Yardie

For other uses, see Yardie (disambiguation).

Yardie (or Yaadi/Yawdie) is a term often used, particularly within the Caribbean expatriate and Jamaican diaspora, to refer to people of Jamaican origin, though its exact meaning changes depending on context. The term is derived from the Jamaican patois for “home” or "yard".[1] The term may have specifically originated from the crowded "government yards" of two-storey government-funded concrete homes found in Kingston and inhabited by poorer Jamaican residents, though "yard" can also refer to "home" or "turf" in general in Jamaican patois.[2]

Outside of Jamaica, "yardies" is often used to refer to Jamaican gangs or organized crime groups and gangsters of Jamaican origin, nationality, or ethnicity. In this sense, the term is sometimes used interchangeably with the term "posse" or "Jamaican posse" to refer to crime groups of Jamaican origin, with the term "posse" used more frequently in North America and "Yardies" being used more frequently in the United Kingdom.[3] Yardie gangs or Jamaican "posses" are involved in a wide array of criminal activity depending on their location, ranging from political corruption, political violence, and assassination in Jamaica to drug trafficking and gang violence in the US, Canada, and UK.[2][4]

  1. ^ Allsop, Richard (2010). New Register of Caribbean English Usage. Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. ISBN 978-976-640-298-3.
  2. ^ a b Covey, Herbert (2010). Street Gangs Throughout the World. Springfirld, Illinois: Charles C Thomas Publisher. ISBN 9780398079062.
  3. ^ McCarthy, Dennis M. P. (2011). An Economic History of Organized Crime: A National and Transnational Approach. Routledge. ISBN 9781136705823.
  4. ^ Figueira, Daurius (2004). Cocaine and Heroin Trafficking in the Caribbean: The Case of Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Guyana. iUniverse. ISBN 9780595336326.