Gangs

Communities everywhere have experienced the negative effects of street gangs. The presence of military-trained gang members (MTGMs) in the community increases the threat of violence to citizens. The problem addressed was the apparently growing presence of military-trained gang members in civilian communities in two southern states. The purpose was to determine the perceived presence of military-trained gang members and examine whether there was a relationship between the perceptions of gang investigators regarding the presence and the size of their jurisdictions, the proximity of their jurisdictions to a military installation, and the extent to which investigators participate in anti-gang activities. The Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve were identified as the largest sources of MTGMs and the Bloods, Crips, and Gangster Disciples were the gangs most represented. Military leaders should acknowledge the increase in gang-related crime and address the problems caused for both military and civilian communities without attempting to quantify the threat level. Military leadership should continuously examine activities of all suspected gang members for active gang affiliation for retention purposes while evaluating any gang affiliation for security clearances. Military Law Enforcement liaison for recruiters should develop effective communication with law enforcement agencies to assist with information sharing.

This paper discusses the dynamics of the gang-crime-terrorism continuum and its relationship to ”generations of warfare” within the contemporary spectrum of conflict. The focus is to explore the potential for gang-terrorist interaction in the current and emerging conflict environment. The concepts of third generation street gangs (3G2), netwar, and fourth generation warfare (4GW) are applied to investigate the typologies and relationships of third generation street gangs and terrorist groups.

This overview is based on a consultant report by Xerox Connect to the Police Executive Research Forum, for a project on the Northeast Gang Information System (NEGIS). Funding provided by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Technology

　　歷來研究清代小說教亂敘事的，多圍繞在描寫不同民間教派的小說特色，討論民間教派在小說中如何被呈現。而本論文則在前人研究之上，結合官方史料、民間紀載、教派內部文獻、文人筆記與野史等材料，思考描寫明清民間教亂的小說敘事何以在清代紛呈而出，並以「文化生產」、「小說類型學」和「敘事學」為研究方法，討論清代小說教亂敘事中的共性與殊性，藉由建構「清代小說教亂敘事群」，可見作為跨類型小說的小說教亂敘事在清代的不同時期、不同／同一作者的創作之下，反映出共同的價值觀與歷史意識；而「敘事學」的研究方法則可結合「承衍」之概念，討論清代教亂小說之間的相互關係，不論是描寫同樣或不同的民間教亂題材，都可見個別教亂小說的敘事特色。
　　本論文將主要分為四章，第二章討論「清代出版文化：序跋、評點與圖像」，分別從小說序跋、評點與圖像探討清代出版文化的變化，如何影響小說作者的創作心態與目的，而從其交遊圈所輻射的序跋與評點者、出版商；又如何在清代小說禁毀令的文網下，隱微地呈現出共同的意識形態與各異的呈現手法特色。第三章則是「民間教派、幫會人物形象的解構與重構」，討論民間教派、幫會人物形象的重疊性與相似性之意義，並指出其顛覆與游離的形象意涵。第四章是「多重的政教辯證關係」，在變化的政教關係之下，討論人物形象如何影響小說中所敘述的政教關係，而政教合作與衝突的其敘事意義為何？第五章則討論「多元的政教戰爭模式與情感論述」，政教關係影響了政教戰爭的模式，教亂小說中出現的情感論述，可做為官方觀點的參照，並挖掘情感論述的不同面貌如何呈現出作者的歷史意識。從上述議題即可見清代不同作者與不同時期的教亂小說，既有共同的意識形態與價值觀，也有其多元化的敘事特色及其意義，故研究清代教亂小說對於重新理解清代小說史有其重要性。

It is well established that US criminal justice systems are, in effect, racialized social systems (Bonilla-Silva, 2001). We have a growing knowledge about the historic and structural roots that have contributed to the mass criminalization of people of color, and the intersecting social forces that lead to the uses of imprisonment as a form of racial-ized social control. We know less about the ways that imprisonment itself may actually itself structure and contribute to the racialized social systems external to prisons that enmesh Black and Brown people in processes of criminalization and social control. Patrick Lopez-Aguado makes a significant contribution to our knowledge on this issue, producing a nuanced, rich, and theoretically sophisticated portrait of the ways that the state structures, produces, and reproduces ideas about the criminal " other " , which in turn feeds systems of mass incarceration. Lopez-Aguado approaches this subject in an empirically original way: intrigued by the California Department of Corrections' policy of racially sorting incarcerated people upon their arrival into the system, Lopez-Aguado chose to locate his research in Fresno, a city in the middle of the state, and thus a " borderland " (p. 15) in the state's " rival prison-based subcultures " (p. 15). Even a site such as Fresno, which ostensibly sits outside of existing boundaries between North and South (most notably demonstrated through the Norteña/os and Sureña/os, who are defined as some of the largest " gangs " in California state prisons) can reflect the racialized consequences of mass incarceration. As Lopez-Aguado details the emergence of the Bulldogs, or the Fresno-based " gangs " , he reveals the ways that artificial boundaries (typically imposed by prison officials) become durable ones, as individuals find that adopting these categories not only becomes a requirement for their safety, but also for their emerging sense of self (and his focus on young people is a particularly important dimension in which to understand this socialization process). Fresno also represents a community hard hit by incarceration, with incar-ceration rates higher than that of the Bay area and Los Angeles, high poverty and unemployment, and deep racial disproportionality in imprisonment rates.

"Infrastructural ephemera" as a set of spontaneous affective relations critical to the success of large-scale projects of urban governance in the urban South are examined. The deep contradictions underscoring the labours of women employed as community health workers in Lyari Town, Karachi, at a time of intense gang violence, are explored. Drawing on two years of field research as a polio vaccinator in Lyari, the reach (and limits) of adaptability, skills, and labour (physical, mental, and emotional) involved in the maintenance and repair of a fragile public health infrastructure are explored. Maintaining "community health" also involves dealing mortal and aspirational death to those that provide infrastructural labour to the project of giving life. S hazia did not show up for work, and her sisters-in-law were loath to say why. A moroseness attended the group of young women assembled for the vaccination campaign that morning. Shazia, their de facto leader, was missing. Also gone was Akram, the local gang-boss, whose jokes and fl irtations were as essential to morale as his mediations were to vaccination work. News was that he had been summoned by the Army Rangers and had not been heard from since. Tacitly, all knew that the two absences were connected. Shazia and her kin were community health workers (CHWs). Together they were the backbone of the Global Polio Eradica-tion Initiative (GPEI; the campaign, henceforth) in Pakistan. Unlike her kin, Shazia had always been the picture of quiet ef-fi ciency, skillfully motivating and organising her teams. The government supervisor was completely dependent on her for managing the campaign. Shazia's absence appeared to her a personal betrayal, and she was distraught. The true locus of her dread was the World Health Organization (WHO) appointed monitor, who conducted spot-checks on their performance in the neighbourhood. Without Shazia, a misstep was inevitable , and she would hear about it from the town health offi cer. She was driven to tears anticipating the indignities to come, which clouded everyone's mood further. Buckling under these stresses, the polio drive that month was a disaster. Akram's jocular energy would have helped on such days. As a gangster of Lyari, Akram wore many hats. One of them was that of a CHW. Akram's contributions to the campaign far exceeded the purported utility of a CHW or imagined functions of a gangster. Success for the campaign in Lyari was entirely dependent on the "working relations," solidarities and affections that emerged between the CHWs and the gangs. This was ex-emplifi ed by affi nities Akram and Shazia developed for each other, and between the young sodalities they each led. This paper chronicles the import of those affi nities. The GPEI, like any large-scale project, thrives on rhythms and processes, articulating a mass of bubbling desires. Desires, for instance, that drive the WHO's imperatives from Geneva, jive with the Pakistani elite's fantasies about the city; all dovetailing with other, humbler desires for a good life. The GPEI rendered concrete these entangled desires by offering the po-liovirus as a displaced object around which to organise. The campaign thus spatialised and rationalised these libidinal investments. Thus, infrastructural to the realisation of massive transnational fantasies were tiny hopes and affi nities held by the young CHWs.

This paper forms part of a discussion with scholars working in the field of criminology and youth crime, in particular those who are interested in sport, gender, and desistance from violence. Furthermore, this paper challenges previous work into the sport of boxing and desistance from violence, and therefore argues for a more nuanced approach, by incorporating more feminist epistemologies, and inclusive masculinities into this complex phenomenon. Drawing upon contemporary research, this paper discusses prior literature on sport and desistance from violence, and further develops the concept of sport as a tool for reduction in violent youth crime.

Los educadores y los educandos, ahora sí, tienen en esta obra la información y las opiniones que les pueden ayudar —sobre todo a las nuevas generaciones de salvadoreños y salvadoreñas— a concebir opiniones novedosas y más justas para la gran mayoría del pueblo, manipulado y engañado con imágenes falsas e interpretaciones interesadas de la realidad, por quienes siempre han querido perpetuar privilegios abusivos e injustos, que le niegan un futuro digno al ciudadano marginado por la pobreza y la ignorancia.

Ioan Grillo's new work, Blood Gun Money, is a cutting-edge expose that chronicles the flow of firearms from the United States into Mexico for use by the gangs and cartels (and within the U.S. itself and even into Honduras and Colombia to criminals/non-state actors as a lesser theme). It is more investigative reportage than academic research with the tradeoff being readability (and enjoyability) vs methodological rigor, though his extensive use of field interviews more than satisfy academia’s ‘primary source material’ criteria of scholarship. Just as the US and Mexico enjoy formal economy trade and manufacturing relationships alongside demographic migrations (typically northward) and remittance flows (southward), crossover (from formal to illicit) and purely illicit relationships also exist with regard to drugs, guns, cash, and other commodities. In his work, Grillo delves into these crossover and illicit economy relationships from a firearms trafficking perspective.

“We could have been called a lot of things: brazen vandals, scared kids, threats to social order, self-obsessed egomaniacs, marginalized youth, outsider artists, trend setters, and thrill seekers. But, to me, we were just regular kids growing up hard in America and making the city our own. Being ‘writers’ gave us something to live for and ‘going all city’ gave us something to strive for; and for some of my friends it was something to die for.”

Gang membership can be transient or persistent, and most persons who participate in such groups at one point in their lives grow out of the lifestyle. The personality dynamics driving gang membership are poorly understood, although the five-factor model of personality has proved an effective way to understanding many types of antisocial behaviour. Using dichotomous self-nomination 152 remand and sentenced participants incarcerated within a general prison in London, UK indicated their gang embeddedness as youths, prior to custody,within prison, and as an intent following release. This enabled behavioural intention to be incorporated into the model as well as historical factors. Constructs derived from a variety of personality measures and constructs were used to predict overall reported gang embeddedness. These predictors reduced to two underlying dimensions: personal resilience and antisocial personality. Path analysis showed the antisocial personality dimension predicted previous convictions and degree of gang embeddedness, whereas resilience did not. The direct and indirect effects of the composite antisocial personality dimension explained 50% of the overall observed variance in gang embeddedness. We suggest that gang membership may reflect normal assortative processes within the members of such groups.

An ethnographic work about high-security prisons told in vignettes.  The 30-page paper is based on the author's participant observation as a correctional officer and case worker in the Nevada Department of Corrections from 2004 to 2007.  Using thousands of notes, the document details a US total institution from a perspective rarely chronicled.  This collection includes stories about prison work, prison gangs, mental health, sex offenders, prison administration, the criminal (in)justice system, and the business of corrections.

In 2004, an unlikely combination of rural insurgent groups and urban gangs fought over the fate of President Aristide and brought Haiti to the brink of civil war. Ten years on, the country is still plagued by instances of armed violence. While most policy experts and practitioners seem to agree that over the last decade, violence transformed from a political into a criminal phenomenon, scholars remain divided over the question of whether Haiti's urban armed groups should be framed as a political movement or as hardened criminals. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and overt observation conducted during six months of fieldwork in Haiti in 2013, this article argues that it is crucial to refocus the analysis on the functions gangs fulfil on behalf of their politico-criminal sponsors. In contrast to the proclaimed internal shift from political to criminal motivation, this approach suggests that the constantly changing priorities of political entrepreneurs and organised crime groups shape the nature of the violent service offered by urban armed groups. The findings of this article mirror comparable dynamics in other countries in Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa and have crucial implications for international agencies working in the urban environment and dealing with urban armed groups.

The last three decades Central America has been living on the terror of violence. The crime led by the gangs has been seen as a potential insurgency and as a cause of political instability. The way we understand the gangs’ role in the region will determine all the planning process of public policies, but also on the execution of them. Determine the causes for the rise of street gangs in Central America over the past decades will allow us to establish the strategy, testing policies and starts developing the new tactics that will be use to change the environment that makes likely the generation of gangs in the region. The extermination of all the causes that are leaving gangsters to win the hearts and minds of the youth, will enable us to do better, only then we will stop doing without knowing (Per-Olof H. Wikström 2007). The main causes found by policy makers and scholars are: social inequality, lack of rule of law, bad economic performances, Mexican cartels in the region, and terrible living conditions in certain urban areas.

We provide an example of how race-and place-based legacies of disinvestment initiated by New Deal Era redlining regimes under the auspices of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) were followed by decades of anti-gang over-policing tactics at the scale of the neighbourhood. We show how HOLC-mediated and mapped redlining has sustained community disinvestment and stigmatisation wrought by unjust and racist social policy seen to this day in contemporary geographies of gang abatement in the form of mapped gang injunction 'safety zones'. As we illustrate with the use of two case studies from Los Angeles-in South-Central LA and LA's San Fernando Valley-it is overwhelmingly redlined neighbourhoods that have remained marginalised, becoming civilly enjoined 'gang' neighbourhoods faced with oppressive anti-gang policing tactics over the past few decades.

En este texto se expone, con base en numerosos estudios, un análisis de la evolución, costumbres y contexto de las pandillas latinoamericanas, que han definido su lugar en distintos espacios urbanos posicionándose mediante la violencia, y construyendo distintas subculturas. Las inves- tigaciones etnográficas sobre los gangs han abierto el debate en torno a la posibilidad de definirlos a través de conductas, ritos de iniciación y su lugar en la sociedad, generando distintos cuestionamientos sobre las relaciones existentes con diversos grupos delictivos, así como los este- reotipos aplicados a sus integrantes (hombres, y cada vez más mujeres). Se busca reactivar el debate en la esfera académica sobre las pandillas y fomentar la investigación etnográfica. Los casos se pueden concebir como la respuesta de algunos jóvenes a una situación de rechazo, en conflicto con un entorno determinado que se les impone como excluyente y la imposibilidad de encontrar otros modos de pertenencia a la sociedad, obtener un cierto prestigio social y beneficios económicos.

Youth gangs proliferate in Guatemala and across the Americas; targeted by social cleansing campaigns and singularly conceived by society as violent aggressors, their purpose is ill-understood. Theirs is a society that has devised answers to social, economic and political exclusion endured on the outside. This research looks at the social, economic and political existence that awaits youth exiting the gang and shares the experience of an NGO working with ex-gang members. What is offered to the ex-gang member by the state, practitioners and donors?

The City of Cali, Colombia, has been renowned internationally, particularly in the last decade, for the attractiveness and energy of its salsa performers. Although it is well known and often emphasised that these dancers come from poor backgrounds, little is mentioned about how much this background implies a level of involvement in gangs. Such involvement includes suffering violence in their daily lives to direct participation in illicit activities, the latter particularly in the case of men. Furthermore, by an ethnographical exploration of their situation in 2010, I found that most of the dance companies correlated to a non-negligible extent with former gangs, in some cases even each one of their male members. What I argue here is that, although this change from gangs to dance companies allowed moving from a damaging form of sustenance to a more legitimate one, the conflict inherent within the gangs is still present in salsa dance, only in a more ritualised way. Hence, I present how this conflict appears in performances and, particularly, competitions in the form of an aggressive body language that – curiously in the context of dance – is often perceived by the audience as ‘energetic’ rather than ‘violent’. I propose that this aggressive masculinity of bodies in both gang and dance performance is a negotiation of tensions through  the expectations and expressions of male demeanour. (Full article available in URL above)

After nearly a hundred years of debate and analysis, the gang concept remains hotly contested within the social sciences. Once thought to be an exclusively American phenomenon, the study of gangs has become increasingly global over the last several decades. Countries from every world region have observed the emergence of gangs and gang-like groups. In some of these places, gangs resemble their American counterparts while in others they not only engage in  petty crime and drug trafficking but targeted assassinations, corruption of public officials, and racketeering as well. These activities make them less like the delinquent youth groups they were once conceived as and more akin to organized crime. In less stable and violent contexts still, gangs have even been incorporated into ethnic militias, rebel groups, and paramilitaries or have taken on a more vigilante ethos by combating violence and providing some semblance of order. The remarkable proliferation of the gang form over the last several decades and the incredible variation in the phenomenon across the globe requires a reassessment of the gang concept.
In the limited literature which focuses on the study of gangs cross-nationally, there have been several conceptualizations proposed. Some scholars have attempted to separate smaller street gangs from a variety of other related phenomena: prison gangs, drug gangs, and organized crime. They have done so by crafting a more restrictive concept. However, while separating street gangs from other criminal groups may make sense in the American or European context, it applies less well to other parts of the globe where such organizational forms have become thoroughly integrated thus blurring these traditional conceptual boundaries. On the other hand, some scholars have advocated for a conceptual framework which captures the transformative nature of gangs and encompasses any and all types of gangs and gang-like groups. Such an evolutionary framework fails, however, to distinguish between gangs and a huge variety of criminal and political non-state armed groups which share little in terms of their origins, motivations, or activities. The best conceptualization, this author argues, is a minimal one that incorporates gangs and many gang-like groups but avoids conceptual stretching to include virtually all non-state armed groups. Ultimately, contemporary scholars of gangs within any national context must be increasingly attentive to the global dimensions of the gang organizational form and the various overlapping and multi-faceted relationships they maintain with a variety of other  non-state armed groups.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the temporary disbandment of a gang unit on collecting gang intelligence and arresting gang members in one of the Los Angeles Police Department's Community Policing Areas. Design/methodology/approach – An interrupted time series methodology (ARIMA) is utilised to examine 1,429 field interview cards and 1,174 arrests of gang members that occurred from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2011 within one police division. Findings – Results indicated that the dismantling of the gang unit negatively impacted the collection of intelligence on gang members by officers, regardless of whether the officers were officially serving in the gang unit. Suppression efforts by gang unit officers also resulted in a sustained decline. Originality/value – Given that many urban centres have specialised gang units, this study demonstrates how organisational turnover or disbandment of a gang unit negatively impacts a department's ability to deal with local gang issues. Furthermore, these finding suggest that police organisations should consider such ramifications on intelligence-based policing activities. In many cities, the creation and utilisation of specialised gang units improves a police department's overall understanding of and response to localised gang problems. These units assist in a range of gang-related police activities including, but not limited to, intelligence gathering, strategizing solutions to gang problems, supporting criminal investigations, and working with the prosecutor's office. Specialised gang units were designed for these tasks under the belief that targeted training and information warehousing would provide more effective and efficient gathering and dissemination of gang intelligence (Huff and McBride, 1993). While specialised gang units became normalised in many police jurisdictions as a response to gang problems, there remains a lack of quantitative research on the impact of these units, particularly on performance outcomes such as intelligence gathering or arrests. The majority of research focuses qualitatively on the form and function of different gang units across jurisdictions

Inoculation theory boasts a dynamic history since McGuire first introduced it in the early 1960s. The last decade, in particular, has been a period of explosive growth for inoculation. Research has offered a more nuanced understanding of how inoculation confers resistance, exploring precise workings of inoculation’s core concepts of threat and coun-terarguing in conjunction with concepts drawn from other theoretical domains, including issue involvement, attitude accessibility, self-efficacy, and affect. Research is also extending practical applications of inoculation, examining new uses in marketing, public relations, politics, and adolescent health campaigns. The purpose of this chapter is to review the classic work on inoculation theory, examine recent developments that inform the workings of inoculation and its applications, and suggest directions for future research. The chapter also suggests extending the application of inoculation into the areas of childhood obesity, body image, gang activity, consumer protection, and employee satisfaction, among others.

While the strategic and operational levels of the
Mexican cartel war have gained much prominence in
analytical assessments, the tactical level has received
less attention. This article is an attempt at tactical assessment of
the drug war. It will provide a brief sketch of evolving tactical
missions in the cartel war and the challenges faced by Mexican
police and military forces. Cartel tactics have undergone a
disturbing evolution over the past few years. The resulting trend
includes greater proficiency, lethality, and barbarism as the conflict matures.

Environmental activist and ardent advocate for children’s rights and well-being, Jamaican laureate of the 2008 Jamaican National Literature awards, Diana McCaulay, published her critically acclaimed debut novel Dog-Heart in 2010. This paper will first focus on the legacy of colonial racism in Jamaica, before addressing the main characters’ quest for identity in a crime-ridden society.

Los grupos de jóvenes en rebeldía son un fenómeno que ha existido a lo largo de la historia del hombre, particularmente en las áreas olvidadas de las grandes urbes donde la desesperanza, la exclusión social/económica y la pobreza son el catalizador de la violencia entre grupos territoriales. Por supuesto que no son los únicos motivos, pero si las características más recurrentes entre los miembros de las pandillas. Es decir, los pandilleros son individuos en busca de aceptación, identidad, sentido de pertenencia y poder, así como de un medio de escape a la cruda, violenta y desesperante realidad en la cual se desarrollan.

La información que salió a la luz después de la tregua evidenció con mayor contundencia el cariz político de las maras salvadoreñas. En el presente artículo proponemos elementos para la discusión académica de esa dimensión política adquirida por las maras en los últimos años, así como el planteamiento de posibles escenarios de contienda política en la post tregua.

In 2007, the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence, or CIRV, was initiated by the Cincinnati Police Department to tackle the rising problem of gang-member related homicides (Engel et al., 2008). CIRV was an evidence-based, focused deterrence strategy developed from the Boston Operation Ceasefire approach to prevent serious gun and gang-related violence (see Braga et al., 1999, 2001; Kennedy, 1996, 1997). This model captured the interest of law enforcement authorities in Glasgow, Scotland, who sought to adopt it as a model to address its persistent gang violence problem (see Davies, 2007, 2013; Kintrea et al., 2010; Patrick, 1973).

Human trafficking is a disgusting, degrading, and destructive practice. Motivated by money, power and ideology, traffickers prey on the vulnerable to provide a commodity to the depraved. Traffickers use violence, threats, deception, debt bondage, and other manipulative tactics to force people into servitude.

Human trafficking fuels criminal and violent extremist organizations, it degrades human life and social order, tears apart communities, and adversely affects national security. The practice and ideology that allows human trafficking to perpetuate controvert the established liberal international order. The ideology, networks, and monies linked to human trafficking are a direct threat to the national security of the United States. To ensure national security, the U.S. must effectively combat human trafficking.

Despite the enormous personal, social and economic costs associated with gang and gender-based violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, outside the region there exists a generally limited and distorted understanding of the sociopolitical context within which violence occurs.  This paper examines the sociopolitical context of gang and gender-based violence; the factors that undermine the ability and the willingness of governments in the region to protect the public; and the social, cultural, economic, gender and criminological variables that undermine internal relocation as a strategy for escaping threats and violence.