The Police Minister is hailing the gang patch ban as successful - six months on

Police have laid 521 charges for gang insignia and seized 132 gang patches since November last year.

Eighty-nine firearms were also seized from gang members while officers undertook 426 searches of gang targets, including 175 with a warrant and 251 without.

Mark Mitchell says patches were tools gangs used to intimidate and frighten people - and now you don't see them.

He says the country now has a sense that our police are controlling the streets and not the gangs.