Crime, violence, drugs, intimidation. Think gangs and these come to mind.
About 40% of the 483 inmates at the Otago Corrections Facility, Milburn, were gang members, affiliates or associates on January 22 this year. The national percentage was 30%. Even allowing for the diversity of gangs, these are large numbers. Gangs of all sorts are heavily involved in crime.
New Zealand has a huge issue here, one without easy answers. Young men in particular are drawn to the supposed excitement, the status and the sense of belonging a gang engenders. There is a bad boy prestige in gangs, one sometimes glamourised in the screen shows and by foolish admiring members of the public.
The patched swagger of gang members says it all.
The basic need to belong, to have a purpose however perverted, cannot be ignored. In recent decades, as traditional communities, faiths and organisations wither, there are gaps in people's lives they desire to fill.
Those of liberal ilk sometimes fail to understand properly the strength of that need among the poor, the less educated, Maori and Pasifika and the underprivileged. Destiny Church is a classic illustration. ''Bishop'' Brian Tamaki's theology might be warped and the church's views on many social issues abhorrent, but the lives of many of his followers have turned around. Many men have eschewed former destructive behaviour. Some of his followers would undoubtedly be in gangs if it was not for the hope their belief provides.
Gangs like the Mongrel Mob and Black Power supported the Muslim communities after the Christchurch shooting. They need not be criticised for that, and it might be overly cynical to call it just a crude PR ploy as was suggested. They were a part of the overwhelming reactions to a mass shooting. The members and associates are human beings with both human reactions and the mixed motives like everyone else.
But it is also clear, for example they will not be giving up their guns. Even Mongrel Mob Waikato president Sonny Fatu, in presenting a softer image of gangs, has said that.
It is encouraging if moves away from offensive swastika and sieg heil tattoos gathered pace. Such evil symbols of Aryan supremacy on Maori and Pacific Island gang members is bizarre. Of course, though, they are there to offend and as visible rejections of society's norms. That is what gangs are about.
The statements from older gang members about the need to change for the sake of their children and grandchildren, the rejection by some of meth, the turning over of at least some new leaves has been proclaimed regularly over the past 40 years. Now, in the aftermath of Christchurch, such sentiments are being heard again.
It is not being unduly sceptical to doubt the follow through.
Dunedin, itself, saw in 2012 the We Against Violence Trust deed to aid, assist and educate whanau and to promote non-offensive and non-violence - under the Whanau Ora programme - abused when $20,000 of government money went to personal bank accounts to be spent on cannabis. And Dunedin City Council support for a Black Power leader's attempt to reform had a chequered history.
Peace between gangs can break out, but that can be helpful while criminal activity continues. Even if the general public are unlikely to be recipients of gang violence, that does not mean gangs are making positive contributions to society.
Gangs can on limited occasions be given chances to prove themselves reformed. But, unfortunately, that must be done with caution and, disappointingly, with little hope of long-term success.
Gangs can do some good, for sure, and some of their members will mature and desire change. But their existence depends on agitation and rebellion, power, violence and the constant threat of harm. It is little wonder the prisons are full of their members.
