NCJ Number
175942
Journal
Police: The Law Enforcement Magazine Volume: 22 Issue: 12 Dated: December 1998 Pages: 39-41
Date Published
1998
Length
3 pages
Annotation
Police need to understand skinheads and their philosophy to be effective in dealing with suspected skinheads; these white supremacists should be recognized as the new Nazis.
Abstract
This racist youth movement began in Great Britain in the 1970s. These youths began to blame immigrants for taking jobs away from the British working class. The music and behavior of the racist skinhead rock band called Skrewdriver helped lead the skinheads into an ideology based on racism, hatred, and violence. Skinhead gangs appeared in some cities in the United States by the mid-1980s. They justify their use of violence against certain groups by asserting that they are subhuman. They targeted as race traitors white people who date or marry minorities. Some skinheads have aligned themselves with the Christian Identity Movement and related groups such as the Church of the Creator. They have both racist and anti-Semitic attitudes. They should be considered to be armed, because they often have guns and also use their footwear as weapons. The ultimate goal of police and society should be to remove the threats they pose from the street and to accomplish this goal safely. Case example and illustrations