Gang Research Articles

Commodified State Feminism: The Entanglements of Feminist Commodity Activism and Feminist Politics in a Nordic Welfare State

Abstract This article analyzes the entanglements of feminist commodity activism and state feminism. Feminist commodity activism refers to consumption and commodified communication as modes of feminist political participation. Earlier research on these topics has focused on the business sector and on media and popular culture, largely sidelining the state as a site of feminism. This article addresses the increasingly close relations between consumerism and state politics and asks how feminist commodity activism interacts with state feminism. It draws on two empirical cases in the Nordic welfare state of Finland. The first is Uhana Design, a small-scale fashion business, and its Girl Gang campaign that leans on state feminism. The second is Finland's former leading female politicians’ engagements with feminist fashion. By analyzing these cases via three theoretical lenses, business, popular, and state feminism, this article develops the notion of commodified state feminism, paying attention to economic, cultural, and political dimensions of feminist commodity activism and state feminism. It also argues that commodified state feminism is emblematic of the current political context, in which the boundaries between market and politics have become blurred.

Manifestations of Criminal Professionalism in the Activities of Robber Gangs of Pre-Revolutionary Russia

Relevance. Professional crime is one of the most dangerous, relatively independent types of crime, which poses a serious threat to modern society and the state. Currently, there is no unified approach to assessing the state, dynamics and trends of this dangerous criminal phenomenon. Mechanisms to combat this type of criminal activity that are adequate to the level of danger have not been identified. In this regard, special studies of professional crime in all its complexity and ambiguity are becoming particularly relevant, including those affecting certain issues of the evolution of this dangerous criminal phenomenon in time and space.The purpose. He purpose of the study is a theoretical analysis and definition of the socio-legal essence of professional crime in pre-revolutionary Russia (using the example of the analysis of socially dangerous activities of robber gangs).Objectives: to analyze the domestic legislation of the pre-revolutionary period, providing for accountability for repeated robbery; to determine the specifics of committing crimes on a professional basis by robber gangs in prerevolutionary Russia; to identify elements of the criminal subculture supported by the community of professional robbers in the period under study in Russia.Methodology. To achieve this goal, such general scientific and private scientific research methods as the method of analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparative legal and chronological methods were used.Results. It was determined that many robbers who traded on the «high roads» during the studied period possessed all the signs of criminal professionalism: the presence of criminal specialization, qualifications, perception of criminal activity as a source of income, connections with the criminal world, including those expressed in the perception and multiplication of values and norms of the emerging criminal subculture.Conclusion. By the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a monolithic, well–structured consolidated and criminal world had formed in Russia, in which the professional criminal «core» played a special role. Professional robbers occupied not the least place in the criminal hierarchy, causing significant harm to economic relations in society and the national security of the country.

Food insecurity in Haiti from a social lens

Haiti grapples with a deepening food crisis, as 4.7 million people face acute insecurity, a stark rise since 2019. The Food and Agricultural Organization cites armed gang violence, diminished agricultural output, and the 2021 earthquake as primary factors. Gangs exacerbate the situation by controlling ports, causing fuel shortages, and disrupting essential services. While solutions proposed by international organizations range from criminal institution reform to foreign military intervention, locals and NGOs question their efficacy. The earthquake adds to the woes, necessitating immediate humanitarian aid, though delayed assistance raises doubts about Haiti's dependency on foreign aid organizations and the government's efficacy. In the backdrop of economic turmoil, a faltering agriculture system, and the COVID-19 pandemic, Haiti's challenges persist, calling for comprehensive, long-term strategies addressing the root cause—social and governmental instability.

The myth of Australia’s migrant youth gang: examining the perceived association between ethnicity and gangs

ABSTRACT In Australia, as with other countries around the world, migrant young people receive significant media and political attention as the alleged perpetrators of significant criminal activity. This has been a consistent feature over time, with ‘Asian gangs’ in the 1990s in the US, UK and Australia, ‘Middle-Eastern gangs’ around the time of 9/11, ‘Turkish gangs’ and ‘Albanian gangs’ in the UK and Europe, and ‘African gangs’ in Australia since the early 2000s. In this research, we investigate the risk factors associated with youth gang membership in Australia. Using data from the Australia Youth Safety Survey from 2,945 young people aged 14–25 years, we examine the importance of first- and second-generation migrant status on gang membership. After controlling for known risk factors, we find that migrant status was not a predictor of gang membership. Results offer important insights into the prominence of morality and self-control as protective factors against youth gang membership, and speak to the role of neighbourhood context in which the young person lives.

Sexual health variation among gang-involved youth in Washington state: Social ecological implications for research and practice.

Gang-involved youth experience greater disparities in sexual health compared to non-gang-involved youth. Yet, little is known about how and why sexual behaviors vary within the youth gang population. Developing relevant and effective service approaches requires an understanding of this variation and the environmental factors that influence patterns of sexual health risk. Using latent class analysis, we identified four sexual behavior classes within a school-based sample of gang-involved youth in Washington State (N = 2060): Non-Sexually Active (54%), Limited Partners with Condom Use (14%), Multiple Partner with Sexting (19%), and High Sexual Vulnerability (13%). These classes were distinguished by age at sexual debut, number of sexual partners, condom use, and sexting. Interpersonal and macrosocial factors differentiated the classes, including multiform violence exposures, limited social support, and socioeconomic instability. We also found differences according to sexual identity and substance use. Findings highlight the need for service approaches that are responsive to both the individual needs of gang-involved youth and the factors that shape their living environments. We discuss the implications for research and practice, including the potential utility of a harm reduction framework to promote sexual health and reduce disparities in the youth gang population.

Cyber dating violence- a case report

Purpose: Cyber dating violence includes both the state of the victim to be harmed by threats, the dissemination of confidential information under the name of cyber violence, and the harassment of controlling the social relations of the victims, called cyber control, by constantly checking what they are doing on social media at any time. In the face of this type of violence that goes beyond spatial and geographical boundaries, the well-being of the victims is adversely affected because they consider the situation to be unresolved. Method: In this case report, a 13-year-old girl who has been exposed to cyber dating violence will be mentioned. Findings: After 3 months of virtual friendship with a 17-year-old man, whom this adolescent met on the computer games, she started to send him nude photos, they had virtual sex during the video call, the man guided her and offered to be a husband and wife with her during virtuel sex. It has been learned that she inserted a pen in front of the screen through his genitals and it hurt a lot. In the following days, they communicated to meet outside, the boy persuaded the teenage girl to take her home to introduce her to his family. The girl's family who followed them on their suspicions intervened in the situation, it became clear that they were faced with gang members. It has been revealed that throughout the time they communicated, the gang has collected a lot of data about the family’s income level over the internet and social media and asked the girl’s family for money through blackmail. In conclusion; with the legal complaint of the family, the gang members received legal punishment and the adolescent girl was taken to psychiatric treatment with the diagnosis of “post-traumatic stress disorder”.

The Resort to Emergency Policing to Control Gang Violence in Jamaica: Making the Exception the Rule

AbstractThis article critically examines reasons for the persistent use of states of emergency (SOEs) as a tool of crime control in Jamaica and risks associated with normalising these measures in small, low-capacity, competitive democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). We attend to the question of permanent SOEs as an issue of law and certain policing methods becoming normalised. This differs from scholars who think about the use of permanent SOEs as suspension of law or executive rule and make a clear distinction between law and violence and normalcy and emergency. Our findings show that persistent usage of SOEs in Jamaica reflects the incapacity of the state to control violent crime as well as its effort to strengthen its coercive capabilities and compensate for the ineffectiveness of the police. It is also a response to public demand for SOE policing. State strengthening is a necessary condition for a more peaceful and law-abiding society but is also a carrier of risks of democratic degeneration via rights-disregarding policing. Nonetheless, we have seen authoritarian management of crime without descent into authoritarianism, in general, and strong boundary-marking and patrolling by some state-oversight institutions that enjoy the support of civil society.

Tongan Crip Gang

This article is an articulation of Tongan angafakafonua (way of the land, culture)as Tongan identity and its (re)makings through religion and gangs in the United States. Based on a section of my doctoral thesis, I examine the influence of the Mormon Church on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act charges.1 This article acknowledges that legislators, driven by their Mormon religio-racial ideology, interpreted the legislation in an exclusive manner. They took liberties to explicitly exclude first-generation Tongan Americans based on their preference for street gangs rather than the fraternal organizations associated with the Church. During the period between the settlement of Utah and the RICO trial of Siale Angilau, American-born Tongans of the first generation modified angafakafonua to address the needs of a growing Tongan community in the United States. In the later years of this transitional period, second-Generation Tongan Americans utilized angafakafonua to counteract excessive surveillance by gang task forces, racial profiling, and discriminatory practices employed by the state.

Coming from México ‘for a Better Life Here’: Street Gangs, American Violence, and the Spatialized Contours and Historical Continuity of Racial Capitalism

Chicago’s broader notorious reputation of gang and gun violence dominates popular discursive conversations about the city’s safety and stability. Through a critical structural perspective, this article explores the constitutive historical continuity and spatialized contours of racial capitalism in the facilitation of structured violence and organized death in city neighborhoods. These dynamics are most relevant where individualized and pathological narratives of interpersonal gang-based gun violence are rampant. The focus is on the context of Mexican Chicago, particularly the transnational site of Little Village. Using hyper-local examples on the environment, education, and labor-based economic markets, I showcase how this diasporic Mexican community is an instructive site highlighting the ongoing presence of colonially constituted structures of expropriation, dispossession, exploitation, and displacement endemic to the United States empire and its resultant violence. I suggest that gang-based gun violence is tied to broader death-making machinery, leading us to robust alternative conceptual frames and reactions when socio-politically engineered ‘crime’ and violence take place across urban city neighborhood spaces. I conclude with a paired abolitionist perspective and implications for critical sociology and the study of gangs specifically.

‘Tangled times’: Central American refugee perspectives on the long Cold War*

ABSTRACT Between the 1970s and 1990s, state-led violence drove one-quarter of El Salvador’s population—most of them peasants—into exile. Studies of this phenomenon often adopt a bureaucratic, top-down approach, treating it as an anomaly, a problem to be solved by international leaders. Adopting a transnational social historical approach allows us to see this Cold War-era ‘refugee crisis’ as the peasants saw it—as part of much longer historical patterns of dispossession and resistance. This article traces their displacement narratives over thirty years. Drawing from two decades of work with displaced Salvadorans, public and private archives, and oral histories, it first brings to light how Salvadorans threaded together Spanish colonialists, Salvadoran oligarchs, US imperialists, and international humanitarian organizations into a noose of destructive outside interests. It then explores how, rather than submit to conventional portrayals of refugees as pawns or passive victims, Salvadorans identified as citizen-activists who harnessed displacement as an opportunity to continue progressing toward long-standing goals of building a more just and equitable world. Finally, the article moves to the present, as former refugees purposefully excavate the 1980s crisis to expose the roots of current mass migrations. The street gang wars that trigger today’s flights are nothing new, peasants argue; they are a living legacy of the Cold War. By emphasizing the past/present and local/global nexuses, these narratives recast the Cold War in terms of actors, causes, consequences, and chronology, while also demonstrating the value of looking beyond violence to consider the dreams of—and movements toward—a better tomorrow.

What is the problem represented to be in the Swedish police authority: A policy analysis

Abstract In recent years, Sweden has witnessed a rise in criminal activity, notably in organized crime, gang violence, and incidents like shootings and explosions. This trend has sparked considerable political and media debates, in Sweden and internationally. This paper analyses how the Swedish police authority comprehend the situation discursively. How do they define their role and mission in society? What problems do they identify? What goals and strategies do they propose, and what values are attached to these? This is illustrated by policy documents and website materials from the police authority. The results show three main problematizations: crime and crime fighting, working within the police organization, and relations between the police and citizens. Key findings are that the police authority represents crimes and the role of the police in different ways depending on what type of crime discussed, and that they connect various aspects of police work to non-repressive values, such as trust and safety.

The origin and development of gangs in El Salvador

For more than four decades, violence has characterized the political and social dynamics in El Salvador, beginning with the armed conflict of 1980 and the formation of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). This conflict, part of the Cold War, lasted almost twelve years and left deep social scars, especially in areas of overcrowding, poverty and unemployment. Subsequently, the deportation of gang members from the United States transformed the local gangs, giving them a more complex structure and organization. Since the 1990s, street gangs, known as "maras", became a significant cultural-generational phenomenon. Despite the Peace Accords, violence became socially sedimented. Gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha 13 and Barrio 18 consolidated in El Salvador, exacerbated by the deportation of experienced gang members from the United States. These deportees, upon their return, found themselves in marginalized conditions that favored the expansion of the gang phenomenon. The paper explores how gangs developed in a context of accelerated urbanization, economic crisis and a culture of post-conflict violence. It also examines the influence of government policies such as the emergency regime implemented by Nayib Bukele in 2022, which has reduced the gangs' capacity for territorial control and recruitment, albeit with criticism for human rights violations. The evolution of gangs in El Salvador is the result of multiple historical, social and economic factors, reflecting a complex interaction between internal and external influences that have perpetuated violence and social exclusion.

Explorative Study on Recidivism Factor of Gang Violence in Malaysia

The number of crimes continues to rise high every year despite the imposition of punitive and harsh punishments. Gang violence is one of the parts of the crime that occurs in Malaysia. Gang violence is described as a violent phenomenon involving a group of people whose primary purpose is to engage in aggressive and delinquent behavior. Criminals who are involved in gang violence are substantially more likely to re-offend after being released than offenders who are not members of gangs. The objective of this study is to discuss the recidivism factors of gang violence in Malaysia. The Library Research approach was used in this study, where information and related statistics were gathered from a variety of sources. The psychological factors and criminogenic factors are the main factors of gang members return to the prison. The factors which are discussed in this study can help people to know the reasons gang members who are involved in violence return to prison.

Punishing people through property: Strategic task force inspections at the nexus of criminal and civil legal systems

In this article, we investigate a largely unexplored policing mechanism: Strategic Task Force (STF) inspections in Chicago. This process exists at the intersection of civil and criminal legal systems: properties affiliated with criminal drug or gang activity are swept by building inspectors and police officers, with the explicit purpose of finding code violations and prompting civil legal action against the owner. Using two datasets of inspected buildings, we demonstrate that those who own properties targeted by the STF more often face financial and legal hurdles such as foreclosures, ownership transfers, and property restrictions. This finding coheres with qualitative court data, which demonstrates a pervasive punitive attitude in STF cases. We argue that STF inspections amount to a denial of criminal due process for residents in communities of color, punishing alleged offenders via a civil process with much more flexible procedural standards. Our analysis of punishing people through property highlights the need for expanding standards of criminal due process to civil contexts to guarantee defendants’ substantive rights.

Youth Gang Names in Palu City

During the 1990s, Palu City witnessed a notable social phenomenon characterized by the emergence of various youth gangs. These gangs adopted diverse names, incorporating elements such as the Kaili language, foreign languages, and acronyms. The primary aim of this research is to scrutinize the nomenclature of youth gangs in Palu City through the analytical lens of anthropological linguistics. The data collection methodology employed in this study featured the researcher as the principal instrument, involving the recording and observation of youth gang names in Palu City. The analytical approach applied in this research encompassed a systematic and objective content analysis. The outcomes of the study unveiled linguistic phenomena, including (1) the utilization of the Kaili language, (2) the incorporation of foreign languages, (3) the adoption of acronyms, and (4) instances of language resistance evident in the naming practices of youth gangs in Palu City.

The Impact Of Regulation Made by Local Government in Helping the Police Overcome the Motor Gang Action in Indonesia

Purpose: Indonesian police find difficulty in souring the motor gang actors because of inadequate legal foundation to suppress the juvenile delinquency leading to criminality. This research aims to find out what the role of local regulation is in helping the police overcome the motor gang action in Indonesia. Method: This study was a qualitative research studying legal materials related to legal problem and regulation relevant to local regulation and motor gang in Indonesia. The data obtained was analyzed descriptively. Results: To deal with the motor gang actions and to sour the members and to prevent them from repeating their action, the police should be supported by the Local Government through developing a Local Regulation specifically governing the motor gangs containing criminal sanction. The motor gang-specific Local Regulation with criminal sanction will solve the problem or the constraints, because some actions can be taken against to members of motor gangs that are difficult to condemn as not all deeds are governed in the criminal regulation in Indonesia. Thus, the existence of such Local Regulation will help the policy ensnaring the actor of motor gangs with criminal sanction when they do anything disturbing public safety and orderliness. Conclusion: In overcoming the motor gang action and souring its member and preventing them from repeating their action. The police should be supported by the local Regional Government to issue Local Regulation containing criminal sanction. Several actions done by the members of motor gang cannot be condemned because not all deeds done are regulated in criminal regulation in Indonesia; thus, the presence Local Regulation will help the police sour the actors of motor gang with criminal sanction when they commit some actions harming the people’s security and order.

Региональный компонент жаргона уличных группировок 1980-1990-х годов (на речевом материале г. Йошкар-Олы)

The work is devoted to the study of the vocabulary of youth groups in Yoshkar-Ola in 1980–1990. The purpose of this article is to characterize the local features of the language of Yoshkar-Ola youth unofficial groups. The research material was the jargon of participants in street gangs in the capital of the Republic of Mari El at the end of the twentieth century. The sources of language material were documentary literature, journalistic articles, dictionaries of substandard vocabulary and recordings of live speech of former group members. During the research, methods of linguistic observation and description, dictionary interpretation, and contextual analysis of lexical units were used. As a result of the study, the authors come to the conclusion that a number of jargons discussed in the article have become part of the unofficial microtoponymy of the city of Yoshkar-Ola. The likelihood of such lexical units appearing in dictionaries of non-literary vocabulary published by leading publishers is extremely low. The collected material contains information about the etymology of the unofficial toponymy of the city of Yoshkar-Ola, the communicative preferences of local youth and the linguistic realities of 1980–1990. The sublanguage of hooligan youth is very close in nature to Russian argot. A more detailed study of the jargon of street gang members may help change the uncritical attitude of Russian speakers towards the language of the criminal world.

Privatized jails: Comparing individuals' safety in private and public jails

An estimated 5.4% of individuals in United States jails are in private facilities. While our knowledge about jail experiences and private prisons has grown in recent years, little is known about the private jail experience. Jail stays are often assumed to be a less severe punishment; however, transient and diverse populations and limited investments in treatment and programming suggest jails may be particularly unsafe. The current study uses the 2011–12 National Inmate Survey to compare how individuals' perceive and experience safety while incarcerated in public and private jails. A quasi-experimental approach is taken using propensity scores to match individuals in private jails to those in public facilities based on demographics, past experiences, and incarceration measures. The findings suggest that individuals in private jails perceived these facilities as less safe compared their public counterparts. Respondents in private jails reported higher levels of gang activity in their facility, more had belongings stolen while detained, and fewer individuals believed the facility was adequately staffed or that corrections officers ended fights quickly. This study highlights harms experienced in both public and private jails and underscores a need for more research on the private jail experience.

Abstract 15442: Street Gang Territories and Hypertension in Chicago

Hypertension is a major cardiovascular risk factor. Gang violence is an unfortunately common reality in urban communities and violence is associated with worse cardiovascular outcomes. However, the relationship between street gang territories and cardiovascular risk is unknown. We conducted a retrospective cohort study to determine if residence within a street gang territory is associated with higher blood pressure compared with demographically similar patients who resided outside of gang territories within Chicago. A balanced dataset of 1,016 unique-but-demographically-similar patients with at least 3 available pre-pandemic ambulatory blood pressure measurements at our urban, academic tertiary-care center were sampled from over 70,561 available patients. Patients were matched for the number of BP measurements, age, race, sex, and other sociodemographic variables. Patients were geo-coded and mapped, and known street gang territories were similarly geo-coded and mapped using publicly available data from the Chicago Police Department data portal. Out of 66 known street gangs in Chicago, our institution served patients from 28 unique gang territories. Patients residing within a known street gang territory had on average 6.2 mmHg higher BP than those living outside any known street gang territory (median = 133.2 vs 127.0, respectively,p<0.001). SBP control in each unique street gang territory was highly variable with medians ranging between 108.8 to 165.0 mmHg (Figure). In conclusion, we find that residence within a street gang territory is associated with significantly higher systolic blood pressure compared with demographically similar patients who do not live in a gang territory. While poverty and other social determinants of health are known to affect hypertension and cardiovascular risk, residence within a gang territory may represent a new social risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

Exceptionalism for most, excess for others: The legal foundation of a bifurcated criminal justice system in Denmark

Following a change in the Danish gang milieu in 2008, where ethnic minority street gangs challenged the established outlaw motorcycle gangs, the Danish government has formulated three anti-gang policy ‘packages’. To unfold the development they represent to Nordic penology, this article analyses elements of both penal exceptionalism and excess. In this article, it is shown how the packages are based on the notion of gang membership as a choice, which legitimated the development of a parallel justice system for gang members. This foundation is built upon a gang-specific subsection that allows for the doubling of gang-related sentences and for restricting prisoner rights and traditional rehabilitative treatment for gang-related convicts. The packages, however, maintained ‘a way out’ for gang members who voluntarily entered a formal EXIT program, and thus gained access to traditional penal treatment and also support for leaving the gang milieu. It is argued that the packages represent a development of intended bifurcation based on status differentiation between citizen groups, a process also observed in regard to Danish anti-ghetto policies. Thus, rather than resembling a general turn to punitiveness, the packages indicate a penological development based on penal differentiation, which raises questions about access to justice for those found wanting.