Gang Phenomenon Research Articles

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.

Pandillas transnacionales: desbordamientos territoriales

<p>El fenómeno de las pandillas transnacionales en Centroamérica y Estados Unidos se ha convertido en una de las principales preocupaciones de seguridad nacional. Al considerar a las pandillas como amenaza para la seguridad nacional en lugar de atender esto como un asunto de seguridad pública, los gobiernos encontraron una razón suficiente para justificar la militarización y así iniciar un proceso de transformación mediante el cual las pandillas pasaron a ser enemigas de la sociedad, considerando a sus miembros menos que ciudadanos. De esta manera, la guerra pandillera se vincula con la guerra contra el terrorismo y el narcotráfico. En El Salvador, la situación actual presenta niveles de violencia homicida tan altos como en los noventa. El objetivo del presente artículo es mostrar cómo el tratamiento puramente criminalizador del fenómeno ha invisibilizado a los jóvenes creando en el resto de la sociedad la sensación de que se trata sólo de “criminales”.</p>

Increasing Status of Criminal Gangs in Post-conflict Nepal: The Case of Kathmandu Valley

The paper has objectives: to explain the gang phenomenon in Kathmandu Valley, their causes of effectiveness, the politicization of criminal gangs in the post-conflict situation, and the counter-product of governmental intervention. It has discussed the present challenges that the Valley has been facing, and possibilities of future challenges it has to confront. Youths’ identity crisis, social opportunities, rapid urbanization and incorrect approaches to gangs’ suppression are the key frameworks to find out the causes behind the criminal gangs being increasingly active in Kathmandu Valley. Interestingly, marginalized and suppressed social members feel secure and protected in the gang. The researcher has identified that the criminal gangs are the social fact of the rapidly urbanized society of the Kathmandu Valley where prevention policies have been neglected a lot. As a result, suppression policies have failed, thus, the new forms of gang-related crimes have emerged and expanded far and huge.

Gangs in the DRC and El Salvador: towards a third generation of gang violence interventions?

The phenomenon of gangs in El Salvador and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has already been researched, but a comparative study of gangs and gang policies is lacking. In this paper we discuss several gang violence prevention initiatives regarding the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 in El Salvador, and the kuluna and bashege in Kinshasa, DRC. In order to analyze the different gang interventions, we implement the typology of first and second gang violence prevention initiatives (Rodgers et al. 2009), and propose the evolution towards a third generation of gang violence prevention interventions. While first generation initiatives are security and law-enforcement driven, and second generation initiatives socio-preventive driven, third generation initiatives are more politically driven. The latter indicates a shift towards a vision of dialogue and negotiations to deal with gang violence. However, the different generations are not predefined within time and third generation initiatives can also be followed up by first generation initiatives, which was for example the case in the gang truce in El Salvador. Also, comparative gang research includes challenges, especially when the gang phenomenon in one country is better researched and documented than in other countries. As such, we were unable to identify politically-driven initiatives in the DRC to compare with the ones in El Salvador. Further research is thus required. With this paper we not only aim to contribute to the literature on gang violence prevention and reduction initiatives, we also want to push researchers, practitioners and policymakers to look beyond the borders when setting up gang (violence) prevention and rehabilitation projects, and to learn from other regions where similar initiatives have been implemented to deal with comparable issues of gang violence.

Our Gang: A Racial History of “The Little Rascals.”

Our Gang: A Racial History of “The Little Rascals.”

San Antonio’s Barrio Gangs: Size, Scope, and Other Characteristics

I analyze data gathered from a sample of men who were gang members in San Antonio in the 1950s. Using subject-generated lists of gangs and reputable members citywide, the work examines the size, scope, and other salient characteristics of the barrio gang phenomenon from that era. By extrapolating rough estimates from Census data, qualitative fieldwork, and a police database, I find that the proportion of young Chicano males involved in gang activity today is comparable to what it was in the 1950s. In both eras, nearly 10% of the total population of Chicano males ages 12–19 in San Antonio are and were gang involved. Implications of this finding, study limitations, and future research are discussed.

Racism, Schooling, and the Streets: A Critical Analysis of Vietnamese American Youth Gang Formation in Southern California

This paper is an analysis of the relationship between educational experiences, street life, and gang formation for Vietnamese American youth gang members in Southern California. I use critical narrative methodology to center the life and experiences of a Los Angeles area gang member. His narrative substantiates how racism in schools and on the streets works together to impact and inform gang formation. Schools were sites of inter-ethnic conflict and racialized tension, and streets were spaces for contentious interactions with the police. In addition, I place the Vietnamese American youth gang phenomenon in larger historical and political contexts such as Californias anti-youth legislation, representations of Asian American youth, and U.S. geo-politics and imperialismfactors that have serious material and ideological implications and consequences.

What Does Geography Have To Do With It?

In the first decade of the 21st century, the Eurogang Program of Research (hereafter referred to as the Eurogang Network), a group of U.S. and European criminologists, began a systematic effort to examine the European gang phenomenon. However, the notion that American-style street gangs represent a real threat to European nations has not been universally accepted, as critics warn about the dangers of making gangs and gang members into “folk devils” for a broad range of societal ills. In order to provide insights into the status of troublesome youth groups in the European context, the present study examines three separate surveys of school children aged 13 to 16 years who resided in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, and the Netherlands. Using definitional and research protocols developed by the Eurogang Network, this article explores correlates of individual delinquency reported by street gang members and members of other delinquent youth groups that reportedly engaged in criminal activities but were not defined as street gangs using the Eurogang Network definition. The study turns on the extent to which the self-reported individual and group misbehavior can be understood in terms of personal-biographical characteristics—but especially citizenship status, specific youth-group membership, and nation of current residence—and the influence of putative risk and protective measures. The implications for youth gang intervention efforts are discussed, along with what the findings suggest about comparative efforts to explain misbehavior by members of two types of troublesome youth groups.

‘Noisy and Dangerous Boys’: The Slogging Gang Phenomenon in Late Nineteenth-Century Birmingham

Juvenile fighting gangs, called sloggers, were part of a spectrum of street groups in late nineteenth-century Birmingham. Rooted in local craft traditions, they were typically violent rather than criminal, with no strong identity, but with distinctive names taken from their localities. Analysis of age, occupation, ethnicity, and residence, highlights the character of those arrested for slogging and shows some changes over the period from 1870 to 1900. The indications are that, triggered by ethnic tensions in a period of prosperity, the gangs rapidly became essentially territorial. Slogging in gangs moved out from the town centre into Aston and Birmingham’s suburbs. Increased inter-school rivalry may have helped to foster local loyalties, but most sloggers were above school age. Certain families gave cohesion and continuity to the gangs. Local newspapers provided publicity. Music halls were sometimes arenas of conflict, and even death. Fatalities were rare. Efforts to ‘civilise’ and control working class youth intensified in the 1890s, and slogging gangs merged back into the urban milieu, losing their separate identities and being replaced in the public eye by the new generic term for troublesome youth, peaky blinders.

Youth in Crisis? Gangs, Territoriality and Violence. Edited by Barry Goldson (London: Routledge, 2011, 248pp. 25.99)

Barry Goldson’s new edited collection Youth in Crisis? Gangs, Territoriality and Violence (Routledge 2011) addresses the vexed question of youth ‘gangs’ in the United Kingdom, collating and consolidating the current range of academic evidence and opinion on the subject. Drawing on a broad sweep of contributors, the collection eschews any attempt at a comprehensive account of ‘gangs in the UK’, preferring to open up the youth ‘gang’ question to debate and critique. As a result, it is resolutely more ‘state of the art’ than ‘state of the nation’, delineating the varied (if somewhat disunified) body of gang research in the United Kingdom, and providing a much-needed critical foundation for developing further theoretical and empirical research in this highly fraught area. The collection is book-ended by two excellent reviews of literature and evidence on the gang phenomenon—one on the United Kingdom, one on the global context—which will prove invaluable to the uninitiated researcher or student. The opening chapter, by Barry Goldson, frames the youth ‘gang’ debate in the context of his own expert appraisal of youth criminalization discourse, shunting the issue away from the default American gang criminology and more squarely into British traditions of youth criminology. The final chapter, by Rob White, neatly deconstructs a disparate and diverse set of literatures into a set of global ‘propositions’ on gangs and transnationalism that situate the preceding debates within the relevant international literature. While the acuity of these contributions might have been sharpened (or added to) by a more detailed analysis of the intellectual development of gang research in the United Kingdom—and its specific intersections with, for example, US gang research—there is ample material for the purposes of contextualization and overview.

Ganging up on gangs: why the gang intervention industry needs an intervention

Following a recent significant rise in ‘gang‐related’ teenage homicide in London, this paper critically examines the Greater London gang phenomenon and the city's burgeoning gang intervention industry. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews with gang members and representatives of the gang intervention industry, the paper presents some of the perils and pitfalls of the current approach to gangs. It argues instead for a sustained yet sober appreciation of the gang phenomenon which includes a shift away from more punitive measures towards a comprehensive and co‐ordinated approach that is both meaningful and measurable.

Neighborhood Variation in Gang Member Concentrations

This study examines the relationship between neighborhood structure, violent crime, and concentrations of gang members at the neighborhood level. We rely on official police gang list data, police crime data, and two waves of decennial census data characterizing the socioeconomic and demographic conditions of 93 neighborhoods in Mesa, Arizona. Although we find positive linear associations between gang member concentrations and indicators of economic deprivation and social and familial disadvantage, the results of nonlinear models reveal that at extreme levels of disadvantage, the magnitudes of these positive associations are substantially reduced. In addition, although we find that neighborhood crime has no influence on concentrations of gang members net of other neighborhood characteristics, our results reveal that neighborhood instability is a key component for understanding variability in the gang phenomenon. More specifically, our results suggest that gang membership is less likely in social contexts characterized by either a residentially unstable population or rapidly changing structural conditions.

Encyclopedia of gangs

In light of Los Angeles' gang state of emergency, ethnic and minority gangs are arguably more high profile now than at any other time in our history. News media typically focus on the crime and violence associated with gangs, but not much else. This encyclopedia seeks to illuminate the world of gangs, including gang formations, routine gang activities, aberrations and current developments. One hundred essay entries related to gangs in the United States and worldwide provide a diffuse overview of the gang phenomenon. Each entry defines and explains the term, provides an historical overview, and explains its significance today. As the following entries demonstrate, gangs are part of the fabric of American society. They are not only in our communities but also our schools and other social institutions. Understanding the world of gangs is therefore needed to understand American society. Entries include: Bikers, Bloods, Cholas, Crips, gang mythology, gang warfare, graffiti, Hell's Angels, Hong Kong Triads, Latin Kings, law enforcement, occultic gangs, mafia, media, prison gangs, rites, Skinheads, Streetgang Terrorism Omnibus Prevention Act, tattoos, trafficking, Wanna-bes, West Side Story, Witness Protection programs, and youth gangs.

Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua, 1996–2002

This article explores the dynamics of the youth gang (pandilla) phenomenon in contemporary urban Nicaragua, drawing on longitudinal ethnographic research conducted with a Managua pandilla in 1996–97 and in 2002. Pandillas and their violent practices are conceived as constituting a form of local social structuration in the face of broader conditions of high crime, insecurity, and socio-political breakdown. This form of ‘street-level politics’ changed significantly between 1997 and 2002, however, evolving from a form of collective social violence to a more individually and economically motivated type of brutality. This transformation is related to wider structural processes, which are described as coming together and precipitating a form of ‘social death’ in contemporary Nicaragua.

Youth Gangs and Definitional Issues: When is a Gang a Gang, and Why Does it Matter?

The recent explosion in gang research has highlighted the importance of consistent definitions for gang affiliation and gang-related crime. Definitional questions have assumed greater significance in the wake of broad-ranging prevention and intervention strategies. In this article, the authors utilize a sample of approximately 6,000 middle-school students to examine the youth gang phenomenon using five increasingly restrictive membership definitions. The least restrictive definition includes all youth who claim gang membership at some point in time. The most restrictive definition includes only those youth who are current core gang members who indicate that their gang has some degree of organizational structure and whose members are involved in illegal activities. The authors examine the differentially defined gang and nongang youths on various demographic characteristics, theretical factors, and levels of self-reported crime. The authors also address the theoretical and policy implications of shifting definitions of gang membership.

YOUTH GANGS IN A SMALL MIDWESTERN CITY: INSIDERS’ PERSPECTIVES

ABSTRACT Youth gangs are not unique to large urban areas, but are now reported in a significant number of communities with lesser populations. In response to this reported phenomenon, gang researchers have begun to focus their attention on the structural conditions and processes that have given rise to these deviant groups in smaller-sized cities and towns. From recent studies of gangs in nonmetropolitan areas, we are now beginning to discern the true dimensions of youth gang involvement in communities with populations of 100,000 or less. We are also beginning to see that there may be some qualitative differences in the way gangs are structured based upon city size. After first reviewing the scholarly literature on the youth gang phenomenon in smaller community settings, this paper describes research on members of adolescent youth gangs in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Using the case of Kenosha, this study also questions the common assumption that proximity to a large urban area such as Chicago, with over 12,000 gang members, is the key significant factor in explaining the development of youth gangs in nearby smaller-sized communities.

Gangs in New Zealand Prisons

Gangs became a permanent feature of New Zealand prisons during the 1980s. Surveys indicate that more than 20% of inmates have past or present gang affiliations. This article looks at the gang phenomenon both in the community and in prisons. A case study looking at the impact of gangs at Auckland Maximum Security Prison (Paremoremo) is included; a unique inmate subculture was destroyed and inter-gang conflict resulted in the prison being run on a unit basis. Using information from the 1989prison census, including unpublished material, the article examines the level of gang membership and compares gang members and unaffiliated inmates over a range of variables. Gang members were found to be more likely to be younger, classified as requiring medium or maximum security custody, convicted of violent offences and serving longer sentences. The article also looks at management approaches to gangs in prisons and a fresh approach being adopted by the Department of Justice.

Metropolitan gang influence and the emergence of group delinquency in a regional community

Opinions differ over what role big-city gangs have in the emergence of youth gangs in smaller cities. To date, little empirical evidence exists to support or refute the big-city gang connection. This descriptive study of Kenosha, Wisconsin used a variety of qualitative and quantitative data—interviews with gang members and delinquency control personnel, media reports, and agency case files—to assess whether the gang phenomenon in that city spread from Chicago or arose indigenously. The results indicate that minority youth gangs in Kenosha are essentially the outgrowth of underlying social and economic conditions in the community and not the product of big-city street gang diffusion.

“CRACK,” STREET GANGS, AND VIOLENCE*

This investigation considers the connections among street gangs, “crack” cocaine, and violence associated with crack distribution during the initial years of crack proliferation. Data were extracted from the narcotics investigation files and homicide fires of five Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff's Department areas where both crack and gangs were prominent. The aims were to compare for 1983–1985, when crack first emerged as a significant problem, hypotheses about (1) gang involvement in crack distribution and (2) concomitants of gang involvement, particularly violence. The analyses confirm a dramatic growth in crack sales, an accompanying increase in gang members involved, but a declining rate of involvement, and inconsistent evidence on the impact of gang involvement on sales events. We infer that crack distribution, while including many individual gang members, was not primarily a street gang phenomenon.