526 San Benito Street, Hollister, California, on July 7, 1947. Photo by San Francisco Chronicle's Barney Petersen.

The Hollister “riot” and the birth of the one-percenter

  The pivotal moment in the public perception of motorcycle clubs came during the Fourth of July weekend in 1947, when approximately 4,000 motorcyclists descended on the small Californian town of Hollister for an American Motorcyclist Association-sanctioned “Gypsy Tour.” The town’s population was only 4,500; its police force numbered seven.⁴⁸

  What followed was sensationalized by the press as the “Hollister Riot,” though in reality it amounted to public intoxication, street racing, and minor disorderly conduct. About 50 people were arrested, mostly for misdemeanors. There were around 60 reported injuries, of which only three were serious. No Hollister residents suffered any physical harm.⁴⁹ Eyewitnesses were quoted as saying the motorcyclists “weren’t doing anything bad, just riding up and down whooping and hollering; not really doing any harm at all.”⁵⁰

  The most influential image from the event—a drunken man sitting on a motorcycle surrounded by beer bottles, published in Life magazine—was reportedly staged by photographer Barney Peterson.⁵¹ Yet the damage to public perception was done. In response to the media coverage, the American Motorcyclist Association allegedly issued a statement asserting that “99% of the motorcycling public are law-abiding; there is 1% who are not.”⁵²

  Whether or not the quote is apocryphal—the AMA claims to have no record of it—outlaw clubs embraced the “1%” label as a badge of defiance.⁵³ The Hollister incident inspired the 1953 film The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando, which cemented the image of the motorcycle outlaw in popular imagination.⁵⁴

  The crucial distinction often overlooked in discussions of motorcycle clubs is that being an “outlaw” club originally meant not adhering to American Motorcyclist Association rules—not necessarily engaging in criminal activity. The groups were fundamentally about camaraderie among men who had served together or shared common experiences. It was due to social integration problems that some members turned to organised crime to support themselves.

Māori children playing on Collingwood Road, Ponsonby, circa 1966. The Māori population had doubled in the previous 25 years and switched from rural to urban. Photo: Marti Friedlander, Courtesy the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust.

Part III: New Zealand gangs—a distinctive history

Urbanisation, dislocation, and the formation of gang culture

  While American motorcycle clubs emerged from post-war veteran culture, New Zealand’s gang phenomenon has distinctly different roots, inextricably linked to the urbanisation of Māori and the social dislocation that accompanied it. As one scholar noted, the evolution of New Zealand gangs “involved mainly dislocation of Māori and Pacific people” and was intergenerational.⁵⁵

  Māori social structure was complex, with rural communities maintaining close ties to iwi and hapū. Following World War II, however, government policies actively encouraged Māori migration to urban centres. Many who moved to cities lost contact with traditional iwi structures and support networks.

  Despite their “warrior culture” and military heroics—the Māori Battalion having earned legendary status during the Second World War—many Māori veterans returned to New Zealand and faced discrimination. Like their American counterparts, they struggled to reintegrate into a society that often failed to acknowledge their sacrifices.

  The Returned Services Association, founded in 1916, provided support and camaraderie for returned servicemen and women. RSA clubs offered a safe, sympathetic environment where veterans could be monitored through the practice of “signing in.” Yet this support network was not equally accessible to all.

  Māori Wardens were formally established under the Māori Social and Economic Advancement Act 1945, with roots going back to the 1860s as volunteer institutions to maintain order. Yet these traditional structures were often inadequate to address the social dislocation occurring in rapidly growing urban areas.

Patched Mongrel Mob members at a convention in 1982. Source: National Library.

The birth of the Mongrel Mob

  The Mongrel Mob, New Zealand’s largest gang, was formed in Hastings in the 1960s. Legend within the gang holds that the name originated from the comments of a judge in the Hastings District Court, who referred to a group of young men before him as “mongrels.”⁵⁶ Whatever the origin, the group embraced the term as a badge of identity.

  The gang began with a group of mainly Pākehā (European) youth from Wellington and Hawke’s Bay. By about 1970, it had expanded to include numerous Māori, and today membership is predominantly Māori and Pacific Islander.⁵⁷ This transition reflected broader patterns of social marginalisation and the search for belonging among those excluded from mainstream society. The gang’s early patches featured provocative Nazi imagery—a deliberate choice whose significance would evolve over subsequent decades.

The provocative symbolism of Nazi imagery

  For a predominantly Māori and Polynesian organisation, the Mongrel Mob’s early adoption of Nazi imagery appears deeply ironic and historically ignorant. The original patches featured a British Bulldog wearing a German Stahlhelm (steel helmet), often accompanied by swastika motifs. Members greeted each other with “Sieg Heil” salutes. Yet this apparent contradiction was itself the point.

  “The British Bulldog wearing a German war helmet should be the biggest insult ever,” explained one senior Mob member, “because the two countries brutally fought each other in World War I and II.”⁵⁸ The symbols were adopted as a deliberate provocation against mainstream society—a “goading response to a history of colonial subjugation of Māori, and a proclamation of war against the (white) state.”⁵⁹

  The Mongrel Mob’s detachment from the actual meaning of Nazi symbolism was made clear in Napier District Court in 2011, when an associate was arrested for disorderly behaviour after screaming “Sieg Heil” at police. When the judge quizzed him about what the phrase actually meant, he insisted it was “just another way of saying hi to the bros.”⁶⁰ In German, the phrase translates to “hail victory.”

  Significantly, the gang’s imagery has evolved over time. The German Stahlhelm and swastika have been dropped from modern patches, and the British Bulldog has been replaced by a more stylised mongrel-looking dog. Following the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, in which a white supremacist murdered 51 people, the Mongrel Mob Kingdom chapter formally announced it would retire Nazi symbolism and language entirely.⁶¹

  This evolution demonstrates a crucial point: the Nazi imagery was never ideological. It was chosen purely for shock value, and when its provocative utility diminished—or when it became genuinely offensive even to members themselves—it was discarded. The gang’s identity persisted regardless of which symbols adorned the patch. This organic evolution undermines the premise that banning specific insignia addresses the underlying phenomenon.

Part IV: How organised crime actually works

The Yakuza: tattoos as hidden identity

  Japan’s Yakuza offer an instructive comparison for understanding how organised crime groups identify themselves when public display is stigmatised or prohibited.

  Yakuza members are known for their extensive irezumi (traditional tattoos), which cover arms, chest, back, and upper legs. Crucially, these tattoos are designed to be concealed—they stop at the neck, wrists, and ankles, and often leave a strip of skin on the chest bare to allow a traditional kimono to be worn without revealing the artwork.⁶²

  The tattoos serve as permanent, visible markers of loyalty that identify members within the gang and establish hierarchy. A tattoo on the arm can signify a new member, while intricate designs on the back represent high status.⁶³ However, because of the strong social stigma against tattoos in Japan—linked to the Yakuza’s criminal activities—members generally keep their tattoos concealed in public with long-sleeved and high-necked shirts.⁶⁴

  This dual function—identification within the group combined with concealment from outsiders—demonstrates how organised crime groups adapt to social and legal pressures. The tattoos function as “visual identity cards” that allow members to recognise each other while remaining invisible to the general public.⁶⁵

  Many Yakuza and other Japanese criminals now avoid tattoos altogether precisely because of their association with organised crime.⁶⁶ The cultural stigma has driven identification underground, making enforcement more difficult rather than less.

The Mafia, Camorra, and Triads: secrecy as strategy

  Italian organised crime groups—the Sicilian Mafia, the Neapolitan Camorra, and the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta—operate through strict codes of secrecy (omertà) rather than public display.⁶⁷ Members do not wear identifying insignia in public. Their power derives from invisible networks of corruption, intimidation, and economic infiltration rather than visible displays of gang affiliation.

  Chinese Triads similarly operate as clandestine organisations, with strict hierarchies, secret initiation rituals, and family-based structures that emphasise concealment from authorities.⁶⁸ Their activities include extortion, drug trafficking, and money laundering—none of which require or benefit from public identification.

  The common characteristic of the world’s most powerful organised crime groups is their emphasis on secrecy. As one comparative study noted: “Organized crime groups can survive only if they manage… to ensure strong discipline and absolute secrecy.”⁶⁹

  This observation has troubling implications for New Zealand’s gang patch ban. By forcing gangs to remove visible identifiers, the legislation may inadvertently push New Zealand gangs toward the operational model of more sophisticated criminal organisations—invisible to the public and harder for law enforcement to track.

Part V: The New Zealand gang patch ban

How the patch system works

  Understanding what is being banned requires understanding what gang patches represent. A patch is earned through demonstrated loyalty to the gang—often through criminal activity or violent acts.⁷⁰ The patch serves multiple functions: it identifies the wearer as a full member (as opposed to a “prospect” still proving loyalty), it establishes hierarchy within the organisation, and it signals territorial claims to rival gangs.

  For motorcycle clubs like the Hells Angels, patches identify specific chapter affiliations and roles. The “one-percenter” patch specifically signals that the wearer considers himself outside mainstream society.⁷¹

  Gang members themselves acknowledge that wearing the patch transforms behaviour. As former Whanganui mayor Michael Laws observed: “When that patch is on, you’re a different person, you have to be. You’re a gang member and you’re that gang.”⁷²

The legislation

  The Gangs Act 2024 bans the display of gang insignia in all public places, including inside vehicles visible to the public.⁷³ The legislation lists 35 “identified” gangs to which the ban applies.⁷⁴ Penalties include fines of up to $5,000 or up to six months imprisonment. Repeat offenders can be subject to Gang Insignia Prohibition Orders (GIPOs), which prohibit all possession of insignia—including in private homes—for five years.⁷⁵

  The Act also grants police power to issue dispersal notices ordering gang members to leave public areas and not gather for seven days, and allows courts to issue non-consorting orders preventing gang members from associating with each other for three years.⁷⁶

  Attorney-General Judith Collins herself noted that the proposed patch ban “appears to be inconsistent with the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.”⁷⁷ The legislation passed nonetheless, by a margin of 68 to 55.⁷⁸

The Whanganui precedent

  New Zealand has previous experience with gang patch bans. In 2009, Whanganui District Council passed a bylaw prohibiting gang insignia in public places, following a referendum in which over 60% of residents supported the measure.⁷⁹ The bylaw was prompted by the murder of two-year-old Jhia Te Tua in a Mongrel Mob drive-by shooting at a Black Power member’s house, as well as a series of public disorder incidents involving gang intimidation.⁸⁰

  Former mayor Michael Laws claimed the bylaw was “highly effective,” leading to a 15% drop in the number of patched gang members in the district.⁸¹ Police described it as a success story, noting that several senior gang members had been jailed and others had left town.⁸²

  However, in 2010, the Hells Angels sought a judicial review of the bylaw, and the High Court ruled it invalid. Justice Denis Clifford found that the bylaw had not properly specified in which public places the legislation applied and that the council had not adequately considered freedom of expression in setting the ban.⁸³ The ruling highlighted the legal complexities of restricting gang insignia while respecting civil liberties.

Early results: visibility vs. reality

  The immediate effect of the national patch ban has been to remove gang insignia from public view. As Wairoa Mayor Craig Little observed: “You’re not seeing gang members walking down your main street or anywhere really.”⁸⁴ Between October 2024 and August 2025, the number of victims of violent offending dropped by 23%, according to justice ministry figures.⁸⁵

  Yet these surface-level improvements mask a more complex reality. Despite the patch ban and other new anti-gang measures, the gang list has grown by more than 700 members.⁸⁶ Gang members themselves report that recruitment continues unabated. “Numbers have grown,” said one Mongrel Mob member. “They always will.”⁸⁷

  Wellington lawyer Michael Bott warned before the legislation passed that the gang patch ban would make it harder for law enforcement authorities to track gangs.⁸⁸ This concern appears to be materialising. Without visible insignia, police must rely on other methods to identify gang members—methods that risk racial profiling.

  As one critical indigenous scholar warned: “Banning patches isn’t going to dissipate the reasons people join gangs. Gangs will develop other ways of signalling membership… Without patches, officers will use other criteria to identify gang members. We’ve seen this happen in Queensland, where officers were stopping Māori and Pacific boys with [cultural] tattoos.”⁸⁹

The problem of legitimate motorcycle clubs

  The patch ban creates significant problems for legitimate motorcycle clubs with no criminal links. New Zealand has dozens of recreational riding clubs whose members wear back patches identifying their organisations. Under the Gangs Act, these clubs are not targeted—but distinguishing between legitimate club insignia and gang patches in practice is not always straightforward.

  The American Motorcyclist Association’s original distinction between “outlaw” clubs (those not following AMA rules) and criminal organisations has become blurred over decades. Many motorcycle clubs occupy a grey area—they may share aesthetic elements with one-percenter clubs without engaging in criminal activity.

  The patch ban lumps all such groups together under suspicion. A rider wearing a back patch is now automatically viewed with the same wariness as a gang member, regardless of whether their club has any criminal associations. This represents collateral damage to innocent hobbyists and enthusiasts.

A Mongrel Mob member was arrested for wearing a beanie with a University of Georgia mascot. Source: The Press.

Alternative identification: the balloon effect

  Perhaps the most significant unintended consequence of the patch ban is the “balloon effect”—when pressure is applied in one area, the problem simply moves elsewhere.

  Gang members have adopted alternative means of identification. Face and neck tattoos, which cannot be banned or confiscated, have become more prevalent.⁹⁰ The Mongrel Mob’s red colour scheme now manifests in Chicago Bulls sporting merchandise rather than leather patches. Gang members wear T-shirts with coded messaging that police may not immediately recognise.

  As one Mongrel Mob member explained to CNN, the ban hasn’t changed anything fundamental: “Yeah, you can take my patch off me, but it just doesn’t change anything.”⁹¹ The patch was always merely a symbol of membership—removing it doesn’t remove the membership itself.

Part VI: The paradox of visibility

Patches as early warning systems

  One of the most overlooked functions of gang patches is their role as early warning systems for the public. A visible patch immediately identifies someone as a gang member, allowing members of the public to modify their behaviour accordingly—to avoid confrontation, to leave a premises, or simply to remain alert.

  To some extent, gang patches were not merely instruments of intimidation but warnings to the public to avoid antisocial individuals. A person wearing a Mongrel Mob patch is clearly identifiable; a person wearing a Chicago Bulls jersey is not. The patch ban has made gang members less visible without making them less dangerous.

  This parallels the function of warning symbols throughout history. The Jolly Roger warned merchant ships that pirates approached. The skull and crossbones on a poison bottle warns of toxic contents. The swastika in German educational materials reminds citizens of the horrors of Nazism. These symbols communicate danger; banning them removes the communication without removing the danger.

The recruitment paradox

  Perhaps the most counterintuitive consequence of the patch ban is its potential effect on gang recruitment. The growth of over 700 gang members since the legislation took effect demands explanation.

  One possibility is that the ban has inadvertently made gang membership more attractive. Gangs have always offered rebellion against mainstream society—that is part of their appeal to marginalised youth. By banning patches, the government has made gang membership simultaneously more rebellious and more discreet.

  Before the ban, joining a gang meant publicly identifying oneself through visible insignia—a significant commitment that invited police attention and social stigma. After the ban, one can be a gang member without the same level of public exposure. The rebellion remains, but the visibility—and the associated risks—is reduced.

  For young people attracted to gang life, the ban may have lowered the barrier to entry. You can now enjoy the camaraderie, protection, and sense of belonging that gangs offer while maintaining a degree of anonymity that was previously impossible. The patch was both a badge of honour and a target on one’s back. Remove the target, and joining becomes less daunting.

  This paradox echoes the experience of prohibition throughout history. Banning alcohol in the United States did not eliminate drinking; it drove it underground and made it more glamorous. Banning drugs has not eliminated drug use; it has created criminal enterprises and made drugs more dangerous. Banning gang patches may not reduce gang membership; it may simply make gangs more appealing to those who want to rebel without being immediately identified.

The failure of symbol bans

  Germany’s experience with the swastika ban is instructive. Despite seven decades of prohibition, neo-Nazi sentiment persists, and neo-Nazis have simply adopted modified symbols to signal their allegiances. The ban has not eliminated the ideology; it has merely driven its expression into coded forms.

  Similarly, the Mongrel Mob’s use of Nazi imagery was always disconnected from any actual Nazi ideology. Members adopted the symbols precisely because they were offensive, not because they endorsed National Socialism. When one form of provocation is banned, another is readily adopted.

  The fundamental error in symbol bans is the assumption that symbols create the underlying attitudes rather than merely expressing them. People do not become gang members because they see patches; they see patches because they have already become gang members. Banning the symptom does not address the disease.

A law without an endgame

The gang patch ban creates an entirely new category of conflict between gang members and police. Officers now fine and confiscate insignia, adding misdemeanour convictions to the records of hardened criminals. For gang members, these convictions may function as badges of honour rather than deterrents. Being arrested for wearing one's patch demonstrates loyalty and defiance; it is precisely the kind of persecution that reinforces gang identity rather than undermining it.

Police have seized upon the legislation as a tool for broader enforcement. The patch ban provides a pretext for conducting raids and searches that might otherwise require more substantial grounds. Stop a vehicle displaying gang insignia, and a search follows. The legislation has become less about patches and more about creating friction—constant, low-level confrontation between gangs and the state.

Courts now issue non-consorting orders prohibiting gang members from associating with one another. Yet it is difficult to see what endgame this strategy contemplates. For people whose primary purpose in joining a gang was to find family—to belong somewhere after being failed by actual families, state care, and mainstream society—an order prohibiting association addresses nothing. It does not provide an alternative source of belonging. It does not repair the broken relationships or absent parents that drove the person to seek family elsewhere. It simply criminalises the solution they found.

Is the goal to imprison gang members who violate these orders? If so, they will only associate with other gang members inside prison walls. New Zealand's prisons are effectively gang recruitment and networking centres. Are prisons then expected to rehabilitate them? New Zealand's recidivism rates—among the highest in the developed world—suggest otherwise. A person who enters prison as a gang associate emerges with deeper gang connections and fewer prospects for legitimate employment.

The legislation appears ill-conceived, offering no pathway from enforcement to resolution. It creates new offences without reducing the underlying offending. It generates statistics—arrests made, patches confiscated, fines issued—that politicians can cite as evidence of action. But action is not the same as progress. The gang patch ban is a law without an endgame: a prohibition that punishes symptoms while ignoring causes, that measures success in confrontations rather than conversions, and that offers no vision of what success would actually look like.

Conclusion: addressing root causes

  The Gangs Act 2024 represents a politically popular response to a genuine problem. Gang membership has grown significantly over the past decade, and gang violence has real victims—none more innocent than two-year-old Jhia Te Tua. The public’s desire for action is understandable.

  Yet the patch ban addresses surface visibility rather than underlying causes. The roots of New Zealand’s gang problem lie in historical injustices: the urbanisation and dislocation of Māori, intergenerational poverty, state care abuses (a recent royal commission found over 250,000 people were abused or neglected in state care from 1950 to 2019⁹²), and systematic discrimination.

  Studies by police themselves have identified “longstanding community distrust of law enforcement across generations,” particularly among Māori, stemming from “patterns of bias, unfair treatment, racism and excessive use of force.”⁹³ One gang member told researchers: “Police don’t really represent rescue for me. They represent coming to break the family up.”⁹⁴

  Against this backdrop, the patch ban risks making matters worse. It may reduce visible intimidation in the short term, but it also:

• Removes early warning signals that allowed the public to identify gang members;

• Drives gang activities underground, making surveillance more difficult;

• Creates potential for racial profiling as police seek alternative identification methods;          

• Discriminates against legitimate motorcycle clubs;

• Does nothing to address the social conditions that drive gang recruitment; and

• May paradoxically encourage recruitment by making gang membership more discreet yet still rebellious.    

  The history of warning symbols—from the Jolly Roger to poison labels to gang patches—demonstrates that such symbols serve communicative functions that cannot simply be legislated away. The pirates of the Golden Age flew the skull and crossbones to warn their victims; today, that same symbol appears on hazardous materials as a universal warning of danger. Banning the symbol does not eliminate the danger it represents.

  The Mongrel Mob’s original logo—a British Bulldog wearing a German steel helmet—was, as one member noted, “more a self-ridiculing symbol that any self-respecting gang member should be embarrassed to wear.” The fact that the gang has since dropped the Nazi imagery and replaced the Bulldog with a stylised mongrel demonstrates that symbols are ultimately disposable. The gang persists regardless of what appears on the patch. Banning insignia will not make gang members more self-aware or less antisocial.

  What might actually reduce gang membership and gang harm? Evidence points to addressing root causes: improving educational outcomes, reducing child poverty, preventing abuse in state care, providing meaningful employment opportunities, and rebuilding connections between urban Māori and their iwi support structures. These interventions are expensive, long-term, and lack the immediate political appeal of a patch ban.

  The Returned Services Association understood, in 1916, that veterans needed support, camaraderie, and reintegration assistance. The original motorcycle clubs of post-war America emerged from similar needs among men failed by inadequate rehabilitation services. New Zealand’s gangs formed among young people excluded from mainstream society and seeking belonging.

  Until we address why people join gangs, we will continue treating symptoms rather than causes. The patch ban may have removed gang insignia from public view, but the gangs themselves remain—now simply harder to identify, potentially more attractive to recruits, and possibly more dangerous as a result.

The gang patch ban also creates an entirely new category of conflict between gang members and police. Officers now fine and confiscate insignia, adding misdemeanour convictions to the records of hardened criminals—convictions that, perversely, may function as badges of honour within gang culture. Being arrested for wearing one's patch demonstrates loyalty and defiance; it is precisely the kind of persecution that reinforces gang identity rather than undermining it. Meanwhile, police have used the legislation as a pretext for conducting raids and searches, and courts issue non-consorting orders prohibiting gang members from associating with one another. Yet it is difficult to see what endgame this strategy contemplates. For people whose primary purpose in joining a gang was to find family—to belong somewhere after being failed by actual families, state care, and mainstream society—an order prohibiting association addresses nothing. Is the goal to imprison gang members? They will only associate with other gang members inside prison walls. Are prisons then expected to rehabilitate them? New Zealand's recidivism rates suggest otherwise. The legislation appears ill-conceived, offering no pathway from enforcement to resolution. It is a law without an endgame—a prohibition that creates new offences without reducing the underlying offending.

Endnotes

1. New Zealand Ministry of Justice, “Gang laws come into effect,” 21 November 2024, https://www.justice.govt.nz/about/news-and-media/news/gang-laws-come-into-effect/

2. JURIST, “New Zealand police enforce ban on gang symbols within minutes of prohibiting legislation coming into effect,” 24 November 2024, https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/11/new-zealand-police-enforce-ban-on-gang-symbols-within-minutes/

3. Interview evidence cited in multiple sources regarding alternative identification methods adopted by gang members following the patch ban.

4. CNN, “New Zealand is marketed as a pristine paradise but gangs are growing even after government’s anti-gang measures,” 24 December 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/24/world/new-zealand-gang-patch-ban-intl-hnk-dst

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Wikipedia, “Skull and crossbones,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_crossbones

8. Wikipedia, “Letter of marque,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque

9. Pirate Info, “Letters of Marque and Reprisal: Pirate or Privateer,” https://www.piratesinfo.com/pirate-facts-and-pirate-legends/a-pirates-life-for-me/letters-of-marque-and-reprisal/

10. LegalClarity, “Letters of Marque and Reprisal: A Legal Overview,” https://legalclarity.org/letters-of-marque-and-reprisal-a-legal-overview/

11. Britannica, “Letter of marque,” https://www.britannica.com/topic/letter-of-marque

12. World History Encyclopedia, “The Jolly Roger & Other Pirate Flags,” https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1813/the-jolly-roger–other-pirate-flags/

13. The Vintage News, “Skull and crossbones: The history of the Jolly Roger flag,” https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/11/27/skull-and-crossbones-the-history-of-the-jolly-roger-flag/

14. Ibid.

15. Wikipedia, “Jolly Roger,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolly_Roger

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Wikipedia, “Skull and crossbones,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_crossbones

19. Lab Safety Institute, “Hazard Pictograms: Danger in the Eyes of the Beholder,” https://www.labsafety.org/hazard-pictograms-danger-in-the-eyes-of-the-beholder

20. Wikipedia, “Skull and Bones,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones

21. Britannica, “Skull and Bones,” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Skull-and-Bones-Yale

22. Britannica, “Jolly Roger,” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jolly-Roger

23. Wikipedia, “VFA-103,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFA-103

24. Support Our Troops, “WWII Jolly Rogers Were ‘Whisperers of Death,’” https://supportourtroops.org/news/1981-whisperers

25. Army Navy Game, “Navy to Honor the Jolly Rogers Aviation Unit,” https://armynavygame.com/news/2024/11/20/navy-athletics-to-honor-the-jolly-rogers

26. Ibid.

27. New York Academy of Medicine, “Pirates, Poison, and Professors: A Look at the Skull and Crossbones Symbol,” https://nyamcenterforhistory.org/2016/09/19/pirates-poison-and-professors-a-look-at-the-skull-and-crossbones-symbol/

28. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “History of the Swastika,” https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/history-of-the-swastika

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Smithsonian Magazine, “How the Swastika, an Ancient Symbol of Good Fortune Used Around the World, Became the Nazi Logo,” https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-swastika-an-ancient-symbol-of-good-fortune-used-around-the-world-became-the-nazi-logo-180962812/

32. Ibid.

33. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “History of the Swastika.”

34. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, as cited in United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “History of the Swastika.”

35. Wikipedia, “Strafgesetzbuch section 86a,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Southern Poverty Law Center, “Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy,” https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy/

39. Ibid.

40. Wikipedia, “Modern display of the Confederate battle flag,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_display_of_the_Confederate_battle_flag

41. Ibid., citing Gordon Rhea.

42. National Geographic, “The history of the Confederate flag,” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/how-confederate-battle-flag-became-symbol-racism

43. We Are The Mighty, “The real story of the Hell’s Angels biker gang and the military,” https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/real-story-of-the-hells-angels-and-the-military/

44. Britannica, “Hells Angels,” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hells-Angels-motorcycle-club

45. Wikipedia, “Hells Angels,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hells_Angels

46. Hells Angels Official Website, “History,” https://www.hells-angels.com/history

47. We Are The Mighty, “The real story of the Hell’s Angels biker gang and the military.”

48. Wikipedia, “Hollister riot,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollister_riot

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid.

51. One Percenter Bikers, “Hollister Riot,” https://onepercenterbikers.com/hollister-riot/

52. Wikipedia, “Hollister riot.”

53. Wikipedia, “Outlaw motorcycle club,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw_motorcycle_club

54. Wikipedia, “Hollister riot.”

55. RNZ News, “What we know about the likely consequences of the new Gangs Act,” https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/what-you-need-to-know/534397/what-we-know-about-the-likely-consequences-of-the-new-gangs-act

56. Wikipedia, “Mongrel Mob,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongrel_Mob

57. Ibid.

58. Vice, “We Asked the Mongrel Mob Why the Predominantly Māori Gang Uses Nazi Symbolism,” https://www.vice.com/en/article/we-asked-the-mongrel-mob-whats-behind-the-nz-gangs-obsession-with-nazi-symbolism/

59. Auckland War Memorial Museum, “Mongrelism: the mighty mongrel mob nation of Aotearoa New Zealand,” https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/collection/object/1134694

60. Vice, “We Asked the Mongrel Mob Why the Predominantly Māori Gang Uses Nazi Symbolism.”

61. Newsweek, “Gang Drops Nazi Symbolism in Wake of New Zealand Terror Attack,” https://www.newsweek.com/gang-drops-nazi-symbolism-wake-new-zealand-terror-attack-1372157

62. Wikipedia, “Irezumi,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irezumi

63. My Japan Clothes, “Everything you need to know about the Japanese mafia: The yakuzas,” https://myjapanclothes.com/blogs/japan-blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-japanese-mafia-the-yakuzas

64. Wikipedia, “Yakuza,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza

65. My Japan Clothes, “Everything you need to know about the Japanese mafia.”

66. Wikipedia, “Irezumi.”

67. Europol, “Italian Organised Crime,” https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/italian_organised_crime_threat_assessment_0.pdf

68. Britannica, “Triad,” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Triad-Chinese-secret-society

69. Office of Justice Programs, “Mafias, Triads, Yakuza and Cartels: A Comparative Study of Organized Crime,” https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/mafias-triads-yakuza-and-cartels-comparative-study-organized-crime

70. VOA News, “New law blocks New Zealanders from displaying gang symbols,” https://www.voanews.com/a/new-law-blocks-new-zealanders-from-displaying-gang-symbols/7871700.html

71. Wikipedia, “Outlaw motorcycle club.”

72. 1News, “Laws on Whanganui gang patch ban: ‘We wanted people to be normal,’” https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/03/07/laws-on-whanganui-gang-patch-ban-we-wanted-people-to-be-normal/

73. Wikipedia, “Gangs Act 2024,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_Act_2024

74. RNZ News, “Explainer: What is a gang patch and what will happen when they are banned?” https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/528253/explainer-what-is-a-gang-patch-and-what-will-happen-when-they-are-banned

75. Baywide Community Law Service, “Gangs Act 2024 – The Legal Consequences,” https://www.baywidecls.org.nz/article/gangs-act-2024-the-legal-consequences/

76. New Zealand Ministry of Justice, “Gang laws come into effect.”

77. Wikipedia, “Gangs Act 2024.”

78. Ibid.

79. 1News, “Govt moves to ban gang patches. What happened when Whanganui did it?” https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/02/26/govt-moves-to-ban-gang-patches-what-happened-when-whanganui-did-it/

80. 1News, “Laws on Whanganui gang patch ban.”

81. Ibid.

82. Ibid.

83. RNZ News, “Court rules parts of gang patch bylaw illegal,” https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/69834/court-rules-parts-of-gang-patch-bylaw-illegal

84. CNN, “New Zealand is marketed as a pristine paradise but gangs are growing.”

85. Ibid.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid.

88. Wikipedia, “Gangs Act 2024.”

89. RNZ News, “What we know about the likely consequences of the new Gangs Act.”

90. Wikipedia, “Mongrel Mob.”

91. CNN, “New Zealand is marketed as a pristine paradise but gangs are growing.”

92. World Socialist Web Site, “New Zealand far-right government’s anti-democratic ‘law and order’ agenda,” https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/12/13/biva-d13.html

93. Ibid.

94. Ibid.