Gang Research Articles

Child Maltreatment & Child Migration: Abuse Disclosures by Central American and Mexican Unaccompanied Migrant Children

While gang violence, community violence, and domestic violence have been recognized as contributing factors to Central American migration, less is known about the intersection between child maltreatment and migration. This article uses secondary data from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) interviews with unaccompanied minors from Central America and Mexico to examine child maltreatment. It provides information on the abused children, their abusers, and the questions that led to their disclosure of maltreatment. It finds that girls reported maltreatment at higher rates than boys; only girls in this sample reported sexual abuse and intimate partner violence; and boys experienced physical abuse more than any other form of maltreatment. Overall, girls experienced all forms of abuse at higher rate than boys. Fewer than half of this sample described maltreatment as an explicit reason for migration, even those who viewed it as a type of suffering, harm or danger. In addition, some disclosures suggest that childhood transitions, such as in housing, schooling, or work status, warrant further inquiry as a potential consequence of or contributor to maltreatment. The article recommends that professionals engaged with migrant children in social services, legal services, or migration protection and status adjudications should inquire about maltreatment, recognizing that children may reveal abuse in complex and indirect ways. Protection risks within the home or family environment may provide the grounds for US legal immigration protections, such as Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) or asylum. Practitioners working with unaccompanied migrant children should use varied approaches to inquire about home country maltreatment experiences. Maltreatment may be part of the context of child migration, whether or not it is explicitly mentioned by children as a reason for migration. Policy Recommendations US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) should update SIJS regulations to reflect changes in the law, and modify application procedures to incorporate research knowledge on the impact of trauma on children. The US Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Justice (DOJ), and Health and Human Services (HHS), should ensure that all children in immigration proceedings receive legal representation through public-private partnerships overseen by the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). Passage of Senate Bill 3108, the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act of 2021, 1 would at least guarantee legal representation for unaccompanied minors. Codify legal standards (via USCIS regulation, or Congressional statute) for granting asylum based on gender and gender-based violence, and include standards for children and youth. Adjudicators from USCIS, Asylum Offices, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) should consider new information about painful, traumatic, or shame-inducing experiences—such as child maltreatment—as part of the gradual process of disclosure, rather than negatively reflecting on the credibility of the applicant. Federal agencies with immigration responsibilities such as USCIS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and ORR, should be included in the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Interagency Task Force for Trauma-Informed Care. These agencies should require new trainings for immigration adjudicators, including immigration judges, asylum officers, Border Patrol agents, and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers, on interviewing and making decisions related to children. Legal service providers should adopt a holistic approach to service provision that includes social workers as part of the child’s legal team.

Mathematical Modeling of the Population Dynamics of Age-Structured Criminal Gangs with Correctional Intervention Measures

The prevalence of criminal gang activities in the society has continued to be a huge burden to mankind. Despite several attempts by the government and non-governmental organizations in curtailing the activities of criminal gangs, new criminal gangs are beginning to emerge with associated criminal cases on the high side, thereby causing social unrest. This paper examines the impact of correctional intervention measures on the population dynamics of the criminal gangs in Nigeria, following an age-structured paradigm. The existence of backward bifurcation is presented sequel to the coexistence of gang free equilibrium and gang endemic equilibrium when the reproduction number is less than unity. Also, the model exhibits periodic trajectories (Hopf bifurcation) as a result of coexistence among the criminal gang classes. Using the Nigeria crime data (from 1993 to 2013) as obtained from Elsevier Data in Brief, we analyze the criminal gang model quantitatively and provide the sociological implications of the results. The numerical results obtained from this work show that if at least 60% of adolescents between 8–17 years who commit crimes are apprehended with prompt prosecution and correction, we can potentially eradicate adolescent delinquencies from the population and thus control the entire criminal gangs’ population.

Willingness to sacrifice among convicted Islamist terrorists versus violent gang members and other criminals

Is terrorism just another form of criminal activity, as many nations’ justice systems assume? We offer an initial answer using face-to-face interviews and structured surveys in thirty-five Spanish prisons. Recent theories of extreme sacrifice inform this direct observational and comparative study. Islamist terrorists display levels of self-sacrifice for their primary reference group similar to that of Latino gangs, but greater willingness to sacrifice for primary values than other inmates (non-radical Muslims, Latino gangs, and delinquent bands). This disposition is motivated by stronger perceived injustice, discrimination, and a visceral commitment to such values (risk/radicalization factors). Nevertheless, state authorities, prison staff, and families are (protective/de-radicalization) factors apt to reduce willingness to sacrifice and keep foreign fighters, now being released in large numbers, from returning to terrorism.

Perceptions of Stakeholders on Student Teacher’s Wearing of School Uniforms: A Case of Some Selected Colleges of Education in Northern Region, Ghana

The study focused on two particular colleges of education in Ghana's Northern Region and explored stakeholders' perceptions of the use of school uniforms in colleges of education. The case study research design and qualitative methodology were used in the study. Convenience sampling was used to select fifty (50) stakeholders, including fifteen (15) tutors from Bagabaga College of Education, five (5) staff members from the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), fifteen (15) tutors from Tamale College of Education, and fifteen (15) employees from the Sagnarigu Municipal Education Office in Tamale. The tool utilized to gather information for the research question created for the study was an interview. The study's findings revealed that the majority of the study's participants felt that wearing a uniform fosters equality, unity, and makes student teachers from various socioeconomic backgrounds same, as well as eliminating bullying and gang activity in colleges. Based on the research, it was suggested that each academic year, student teachers should attend orientation to learn about the uniform policy at the colleges of education and to understand that wearing a school uniform does not belittle them as tertiary students. In order to execute a standard policy at the colleges, college administration must be adaptable. If a unified policy is implemented, it must be assessed to determine whether it is effective.

Intersectional justice denied: Racist warring masculinity, negative peace, and violence in post‐peace accords El Salvador

AbstractThe skyrocketing violence in Central America calls upon scholars to examine the needed conditions for peace. This article challenges the assumption that the absence of violence among factions in conflict is the chief goal around which peacemaking efforts should operate. Based on ethnographic research with women relatives of male gang members and civil war veterans in El Salvador, I argue that the 1992 Salvadoran Peace Accords that ended twelve years of civil war developed a male‐centered notion of negative peace that ended the armed conflict while naturalizing racialized state violence as part of security measures and ongoing violence against women as low‐grade part of everyday life. In the post‐accords era, gang members advance their version of negative peace, promising to protect women and the nation while continuing to oppress their women relatives. I suggest that the effective path to attain substantive peace is to proactively engage in intersectional justice to redress multiple and intersecting forms of violence. The consequences of peacemaking efforts without this attention will result in continued massive killing and immigration to the United States.

Leaving the Pervasive Barrio: Gang Disengagement under Criminal Governance

Abstract Is it possible to disengage from street gangs in communities and districts where gang organizations rule? We argue that disengagement is possible when this process does not alter the social order that allows street gangs to continue controlling and establishing the rules that govern economic activities and relationships in the barrios they control. We explore the process of gang disengagement under criminal governance in El Salvador, a country plagued by the powerful MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs. We conducted a survey with nearly 1,200 people with a history of gang membership and 25 in-depth interviews with former gang members. We find that disengagement through religious conversion allows the gang to continue exerting power over the deserters, while at the same time enforcing religious commitment to the congregation. The religious community provides the normative framework that reassures the gang that its former associates will not act against it, consolidating its local authority.

Social Emotional Learning Competencies in Belize Children: Psychometric Validation Through Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling.

In the nation of Belize, and in particular the south side of Belize City, the main metropolitan area of the nation, significant economic disparities have led to child and adolescent exposure to high rates of violent crime, gang activity, unsafe neighborhoods, sexual, and physical violence. Problems associated with poor Social-Emotional Character Development are especially prevalent among boys. Consequently, valid culture-relevant measures are required that identify problematic behavior for policy-based intervention and evaluation of educational programs designed to ameliorate this problem. The present study demonstrates the application of Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling to existing measures through the investigation of structural validity and generalizability of the Social-Emotional and Character Development Scale with a large sample of children from schools in Belize (N = 1,877, Ages 10–13). Exploratory structural equation modeling results demonstrate the original factor correlations were reduced, providing less biased estimates than confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Moreover, a multi-group Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling analysis illuminates significant differences between latent factor scores of males and females for most factors. Using this newer factor analytic procedure, original factors are reconceptualized to better situate the Social Emotional Character Development Scales into the larger body of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) competencies literature.

Gangs, Deportees, and Haiti’s Troubles

Thousands of Haitian asylum seekers recently subjected to forced repatriation by the United States face a difficult time reintegrating in an unstable country which some of them hardly know. Adding to the difficulties are the prevalence of street gangs in Haiti and common assumptions that deportees are linked to organized crime.

A Hierarchical Generative Embedding Model for Influence Maximization in Attributed Social Networks

Nowadays, we use social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, WeChat and Weibo as means to communicate with each other. Social networks have become so indispensable in our everyday life that we cannot imagine what daily life would be like without social networks. Through social networks, we can access friends’ opinions and behaviors easily and are influenced by them in turn. Thus, an effective algorithm to find the top-K influential nodes (the problem of influence maximization) in the social network is critical for various downstream tasks such as viral marketing, anticipating natural hazards, reducing gang violence, public opinion supervision, etc. Solving the problem of influence maximization in real-world propagation scenarios often involves estimating influence strength (influence probability between two nodes), which cannot be observed directly. To estimate influence strength, conventional approaches propose various humanly devised rules to extract features of user interactions, the effectiveness of which heavily depends on domain expert knowledge. Besides, they are often applicable for special scenarios or specific diffusion models. Consequently, they are difficult to generalize into different scenarios and diffusion models. Inspired by the powerful ability of neural networks in the field of representation learning, we designed a hierarchical generative embedding model (HGE) to map nodes into latent space automatically. Then, with the learned latent representation of each node, we proposed a HGE-GA algorithm to predict influence strength and compute the top-K influential nodes. Extensive experiments on real-world attributed networks demonstrate the outstanding superiority of the proposed HGE model and HGE-GA algorithm compared with the state-of-the-art methods, verifying the effectiveness of the proposed model and algorithm.

Defense, Disrespect, and #Deadly: A Qualitative Exploration of Precursors to Youth Violence Informed Through Hospital-Based Violence Prevention Program Follow Up

Success of youth violence intervention and prevention effects, particularly for gun violence, will be enhanced when efforts are appropriately informed by the antecedents and context of violence. Youth violence is guided by social and cultural norms that are shifting with the rise of technology. Bullying, gang violence, and self-directed violence is increasingly found to occur in the online space influencing peer groups across contexts. Through focus groups with youth at risk for violence and victimization, this study finds three themes emerge as common precursors to violence: defense of self or others, disrespect of self or family occurring in traditional community-based interactions, and threats or disrespect occurring through social media platforms. Youth violence prevention programs should consider how using social cognitive intervention framework could build knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed for violence intervention and prevention informed by precursors to violence found in this analysis.

Gang Violence and Homicide: Do Select Factors that Police Report Contribute to Gang Violence, Specifically Predict Gang Homicide?

ABSTRACT Work has consistently revealed that gang members are more likely than nongang members to participate in violent behavior. But research has not analyzed the relationship between the likelihood of gang homicide and the various factors that police report impact gang violence in their community. This is accomplished through analyzing reports provided by law enforcement as part of the National Youth Gang Survey in 2012. The results reveal a significant relationship between multiple factors that police report contribute to violence and gang homicides. The findings inform theoretical explanations for gang violence and have implications for policy effectively addressing gang homicides nationwide.

Smartphones for drugs: exchange relations in a South African gang since apartheid

ABSTRACT This article outlines the nature of exchange relations between members of the so-called Number Gangs in South Africa. Transactions between these township-based members changed after apartheid with political and economic liberalisation. Through the case of an active gang leader in Cape Town, who was previously a career burglar, I look at the material things that move between members. I argue that transactions inside the gang do not make use of money, but are rather characterised by in-kind exchanges. These have four interdependent outcomes which structure the gang: (1) gifts that shape obligations in young recruits and experienced offenders; (2) enduring barter transactions for the collection of stolen electronics following such gifts; (3) employment in a context of joblessness; and (4) control for leaders.

Competing Versions of Reality in Honduras: State Theory as a Tool for the Anthropologist Expert Witness

AbstractIn this article, I explore some challenges and strategies for anthropologist expert witnesses working on cases where home‐country governments depict an overall more positive situation than what the applicants claim. Drawing upon an anonymized Honduran asylum case, I discuss the utility of state theory for debunking fallacious home‐government sources that downplay dangerous situations while exaggerating state achievements, suggesting ways to illuminate the inherent political motivations of government reports. Honduran asylum applicants flee from gang violence, political violence, and gendered violence, now more than a decade after the June 2009 military coup that ruptured already fragile public institutions. While official Honduran government reports claim that the state is alleviating such problems by creating new programs and laws, ethnographic evidence from anthropologists working with anticoup social movements suggests that the state's security apparatus often exacerbates violence, and that the mere act of passing legislation does little in practice to protect vulnerable Hondurans.

Sobri Jóska, a leghíresebb bakonyi betyár

In the beginning of the year 1837, the hunt started to catch Jóska Sobri, the famous Hungarian outlaw, and his gang. The then palatine ordered military forces to track them down and promised high reward for capturing them. The outlaw gang was hiding in Bakony Forest and had little chance against the soldiers. Not even Sobri and his closest fellow gang members could slip through the territory encircled by the authorities in Tolna County, close to Lápafő, on 17 February 1837. In the gunfight, Sobri has most probably died, but this has never been proven. He disappeared, and the myth was born in outlaw folklore, according to which he is alive even nowadays. Recently, a movie has been produced about his life, and there is also an adventure park in Bakony Forest named after him.

Stability analysis of a simple mathematical model for school bullying

<abstract><p>School bullying is a highly concerned problem due to its effect on students' academic achievement. The effect might go beyond that to develop health problems, school drop out and, in some extreme cases, commit suicide for victims. On the other hand, adolescents who continuously bully over time are at risk of becoming involved in gang membership and other types of crime. Therefore, we propose a simple mathematical model for school bullying by considering two variables: the number of victims students and the number of bullies students. The main assumption employed to develop the mathematical model is that school policy bans bullying and expels students who practice this behavior to maintain a constructive educational environment within the school. We show that the model has two equilibrium points, and that both equilibrium points are locally and globally asymptotically stable under certain conditions. Also, we define a threshold parameter with a new criterion called the bullying index. Furthermore, we show that the model exhibits the phenomena of transcritical bifurcation subject to the bullying index. All the findings are supported with numerical simulations.</p></abstract>

Understanding the migration experience of unaccompanied youth: A review of the literature.

Migration of unaccompanied immigrant and refugee youth has increased around the world in the last decade, peaking in 2014 in the United States and in 2015 in Europe. Youth are pushed to migrate without parents or guardians to escape war, persecution, gang violence, and extreme poverty in their country of origin. Youth are vulnerable to violence and abuse at the hands of smugglers during their journeys but show great courage and strength as they embark on their journey to a better life. The goal of this literature review is to provide a synthesis of empirical literature concerning this population. Thirty-one studies were included: 13 used qualitative methods, 13 quantitative, four mixed methods, and one used participatory methods. This body of research documents the stages of youths' immigration journeys from the decision to leave, to the migration process, to arriving in the new country and the resettlement experience. The migration journey was the overarching model in this review, and it describes the youth's complete journey, which continues after resettlement. We describe the four stages in the migration process identified in the experience of unaccompanied youth and their journey in this review: making the decision to migrate the experience during migration; psychological distress and coping upon arrival; and adaptation, acculturation upon arrival in the resettlement country, and impact of social support and social networks in the resettlement country. We end by offering recommendations for future research and immigration policy based on what is known and not yet known about the experiences of these courageous young people. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

EXPERIENCE-BASED LESSONS FROM MALES IN THE NORTHERN AREAS OF PORT ELIZABETH (GQEBERHA) ON FACTORS THAT PROTECTED THEM FROM BECOMING INVOLVED IN GANGSTERISM

Despite the widespread prevalence of gangsterism and the predominantly male membership of gangs, some males residing and growing up in the Northern Areas of Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha), where gangsterism is so widespread, have never been involved in gangs. A qualitative study, explorative, descriptive and contextual in design, using semi-structured interviews as data-collection method, explored and described the experience-based lessons from selected males on factors that have protected them from gang involvement. Findings included family support, faith or religion, positive role models, education, participation in wholesome pursuits and involvement in sports as being amongst the factors that prevented participants against involvement in gang activities. Strategies to strengthen these protective factors and utilise them to design relevant programmes and interventions should now be investigated. Keywords: gangsterism, buffering, buffer, protective factors, community members

Преступность в Бразилии: особенности, противодействие, направления исследований

The article focuses on a wide range of issues related to the current crime situation in Brazil and covers social and economic context, features and trends, most dangerous crimes, key victim groups, countermeasures, crime statistics, and research. Special attention is paid to the COVID-19 pandemic as a factor that has influenced crime all over the world including Brazil. Lack of research on crime in Brazil in Russian criminology determines the aim of this study: to describe the main types of criminal activities in Brazil, trends in criminality, the most vulnerable groups at risk to suffer from crime, examples of crime control and areas of interest for criminologists. The article includes analysis of the Penal Code of Brazil and its amendments, other national laws, crime statistics including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) data, reports of various international and Brazilian organizations dealing with crime issues, foreign scientific literature, Russian studies on Latin America. In the preparation of the article, the authors used general and specific scientific methods including analysis; synthesis; formal and legal analysis; historical, sociological, and criminological research; and expert assessment. The authors conclude that the most worrisome types of crime in Brazil are street crimes (especially in large cities), violent crimes (Brazil is known as a country with a very high rate of murder), organized crime, drug trafficking, and corruption. The latter group of crimes is associated with unlawful acts of the country's highest authorities. The so-called “sky-high murder rate” in the country is caused by a high level of unemployment (mostly among younger people), huge income inequality in population, availability of fire arms, activities of street gangs and armed groups involved in drug trafficking, prevalence of domestic violence, existence of so-called favellas, i.e., areas of the poorest population residence. Besides, there is an association between an increased level of some types of crimes and the COVID-19 pandemic. The most vulnerable groups at risk to become crime victims are females, law enforcement officers, environmental activists, and indigenous people. The high rate of victims belonging to the first group forced the Brazilian legislator to establish criminal responsibility for murder of women in a special Penal Code norm (Feminitfdio). Another sensible problem related to violence in general is police officers' fire arms use leading to a large number of killed persons (police killing, letali-dade policial). The authors pay special attention to various programs of federal, regional and local authorities aimed at reduction of the crime rate and diminishing the harmful consequences. The authors emphasize the well-organized structure of criminological research in Brazil. The main research centers are the Brazilian Institute of Criminal Sciences (In-stituto Brasileiro de Ciencias Criminais) and the Brazilian Forum of Public Security (Forum Brasileiro de Seguranga Publica).

Preventing Street Gang Membership in Marginalised Communities

Preventing Street Gang Membership in Marginalised Communities

Living in Gang-Controlled Neighborhoods: Impacts on Electoral and Nonelectoral Participation in El Salvador

Gangs’ territorial control affects the lives of residents in thousands of neighborhoods across Latin America, particularly in northern Central American countries. I argue that gang dominance constrains the ability of neighborhood residents to mobilize politically and consequently resist gang violence through institutionalized channels. Living in gang-controlled neighborhoods results in fewer incentives and opportunities to make political elites accountable for one’s personal safety. Even residents who have already experienced crime firsthand are discouraged from turning to politics as a strategy to change the status quo. My theoretical insights identify mechanisms through which gangs’ neighborhood control affects nonelectoral and electoral participation. To test my hypotheses, I rely on census and public opinion data collected in seventy-one neighborhoods in El Salvador. This article offers the first systematic statistical analysis of the effect of gangs’ territorial control on political participation in the Latin American context. The findings suggest that living under gang rule undermines residents’ right to engage freely in politics in nuanced ways.