tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/gangs-3291/articlesGangs – The Conversation2024-03-28T22:47:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2265972024-03-28T22:47:52Z2024-03-28T22:47:52ZFour solutions could enable Haiti to emerge from its crisis – but they will take time<p>As <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/airlift-canadians-fleeing-haiti-1.7155916">Canada began airlifting citizens out of Haiti</a> this week, the country is in a complete state of crisis. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/kenyas-parliament-approves-police-deployment-haiti-2023-11-16/">An international mission led by Kenya</a> was due to arrive in early 2024, but <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/kenya-court-decision-haiti-force-1.7095513">suspended</a> because of the disastrous situation in the country. </p>
<p>The last straw was the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/haiti-ariel-henry-resigns-1.7140904">resignation of acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry</a> on March 11, 2024. While his resignation has brought some measure of calm, this could be short-lived unless it is followed up with co-ordinated political solutions.</p>
<p>Many countries are currently supporting the creation of a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/bob-rae-haiti-council-1.7141745#:%7E:text=Canada's%20ambassador%20to%20the%20United%20Nations%20says%20Haiti's%20transitional%20council,temporary%20replacement%20has%20been%20chosen.">Transitional Presidential Council</a> in Haiti. The United States has <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-haiti-us-aid-1.7140771">released $133 million in aid</a>, and the United Nations has announced it will create <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147521">“an air bridge”</a> between Haiti and the Dominican Republic to help deliver humanitarian aid.</p>
<p>Can these actions by the international community put an end to the political and institutional instability in Haiti? </p>
<p>A former civil servant in the Haitian public administration, where I worked for eight years, I am now a researcher and lecturer at the École nationale d'administration publique. My co-author has taught policy design and implementation in Haiti. The analyses and conclusions we present here are drawn from our professional experience and research work. </p>
<h2>Haiti in chaos</h2>
<p>In July 2018, Haiti was shaken by waves of violence with the population protesting rising fuel prices. These protests served as a precedent for the development of a phenomenon known as <a href="https://haitiantimes.com/2022/09/14/lockdown-protests-one-deadly-spread-in-haiti-after-fuel-hike-announcement-%EF%BF%BC/">“peyi lock”</a>, or lockdown of the country, which has since become recurrent. It brings <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1.6246428">all priority sectors</a>, such as schools and banks, to a standstill. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/haiti-violence-curfew-1.7132831">Prisons</a> have also been taken by storm. </p>
<p>The crisis is a multidimensional one: <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview">political, economic</a>, security and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1.6617820">humanitarian</a>. According to UNICEF, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/04/americas/haiti-ariel-henry-gangs-protests-bsap-intl-latam/index.html#:%7E:text=80%25%20of%20Port%2Dau%2DPrince%20controlled%20by%20gangs&text=In%20an%20impoverished%20country%20with,kidnapping%20business%2C%20per%20UN%20figures.">80 per cent</a> of the capital, Port-au-Prince, is controlled by criminal gangs, headed by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/10/haiti-gang-boss-kingpin-barbecue-jimmy-cherizier">infamous Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier</a>. </p>
<p>On March 8 and 9, 2024, the crisis came to a head when rival gangs sought to take <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-haiti-gangs-meeting-jamaica-1.7139578">control of key infrastructure</a>, <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/gangs-in-haiti-try-to-seize-control-of-main-airport-in-newest-attack-on-key-government-sites-1.6793277#:%7E:text=Heavily%20armed%20gangs%20tried%20to,the%20country's%20two%20biggest%20prisons.">including the main international airport and port</a>. </p>
<h2>A long-term political crisis</h2>
<p>Former president Jovenel Moïse, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/4/11/haiti-jovenel-moise-confirmed-as-new-president">elected in 2017</a>, did not call elections during his entire five-year term. This weakened both Haiti’s public institutions, which were already shaky, and the stability of the country’s <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/americas_eu-no-funding-or-european-observers-referendum-haiti/6205539.html">security</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/us/politics/haiti-assassination-court.html">assassination</a> of Moïse on July 7, 2021 – part of the country’s turbulent political history – only accelerated the growing fiasco in Haiti. The presidency has been vacant ever since. </p>
<p>The current crisis is not new. Its roots go back to Haiti’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Haitian-Revolution">independence in 1804</a>. The country has been through numerous political crises since then.</p>
<p><a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/minustah">MINUSTAH</a>, the United Nations mission, arrived in Haiti in June 2004, following the <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/93-931.html">overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide</a> on Feb. 29 of that year. One of its objectives was to help strengthen the Haitian National Police (PNH) to ensure public order in the prevailing climate of crisis and instability.</p>
<p>Five years after the definitive departure of MINUSTAH in 2019, the security climate in Haiti is toxic, even apocalyptic. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/minustah">composition of the workforce</a> of MINUSTAH is one reason for the mission’s failure. It included 8,756 military personnel and 3,555 police officers from more than 63 countries, each with their own way of doing things and operating. Under such conditions, it was difficult, if not impossible, to ensure consistency in the actions of the international mission. Moreover, the majority of MINUSTAH’s military and civilian personnel came from countries where respect for human rights is often flouted. </p>
<p>It should not come as a surprise that NGOs denounced <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/lib-docs/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/session12/HT/JS8-JointSubmission8-eng.pdf">cases of failure to respect human rights during MINUSTAH’s presence</a>. MINUSTAH is one of the most controversial missions in the history of the UN. It has been the subject of several allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse. </p>
<h2>Rethinking the mobilization of the international community in Haiti</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-haiti-ariel-henry-1.7141043">meeting</a> initiated by CARICOM <a href="https://caricom.org">(Caribbean Community)</a> was held on March 11 in Jamaica. The meeting brought together a number of international players to discuss the current crisis in Haiti and to promote the creation of a Transitional Presidential Council whose mandate would include organizing the forthcoming elections. </p>
<p>Haitian civil society has already appointed <a href="https://lenouvelliste.com/en/article/247301/pierre-jean-raymond-andre-and-rene-jean-jumeau-appointed-observers-in-the-presidential-council">its observers</a> to this Transitional Presidential Council. But the resigning Prime Minister, Henry, says he is still <a href="https://lenouvelliste.com/en/article/247304/ariel-henry-attend-de-recevoir-officiellement-les-noms-des-membres-du-conseil-presidentiel-pour-publication-dans-le-moniteur">waiting for the names of the members of this council from CARICOM</a> before making it official. So it seems that resolution of the crisis is, once again, getting bogged down.</p>
<p>We believe that the political, security and humanitarian disaster in Haiti calls for the mobilization of the international community. However, this effort needs to be rethought. </p>
<p>Since the country is institutionally weak, support must be planned for the long term and aim to gradually make institutions autonomous. Over the last few decades, support for Haiti has focused on the <a href="https://occah.uqam.ca/publications/haiti-mieux-comprendre-le-bilan-mitige-de-laction-humanitaire-internationale/">NGO channel</a>. Unfortunately, this choice does not help to strengthen the institutional capacities of public bodies. Once the NGOs leave, it becomes difficult for local players to take over. </p>
<p>Our field knowledge leads us to recommend a non-imposed approach that respects Haiti’s interests and strategic needs. We believe that the country will be able to overcome the crisis if it can benefit from both a strong public administration and a co-ordinated international aid effort led by countries whose institutions respect human rights. </p>
<p>This aid must think outside the box and prioritize a participatory approach that incorporates Haitians’ objectives for their country. In the aftermath of the earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010, the international community carried out unplanned interventions <a href="https://espace.enap.ca/id/eprint/447/">without taking into account the specific local context</a>. So it was hardly surprising that the response failed. </p>
<p>The international community’s support for Haiti must be long-term. The MINUSTAH experience demonstrates that one-off humanitarian or emergency interventions cannot be effective. We believe that the aid to be provided to Haiti must be thought through not in years, but in decades.</p>
<p>A multidimensional approach is needed to solidify, stabilize and perpetuate the state’s public institutions. Simply supporting the national police force is not enough to restore order. All the institutions need to be rebuilt.</p>
<h2>Haitians’ responsibilities</h2>
<p>In Haiti, political and civil society players have a responsibility to be proactive in proposing viable solutions. We believe that the wait-and-see attitude often displayed by Haiti’s intellectual elite must be abandoned. We are therefore arguing that a concerted effort by all the nation’s driving forces, including the diaspora, is essential for the country’s renewal. It is with these vital forces that international aid must operate, in a spirit of support and self-determination, rather than imposition, as the American economist and specialist in development economics, <a href="https://penguinshop.ca/products/9780143038825">William Easterly, shows in this essay</a>.</p>
<p>It seems to us, therefore, that to get Haiti out of its current crisis we need to adopt a four-step approach:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Form an international force whose member countries respect human rights.</p></li>
<li><p>Deploy this force to support the national police and restore order, peace and security in the country, including bringing to justice the criminals who are currently creating mayhem in the country.</p></li>
<li><p>Organize an Estates General to bring together the driving forces of civil society and draw up a plan to rebuild the country’s public institutions and make them sustainable.</p></li>
<li><p>Contribute to the training of public servants and to the development of the structures and processes that will be needed to make public institutions sustainable.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>In our opinion, this plan is achievable, provided that the countries that agree to intervene are willing to stay for a few decades.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226597/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Haiti will be able to emerge from the crisis it is in if it has a strong public administration and co-ordinated international aid from countries that respect human rights.Emmanuel Sael, Docteur en administration publique et chargé d'enseignement, École nationale d'administration publique (ENAP)Jean-François Savard, Professeur agrégé, École nationale d'administration publique (ENAP)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2239692024-03-27T17:26:37Z2024-03-27T17:26:37Z‘Bukelism,’ El Salvador’s flawed approach to gang violence, is no silver bullet for Ecuador<p>Ecuador’s unexpected <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-67964229">gang-related security crisis</a> has resurrected the debate on <a href="https://advox.globalvoices.org/2023/05/19/unfreedom-monitor-report-el-salvador/">what’s known as Bukelism</a>, the supposedly miraculous anti-crime strategy named after El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. </p>
<p>Bukelism is credited with dramatically reducing El Salvador’s drug-related homicide rates <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/opinion/el-salvador-bukele-election.html">from 38 per 100,000 people in 2019 to 7.8 per 100,000 in 2022</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/el-salvador-young-maverick-bukele-wins-presidential-election-but-countrys-future-remains-uncertain-111775">El Salvador: young maverick Bukele wins presidential election, but country's future remains uncertain</a>
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<p>This model has, however, come at the cost of an authoritarian drift in El Salvador and <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/from-bad-to-worse-nayib-bukeles-split-with-washington/">American sanctions for corruption</a>. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, on April 21, Ecuador will hold a <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-02-14/ecuador-sets-april-21-for-referendum-on-tightening-security">landmark referendum</a> to change its constitution in order to emulate the Salvadorean model. </p>
<p>If Ecuadorans vote in favour of these unprecedented reforms on security, they will not only give permanent and extensive powers to the country’s armed forces — along with immunity measures and the dismantlement of democratic checks and balances — but they will also normalize Bukelism, even though recent studies question its effectiveness.</p>
<h2>Eroding democracy</h2>
<p>Ecuador is among <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/nayib-bukeles-growing-list-of-latin-american-admirers/">a growing number of countries in the region</a> that want to implement this seemingly successful new style of the war on drugs. They’re apparently willing to disregard the impact on <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/el-salvador">freedom of the press and democracy</a> to curb the narco-trafficking crisis. </p>
<p>In 2022, El Salvador declared states of emergency several times and incarcerated more than 73,000 people, giving it the <a href="https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/prisoners/">highest incarceration rate in the world</a>. </p>
<p>These strong-arm tactics against crime give the public a reassuring image of control, even though the massive arrests targeted <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/thousands-of-innocent-people-jailed-in-el-salvadors-gang-crackdown">thousands of innocent people</a> and 327 citizens were forcibly disappeared, according to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/el-salvador-policies-practices-legislation-violate-human-rights/#:%7E:text=Among%20its%20recommendations%2C%20Amnesty%20International,process%20and%20nullify%20judicial%20guarantees">a recent Amnesty International report</a>. In addition, almost 200 died in state custody.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.omct.org/es/recursos/comunicados-de-prensa/comit%C3%A9-de-las-naciones-unidas-pide-a-el-salvador-prevenir-las-detenciones-arbitrarias-e-investigar-todos-los-actos-de-tortura">United Nations has called on El Salvador to stop torturing detainees</a>. <a href="https://www.americas.org/52204/">Attacks on female journalists by authorities and supporters of Bukele’s methods have also increased dramatically</a>, illustrating how Bukelism’s aggressive rhetoric has had a significant impact on journalists, especially women, in a country <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/el-salvador-women-abortion-obstetric-problems-prison-fight/">where abortion has also been completely banned</a> since Bukele’s election.</p>
<p>Yet, even the country’s worst infringements on the rule of law, including hundreds of show trials and laws <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/el-salvador-press-censorship-gang-law">threatening journalists with 10- to 15-year prison sentences for criticizing law enforcement</a>, are often regarded as evidence of <a href="https://insightcrime.org/investigations/how-bukele-government-overpowered-gangs-major-findings/">Bukelism’s effectiveness</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/el-salvadors-facade-of-democracy-crumbles-as-president-purges-his-political-opponents-161781">El Salvador's façade of democracy crumbles as president purges his political opponents</a>
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<h2>Bukelism’s popularity</h2>
<p>According to experts like Laura Chinchilla, Costa Rica’s former minister of public security and justice, the popularity of Bukelism <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/02/el-salvador-elections-bukele-bitcoin-crime-gang-policy/">is rising</a> largely because it’s frequently described in the media as the only effective model to fight gangs. Chinchilla argues that the Salvadorean model <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/cpw79166j9go">is only a “mirage</a>” that ignores other efficient security strategies that don’t dismantle the rule of law, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/OXAN-DB201595">such as her country’s efforts a decade ago</a>. </p>
<p>This myth of Bukelism’s effectiveness creates a dilemma for other democratic countries plagued by drug-trafficking violence: should they opt for the successes of Bukelism despite human rights violations, or choose other strategies that uphold democratic norms?</p>
<p>But this is a false dilemma based on incorrect assumptions, because Bukelism is not as effective as it seems.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://icg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2022-10/096-el-salvadors-prison-fever.pdf">recent report</a> from the International Crisis Group, one of the world’s most trusted non-governmental organizations on security issues, shows that drug-related homicide rates had already fallen by 60 per cent before Bukele’s massive crackdown in 2022. The report also points out that democratic countries like Ecuador can’t duplicate Bukelism without trading off democracy. </p>
<p>In fact, by stifling political opposition, imposing presidential control over the judicial, executive and legislative branches and muzzling the media, El Salvador has slipped to the <a href="https://www.idea.int/democracytracker/country/el-salvador">bottom 25 per cent of countries worldwide in terms of democracy</a> since Bukele was first elected in 2019.</p>
<p>Freedom House’s well-known annual study of political rights and civil liberties worldwide rated El Salvador as “<a href="https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores">partly free</a>” in 2023, along with countries such as Kuwait, Malaysia and Hong Kong.</p>
<h2>Bukelism’s questionable results</h2>
<p>Data from the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/departamento-de-justicia-anuncia-operaci-n-contra-l-deres-clave-de-grupo-criminal-ms-13">U.S. task force Vulcan</a> also show homicide rates have been steadily declining in El Salvador since 2016 due to deals with drug-trafficking gangs. </p>
<p>Bukele’s 2022 crackdown “<a href="https://insightcrime.org/investigations/el-salvador-keeping-lid-on-prisons/">frenzy,” as the think tank Insight Crime calls it</a>, was therefore merely a reaction to the cartels’ decision to disregard the deals they had previously made with the government. </p>
<p>El Salvador’s small population and its unique geography are also key factors in Bukelism’s purported success that don’t always exist elsewhere. Ecuador, for example, has three times El Salvador’s population and a completely different landscape. What’s more, the country’s drug gangs <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2024/1/11/24034891/ecuador-drugs-cocaine-cartels-violence-murder-daniel-naboa-columbia-crime">can’t be compared to other Latin American drug cartels</a> in terms of financing, weapons and equipment. </p>
<p>The importance of these factors is evident in failed attempts to implement Bukelism elsewhere. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/04/honduras-gangs-crackdown-xiomara-castro">Recent data shows that neighbouring Honduras</a> has failed to achieve significant results adopting similar measures. After more than six months of duplicating El Salvador’s war on gangs, the country still has the <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/honduras-makes-few-advances-against-crime-during-6-month-state-of-exception/">second-highest homicide rate in Latin America</a>. </p>
<p>At the opposite end, Colombia seems to be on track to achieve its new “<a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/petros-total-peace-plan-turns-one-good-bad-and-ugly">total peace plan</a>” by negotiating with its <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/cm5rlrgvkyno">most iconic drug cartels, including the Clan del Golfo</a>, and providing education for impoverished young people.</p>
<h2>Corruption is part of Bukelism</h2>
<p>But perhaps Bukelism’s biggest flaw is its widespread corruption. Despite <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-sanctions-officials-close-el-salvadors-bukele-alleged-corruption-2022-12-09/">U.S sanctions in 2022</a>, the rampant corruption among state entities, the armed forces and the private sector is too often ignored by the media.</p>
<p>This contributes to the false image of Bukele’s efficiency. Given that new laws restricting the <a href="https://rsf.org/en/serious-decline-press-freedom-el-salvador-rsf-and-its-partners-call-national-authorities-safeguard">freedom of the press</a> were recently adopted, and checks and balances such as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/el-salvador">judicial independence are under attack</a>, corruption is unlikely to receive the media attention it warrants in El Salvador.</p>
<p>This perfect storm of corruption, human rights violations, extended military powers, institutional impunity and <a href="https://ovcd.org/en/criminalisation/">criminalization of journalists</a> poses <a href="https://www.wola.org/analysis/states-of-exception-new-security-model-central-america/">serious risks</a> to the region.</p>
<p>Mexico embraced a model similar to Bukelism in the 2010s, and its war on drugs failed, transforming the country into <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/standing-firm/">one of the three worst in the world</a> in terms of the level of violence and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X17719258">human rights violations against environmental activists and journalists</a>.</p>
<p>Ecuador and other nations flirting with Bukelism must not make the same mistake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie-Christine Doran receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada-SSHRCC. </span></em></p>Ecuador is soon holding a referendum to decide whether to follow El Salvador’s controversial strategy to end drug trafficking.Marie-Christine Doran, Full Professor of Compared Politics, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2255142024-03-12T15:26:35Z2024-03-12T15:26:35ZJimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier: the gangster behind the violence in Haiti who may have political aspirations of his own<p>A violent uprising in the Caribbean nation of Haiti has put the spotlight on the man leading the mayhem – a homicidal gang boss and former policeman called Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier.</p>
<p>Over the past two weeks, Haiti’s powerful gangs have plunged a country already on life support into a coma. More than <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68462851">3,800 hardened criminals</a> were broken out of Haiti’s two biggest jails, the country’s international airport has been partially taken over, and gangs have <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68531759">tried to seize</a> the political quarter of its capital, Port-au-Prince.</p>
<p>Following the recent wave of violence, the country’s acting president, Ariel Henry, has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68541349">agreed to step down</a> once a transitional council has been created to run the country. Henry has become a pariah in Haitian politics. He is an unelected leader, taking power after Haiti’s president was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-57762246">assassinated</a> in 2021, and has presided over the country’s <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129537?utm_term=63bfaeecfacb1506e4d4474705eee640&utm_campaign=FirstEdition&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=firstedition_email">economic freefall</a>.</p>
<p>It is unclear how the current political crisis will be solved. But Chérizier has emerged from the armed insurrection as the most formidable leader in Haiti, and some suspect he may have political aspirations of his own. </p>
<p>He has <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/haitis-notorious-gang-leader-plots-future-amid-rebellion/story?id=107994731">claimed</a> to be fighting a holy war of sorts for the soul of Haiti, delivering “it back into the hands of its chosen people, the everyday Haitian beat down by years of abuse, racism and corruption.” </p>
<p>However, there is one crucial question. Can Chérizier reinvent himself from a feared gangland boss to a legitimate political leader?</p>
<p>Haiti’s history is replete with political leaders with very dubious pasts, and the country’s citizens are used to their violent machinations. François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francois-Duvalier">ruthless dictator</a> who served as president of the country between 1957 and 1971, institutionalised gangs and made them a part of the everyday life of the Haitian people.</p>
<p>His personal militia, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/23/archives/papa-doc-a-ruthless-dictator-kept-the-haitians-in-illiteracy-and.html">Tonton Macoute</a>, were given the license to kidnap, torture and kill thousands of their fellow Haitians during his brutal reign. Despite this, Papa Doc enjoyed an abundance of admiration and affection from those he lorded over with an iron fist. This was, in large part, because of his politics of patronage and unique brand of “grassroots” black nationalism.</p>
<p>Going by that antecedent, Chérizier is not an uncommon outsider. He may be a homicidal criminal, but he also enjoys a cult status in Port-au-Prince. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/10/haiti-gang-boss-kingpin-barbecue-jimmy-cherizier">Murals</a> in the impoverished Haitian slums he rules as his private fiefdom liken him to the Argentine guerrilla leader, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. In a country with a short supply of tall leaders, Chérizier is an outsize figure. </p>
<p>His alias, <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1873542/haiti-gang-leader-barbecue">“Barbecue”</a>, which he has earned due to his penchant for burning his opponents alive, has helped him build a “tough guy” image – an essential character trait for any aspiring leader in this violent country. The last political leader of Haiti of any significance, Papa Doc Duvalier, had this in plenty. </p>
<p>But unlike other contemporary gang leaders in Haiti, Chérizier is a man with a brain. He is articulate, aware and thinks big. Far from your traditional gang boss that exists in the twilight, he actively seeks out the limelight. </p>
<p>He likes giving interviews and goes the extra mile to impress the audience with his revolutionary political zeal. Over the past year, he has welcomed a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyGnxdDOGHo">succession of foreign reporters</a> to the gang-controlled neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince in attempt to justify the uprising. According to Chérizier, his brand of violent street politics is very much in tune with the need of the hour. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Chérizier speaking to Al Jazeera about the crisis in Haiti.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Political acumen</h2>
<p>The current political instability in Haiti has largely been manufactured by Chérizier and the gangs he leads as a cleverly thought-out survival strategy. But it is also couched in an astute reading of the Haitian national sentiment and popular mood. </p>
<p>In 2023, the UN security council <a href="https://apnews.com/article/haiti-un-kenya-armed-force-resolution-3749ac5db9d6c5903e61dee7b4206e6c">approved</a> the deployment of a Kenyan-led multinational peacekeeping force to Haiti to reign in the gangs and their spiralling violence. The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-66946156">stressed</a> that a “robust use of force” is needed to disarm the gangs and restore order. However, the mission has subsequently stalled. </p>
<p>Such an intervention would in all likelihood severely undermine the power of Haiti’s gangs. So, on the one hand, Chérizier’s decision to stir up a political uprising can be seen as a planned strategy to scare off any external forces seeking to impose order. </p>
<p>But Haitians have traditionally <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/04/1131254613/haiti-sanctions-foreign-intervention-protests-gangs-cholera">opposed</a> any foreign intervention in their domestic affairs, regardless of the state of disarray or chaos. As a fiercely independent people, they proudly stand as the first black republic to emerge following a successful <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Haitian-Revolution#ref343634">slave revolt</a> during the high noon of European colonialism. </p>
<p>Chérizier has used Henry’s unpopularity and controversial decision to deploy foreign police officers in the nation to drum up a nationwide violent fervour for political change. In a video call to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/haitis-notorious-gang-leader-plots-future-amid-rebellion/story?id=107994731">ABC News</a> on March 11, he said: “The first step is to overthrow Ariel Henry and then we will start the real fight against the current system, the system of corrupt oligarchs and corrupt traditional politicians.” </p>
<p>In the past, Chérizier has floated his own <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/akeyz8/haiti-jimmy-cherizier-government">“peace plan”</a> for the country. He has demanded that gang members be given total amnesty and that the country is governed by a “council of sages”, implying leaders such as him would have a formal political role. </p>
<p>With Henry now out of the political scene, the chance that Haitians will be forced to embrace such an outcome may not be far-fetched after all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225514/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amalendu Misra has received funding from
British Academy /
Nuffield Foundation</span></em></p>Haiti is descending into anarchy, causing the gang leader behind the violence to emerge as the country’s most powerful leader.Amalendu Misra, Professor, Department: Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2251162024-03-11T09:26:55Z2024-03-11T09:26:55ZHow Haiti became a failed state<p>The US military started <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/10/us-report-airlift-embassy-staff-haiti-gangs-fighting-port-au-prince">airlifting</a> embassy staff out of Haiti overnight as the Caribbean island descends further into chaos. Rival gangs have joined forces to overrun the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, in an attempt to force the resignation of the acting president, Ariel Henry. </p>
<p>The gang leader behind the violence, Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/06/haiti-gangs-prime-minister">warned</a> there will be a “civil war that will lead to genocide” if Henry does not step down.</p>
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<p>Over the past week, Haiti’s gangs have carried out a series of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68507837">coordinated attacks</a> on prisons and police stations, breaking more than <a href="https://apnews.com/article/haiti-prison-break-2788f145b0d26efc2aa199e923724e0f">3,800 criminals</a> out of Haiti’s two biggest jails, while also laying siege to the country’s port and airport. </p>
<p>Haiti is already facing a humanitarian crisis. It is among the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview">poorest countries</a> in Latin America and the Caribbean, with <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/135966/file/Haiti-2022-COAR.pdf">90% of the population</a> living below the poverty line. And following the recent wave of violence, around <a href="https://www.rescue.org/eu/press-release/haiti-violence-grows-ensuring-sufficient-funding-available-key-deliver-humanitarian">15,000 people</a> who were already housed in internal displacement camps have been forced to leave again. </p>
<p>Henry came to power in 2021 under a deal agreed with the opposition following the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/07/haiti-president-jovenel-moise-reportedly-assassinated">assassination</a> of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse. Henry is widely considered illegitimate by the Haitian public and was due to stand down by February 7. But he seems to be <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/in-haiti-crisis-has-roots-in-history-of-foreign-interference/">extending his stay</a>. </p>
<p>The country last went to the polls in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/haiti-presidential-election-result-protest-jovenel-moise">2016</a> and there is no timetable for new elections. Over the past six years, the Haitian parliament has ground to a halt: no major laws have been passed and only one budget was voted on.</p>
<p>The regime is weak and lacks control over the country’s territories, leading to a situation where Haiti finds itself hostage to its criminal gangs. US officials have said they will not pressure Henry to leave, but they are urging him to facilitate the transition to a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/6/us-denies-pressuring-haiti-pm-henry-to-resign-urges-political-transition">democratic government</a>.</p>
<h2>Turbulent history</h2>
<p>Violent gangs are not new to Haiti. Between 1957 and 1986, Haiti was ruled as a dictatorship by the Duvalier family. Following an unsuccessful military coup in 1958, François Duvalier sought to bypass the armed forces by creating a private and personal militia called the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/23/archives/papa-doc-a-ruthless-dictator-kept-the-haitians-in-illiteracy-and.html">“Tonton Macoutes”</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://coha.org/tonton-macoutes/">Macoutes</a> consisted of illiterate fanatics-turned-reckless gunmen acting as a paramiltary force. They were not accountable to any state body or court and were fully empowered to dispose of the paranoid president’s enemies. </p>
<p>The group was dismantled in 1986, but its members continued to terrorise the population. Gangs have been <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GITOC-Gangs-of-Haiti.pdf">involved</a> in massacres, attacks on labour strikes or peasant uprisings, and politically motivated assassinations ever since. </p>
<p>Haiti took its first step toward a full democratic transition in 1990, electing Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president. But the Aristide government was overthrown by a <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2021/political-anatomy-haiti-armed-gangs">military coup</a> the following year and the Haitian army was subsequently dismantled. The Haitian army was a highly corrupt force, but doing away with it meant the country could no longer fight organised crime. </p>
<p>By that time, Haitian drug traffickers were <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/extradition-drug-smuggler-underscores-haitis-historical-cocaine-transit-hub-status/">working closely</a> with Colombia’s Medellín Cartel. They were corrupting officials and the police while shifting hundreds of tons of cocaine from Colombia to secluded docks in Haiti and onwards to the US. Drug trafficking became a little known, yet significant source of income for Haiti’s political and business elites who provided protection and logistical support for drug traffickers.</p>
<p>Efforts aimed at disbanding certain armed groups and even the armed forces never fully succeeded. They never disarmed and have converted themselves into far-right vigilantes such as community defence groups and paramilitaries.</p>
<p>Haiti was then struck by an earthquake in 2010. This allowed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/20/haiti-escaped-prisoners-cite-soleil#">thousands of inmates</a> to escape from crumbling jails and take over these self-defence groups. These younger, less politically affiliated and loosely organised gangs are developing into the criminal organisations that are wreaking havoc across Haiti today.</p>
<h2>A state run by gangs</h2>
<p>Gangs have grown rapidly in number over the past few years. An estimated <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/haiti-gangs-organized-crime/">200 criminal gangs</a> now exist in Haiti, and around 95 in the capital, Port-au-Prince, alone. This has resulted in massive insecurity, kidnappings, and large-scale attacks on the police, politicians, journalists and civilians. </p>
<p>Gangs now tend to be affiliated to two groups. The most prevalent gang structure is that of “G-9 and Family”, a federation of nine gangs led by alias “Barbecue”. Founded in 2020, the G-9 has been <a href="https://insightcrime.org/haiti-organized-crime-news/g9-family-profile/">linked</a> to Moïse and Henry’s Haitian Tèt Kale Party (Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale – PHTK), for whom the federation is alleged to have ensured votes.</p>
<p>The G-9’s focus is mostly on extortion and kidnappings. It has taken taken control of key economic activities, including the main entry and exit points of Port-au-Prince, and critical infrastructure such as ports and oil terminals, charging “protection payments” for any institutions that operate in these areas.</p>
<p>The recent jailbreaks were a joint operation with “G-Pep”, another gang federation that was previously linked to PHTK’s political opponents.</p>
<h2>No end in sight</h2>
<p>To bring this crisis to an end, Haiti needs an elected government. But holding elections in this climate won’t be an easy task, nor will it solve the deep-rooted causes of lawlessness.</p>
<p>The conditions for free and fair elections do not currently exist, and the infrastructure that would make them possible is absent. Equally, any free and fair election should take place in a context where gangs do not intimidate voters to vote in a particular way. </p>
<p>In October 2023, the UN Security Council <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/02/haiti-un-security-force-kenya-gangs">voted</a> to send a Kenyan-led multinational security force to Haiti to reign in the gangs and their spiralling violence. However, the peacekeeping mission has been delayed and no other countries have come forward to provide the resources required to restore peace. </p>
<p>But an election is long overdue, and the status-quo will not solve anything.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicolas Forsans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Haiti is facing a wave of chaos as gang violence grips the country.Nicolas Forsans, Professor of Management and Co-director of the Centre for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210922024-01-29T13:36:08Z2024-01-29T13:36:08ZEl Salvador voters set to trade democracy for promise of security in presidential election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571693/original/file-20240126-23-8oa48x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C424%2C3165%2C1990&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">El Salvador President Nayib Bukele looks set to be reelected.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-of-el-salvador-nayib-bukele-looks-on-during-the-news-photo/1801400527?adppopup=true">Hector Vivas/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is little doubt who will win the El Salvador presidential election when <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/meet-the-candidates-el-salvador/">voters go to the polls</a> on Feb. 4, 2024.</p>
<p>Incumbent <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0241105c-ab30-40f6-ac87-b879ffb6c84c">Nayib Bukele</a> has the initiative heading into the vote, having made a series of eye-catching decisions <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/04/el-salvador-anti-corruption-candidate-nayib-bukele-wins-presidential-election">since coming to power</a> in 2019, such as making <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/202311/el_salvador/27164/Crypto-Turmoil-Pushes-Bukele-Back-Toward-Traditional-Financial-Institutions.htm">bitcoin legal tender</a>, issuing <a href="https://elfaro.net/tuits/los-tuits-eliminados/">policy through social media</a>, and most significantly, declaring a nationwide “<a href="https://www.wola.org/2022/09/corruption-state-of-emergency-el-salvador/">state of emergency</a>” in response to gang violence.</p>
<p>The Bitcoin experiment has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/13/el-salvadors-bitcoin-holdings-down-60percent-to-60-million-one-year-later.html">all but failed</a>. But that hasn’t dented his prospects of victory.</p>
<p>The reason: A majority of Salvadorans <a href="https://uca.edu.sv/iudop/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Bol.-Eva-de-anio-2023.pdf">feel safer</a> than they have in years. Under Bukele’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/09/12/the-rise-of-nayib-bukele-el-salvadors-authoritarian-president">authoritarian rule</a>, the homicide rate has officially decreased, many street vendors no longer pay a gang tax, and taxi drivers aren’t as worried about hijackings or assault. And that has led to Bukele’s widespread popularity across the country. In an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvadors-bukele-looks-set-cruise-controversial-presidential-reelection-poll-2024-01-16/">early January 2024 poll</a>, the incumbent was ahead by 71%. He is, in other words, a shoo-in.</p>
<p>But this sense of safety has come at a cost. Bukele’s program to curb crime has led to an erosion of civil rights – <a href="https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-30/bukeles-hell-in-el-salvador-a-country-submerged-in-a-police-state.html">tens of thousands of people have been detained</a> in a crackdown on organized crime, with those imprisoned <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/el-salvador">subjected to overcrowding and alleged human rights abuses</a>, including torture.</p>
<p>Critics also point to the <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/202105/columns/25464/This-Is-How-a-Republic-Dies.htm">breakdown of democratic checks and balances</a> across government since Bukele first took office. He <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvadors-appointment-new-judges-raises-fears-power-grab-2021-06-30/">replaced members of the judiciary</a> with allies, and he is running for president again despite constitutional law banning a <a href="https://www.cispes.org/article/why-consecutive-reelection-unconstitutional-el-salvador">second consecutive presidential term</a>.</p>
<p>So when Salvadorans cast their votes, they’ll be faced with the question: Is the short-term security Bukele is offering worth the <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/latin-america-erupts-millennial-authoritarianism-in-el-salvador/">serious backslide</a> on democracy taking place in El Salvador?</p>
<h2>Presidential abuse of power</h2>
<p>Bukele’s rollback of democratic norms has been relentless. As soon as his political party Nuevas Ideas won a supermajority in the legislature, he <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvadors-appointment-new-judges-raises-fears-power-grab-2021-06-30/">purged the Supreme Court of five justices</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56970026">removed the attorney general</a>, actions that have allowed him to reinterpret articles of the Salvadoran Constitution that ban him from running in this election.</p>
<p>There are, in fact, six articles of the constitution prohibiting presidents from serving a second consecutive term in office. Bukele specifically took aim at <a href="https://www.cispes.org/article/why-consecutive-reelection-unconstitutional-el-salvador">Article 152</a>, which stipulates that presidents can’t seek immediate reelection if they served in the previous term for more than six months.</p>
<p>Bukele circumvented the rule by going on <a href="https://www.lawg.org/international-organizations-echo-salvadoran-civil-society-bukele-stepping-down-as-president-of-el-salvador-does-nothing-to-change-the-unconstitutionality-of-his-reelection-bid/">leave from presidential duties</a> on Nov. 30, 2023, a move widely regarded as a stunt since he was still campaigning and maintaining the trappings of his office, such as <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/202312/opinion/27182/Fraud-upon-Fraud-Bukele-Is-Not-on-Presidential-Leave.htm">presidential immunity and a security detail</a>. He and members of his administration also pointed to a <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/202312/opinion/27182/Fraud-upon-Fraud-Bukele-Is-Not-on-Presidential-Leave.htm">so-called “hidden article” in the constitution</a> that would allow him to run again, but international <a href="https://www.state.gov/salvadoran-re-election-ruling-undermines-democracy/">legal experts have refuted</a> such a loophole.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://emerson.edu/faculty-staff-directory/mneesha-gellman">scholar who studies comparative politics and violence</a> in the Global South and the U.S, I’ve been following the plight of democracy in El Salvador for many years. My <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y9F6SeYjZUkoF-T4VaDBOXMzQIjQa8WW/view">working paper</a> in 2022 on Bukele’s democratic backsliding notes, in addition to his remaking of the Supreme Court and firing of the attorney general, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/02/el-salvador-new-laws-threaten-judicial-independence">legislation that forced into retirement</a> judges and prosecutors over the age of 60. This <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/el-salvador">stalled the trial of the El Mozote massacre of 1981</a>, a lingering trauma from the Salvadoran civil war. </p>
<h2>El Salvador’s history of violence</h2>
<p>Bukele was elected following two presidents representing the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN, a former rebel group that’s now a recognized political party. Like Bukele, both of these presidents tried for years to <a href="https://saisreview.sais.jhu.edu/negotiating-gangs-el-salvador-truce/#:%7E:text=The%20gang%20truce%20in%20El,of%20the%20initiative%20are%20undeniable">negotiate with gangs</a> while cracking down on them, providing <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/evidence-of-gang-negotiations-belie-el-salvador-presidents-claims/">perks for incarcerated gang members</a> in exchange for state input about how and where gang violence transpired. Neither was successful.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man wears a hat showing the image of President Nayib Bukele." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571699/original/file-20240126-15-qw96fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nayib Bukele has many supporters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-wears-a-headband-with-nayib-bukeles-electoral-campaign-news-photo/1782807423?adppopup=true">Aphotografia/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, for the majority of Salvadorans, physical violence has been a frequent part of daily life for generations. <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Democratization-and-Memories-of-Violence-Ethnic-minority-rights-movements/Gellman/p/book/9781138597686#:%7E:text=Democratization%20and%20Memories%20of%20Violence%20draws%20on%20six%20case%20studies,consideration%20of%20minority%20rights%20agendas.">I have written</a> about the 1932 massacre of Indigenous and working-class people, and the <a href="https://cja.org/where-we-work/el-salvador/">civil war</a> from 1980 to 1992 as critical junctures that inform contemporary Salvadoran politics. The war forced families to flee to the U.S., where <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/central-america/el-salvador/life-under-gang-rule-el-salvador">boys and young men formed gangs for protection</a> and then were eventually deported back to El Salvador. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/el-salvador">Gang violence, as well as state violence</a>, has made El Salvador unsafe in the 21st century.</p>
<h2>Bukele’s safety agenda and violation of civil rights</h2>
<p>Bukele’s “territorial control plan,” launched in 2019 shortly after he was elected, did little to diminish this gang violence. So after gangs <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/29/1089390179/el-salvador-grabs-1-000-gang-suspects-in-response-to-weekend-killings">murdered 87 people in a single weekend</a> in March 2022, Bukele declared a “state of emergency.” Aimed not only at gangs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/el-salvador-press-censorship-gang-law">but journalists and anyone Bukele considers opposition</a>, the state of emergency has, for the past 22 months, seen the suspension of many constitutional rights – including the right to assemble, due process, and privacy in telecommunications.</p>
<p>By the end of 2023, over <a href="https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-30/bukeles-hell-in-el-salvador-a-country-submerged-in-a-police-state.html">74,000 people were incarcerated</a> in the crackdown, with less than a third of those arrested during the state of emergency estimated to be gang members. Many others were charged without proper evidence – on the testimony of neighbors, on the basis of prior arrest records, or simply for having tattoos, as many Salvadorans told me in my 2024 fieldwork.</p>
<p>And once in prison, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/el-salvador">human rights abuses abound</a>, including torture, inadequate food supply and poor sanitation, according to human rights groups. Family members of incarcerated people I’ve interviewed say that to keep their loved ones alive, they are expected to send food, clothing and hygiene products via packets into the prison at a cost of $100-$300 per month, despite a national monthly minimum wage of just $365. </p>
<p>Meanwhile women, children, LGBTQ+ people and others across El Salvador continue to be victimized.</p>
<p>My interviews in January 2024 in various parts of El Salvador suggest that police and <a href="https://www.laprensagrafica.com/elsalvador/Procuradora----condena-violacion-de-nina-por-militares-20230929-0082.html">military personnel</a> have <a href="https://www.elsalvador.com/noticias/nacional/sargento-violo-nina-13-anos-amenazo-regimen-excepcion/1092614/2023/">taken over previously gang-held terrain</a>, replacing gang violence with state violence.</p>
<h2>Public opinion and a return to dictatorship</h2>
<p>Many Salvadorans say they <a href="https://insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/El-SalvadorsPerpetual-State-of-Emergency-How-Bukeles-Government-Overpowered-Gangs-InSight-Crime-Nov-2023.pdf">feel safer</a> since Bukele instated a state of emergency – now called the “state of exception.” A December 2023 poll found that most citizens are now more <a href="https://uca.edu.sv/iudop/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PPT-Ev-Anio-2023.pdf">concerned with the economy</a>. Bukele timed announcement of his crackdown well, right after his <a href="https://www.laprensagrafica.com/elsalvador/Encuesta-UCA-regimen-es-el-pilar-de-popularidad-de-Bukele-20230119-0087.html">popularity began to wane</a>.</p>
<p>But more recently, I’ve spoken with dozens of civil society stakeholders – including human rights workers, journalists, former lawmakers and current government employees – who say that the <a href="https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-deception-human-rights-under-bukele/">picture of an eminently safer El Salvador</a> doesn’t reflect the lives of Salvadorans living behind bars or in communities exploited by police and armed forces. </p>
<p>Still, on Feb. 4, Salvadorans are likely to overlook those abuses and cast their vote in favor of security for the majority. And, to some extent, who can blame them? After years of civil war and then gang war, many Salvadorans are traumatized by violence. The promise of safety is compelling, even if it means living in a dictatorship. </p>
<p>But if and when the international community recognizes the legitimacy of the election, it will do so in the face of severe constitutional and procedural irregularities. Bukele’s efforts to dismantle those safeguards have already left El Salvador’s regime on shaky ground. A fresh mandate by the electorate might push Bukele further down an authoritarian path.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mneesha Gellman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mass arrests and the suspension of constitutional rights have been a feature of President Nayib Bukele’s tenure. A fresh mandate from voters will likely entrench his hardline approach.Mneesha Gellman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2175572023-12-19T01:44:07Z2023-12-19T01:44:07ZNZ’s new government is getting tough on gangs – but all the necessary laws already exist<p>The new coalition government has made its campaign promise to crack down on gangs a priority in its <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/coalition-government-unveils-100-day-plan">100-day action plan</a>. But whether the new “get tough” policy genuinely plugs gaps in existing legislation is very much open to question.</p>
<p>The policy was laid out in a <a href="https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/publications/government-expectations-of-commissioner-of-police/">letter of expectations</a> to the police commissioner from new police minister Mark Mitchell in early December, including: banning gang patches in public, stopping public gang meetings, and preventing gang members communicating with each other.</p>
<p>The government also promises extra police powers to search for guns, and to make gang membership an aggravating feature at sentencing. </p>
<p>We all have a right to be safe from harm, including harm by gangs. But there are already many relevant offences in the law that exist to protect the general public. </p>
<h2>No need for new law</h2>
<p>First, it is already an offence to be in a criminal gang. Section 98A of the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM327382.html">Crimes Act 1961</a> allows up to ten years’ imprisonment for participating in an “organised criminal group”. This involves three or more people who aim to commit serious violence, or who benefit from offending, liable for at least four years’ imprisonment. </p>
<p>As with most serious criminal offences, a guilty mind is required: you have to know it is a criminal group, realise your involvement might contribute to criminal activity, and also be aware the criminal activity might help the criminal group.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-needs-a-new-gang-strategy-political-consensus-would-be-a-good-start-185677">New Zealand needs a new gang strategy – political consensus would be a good start</a>
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<p>It is also a criminal conspiracy to agree to commit offences. And our “joint enterprise” law in section 66(2) of the Crimes Act means those who agree to commit one offence are also guilty of other foreseeable offences committed by the group.</p>
<p>There are also many offences against public order in the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1981/0113/latest/whole.html">Summary Offences Act 1981</a>, including disorderly or offensive behaviour, and associating with those convicted of theft, violence or drugs offending. </p>
<p>As well, there is the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0056/latest/DLM4301602.html">Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Act 2013</a>. This bans gang insignia in or on premises operated by central and local government, including schools, hospitals and swimming pools, but not Kāinga Ora housing.</p>
<h2>Guns and gangs</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1983/0044/latest/DLM72622.html">Arms Act 1983</a> makes the privilege of obtaining a firearms licence dependent on being a “fit and proper person”; gang membership and convictions already mean this test is not met. </p>
<p>Section 18 of the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2012/0024/latest/DLM2136536.html">Search and Surveillance Act 2012</a> allows the police to search any person or place if they reasonably suspect a breach of the Arms Act.</p>
<p>And when it comes to sentencing, section 9(1) of the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0009/latest/DLM135342.html">Sentencing Act 2002</a> already requires judges to consider an offence to be worse if committed as part of organised criminal activity. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2009/0008/latest/whole.html">Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009</a> allows the seizure of criminal gains even if there has not been a conviction.</p>
<p>In short, if arresting our way out of a problem works, there are already many criminal justice tools. We should also note that the <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/the-whole-truth/132478912/national-says-gang-membership-is-rising-is-it">apparent growth</a> in gang membership has occurred despite these various offences and powers.</p>
<h2>Rights and their limits</h2>
<p>We also need to ask whether the new anti-gang measures breach fundamental principles such as human rights. These are part of New Zealand law, through the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM224792.html">New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990</a> and the common law. They also reflect international standards that New Zealand has agreed to respect. </p>
<p>Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes proclaiming gang affiliation. There is also the right to associate with others, and to assemble peacefully. </p>
<p>But all of these rights have to be balanced against other interests. The Bill of Rights Act sums this up by allowing “reasonable limits” that “can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/policing-by-consent-is-not-woke-it-is-fundamental-to-a-democratic-society-155866">Policing by consent is not ‘woke’ — it is fundamental to a democratic society</a>
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<p>Essentially, legislation that restricts rights requires a legitimate purpose. This is usually easy to show. But it is also necessary to consider whether such restrictions work and do so in a way that is proportionate to the breach of rights. </p>
<p>We have an idea what the courts might say. For example, in <a href="https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/assets/cases/2011/sc-10-2010-valerie-morse-v-the-police.pdf">Morse v Police</a>, the Supreme Court decided burning the New Zealand flag during an Anzac Day parade to protest New Zealand involvement in Afghanistan was not offensive behaviour, because it did not go beyond what people should be expected to tolerate in a democracy. </p>
<p>And in <a href="https://nz.vlex.com/vid/schubert-v-wanganui-district-793834781">Schubert v Wanganui District Council</a>, the High Court decided the ban on gang patches in all public places in the district went too far; the evidence did not show that something more tailored would have been as effective.</p>
<h2>Tackling membership is the challenge</h2>
<p>The government might suggest its main aim is to extend the 2013 legislation banning gang patches in government premises to all public places. But that legislation is probably acceptable because it has limits. </p>
<p>The Bill of Rights Act also protects against discrimination. Here we have to recall that Māori are disproportionately imprisoned, and disproportionately affected by socioeconomic factors (including abuse in state care and incarceration) that seem linked to gang recruitment. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-claims-nzs-policing-is-too-woke-crime-rates-are-largely-static-and-even-declining-156103">Despite claims NZ's policing is too 'woke', crime rates are largely static — and even declining</a>
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<p>Since it is likely that action against gangs will affect Māori to a greater extent, a <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/">Waitangi Tribunal</a> claim may be expected.</p>
<p>To abide by existing human rights provisions in the law, the government will need to craft various exceptions to the ban on gang patches, or to people meeting or communicating with each other. </p>
<p>Alternatively, if it is comfortable with breaches of human rights, it can make that clear. This is possible because the Bill of Rights Act can be sidestepped by parliament using legislative language that precludes consistency with such rights. </p>
<p>This would still leave the law in breach of New Zealand’s international obligations, with resulting reputational damage.</p>
<p>But we should also be mindful that criminal justice powers represent an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. People’s right to be safe is more likely to be secured by other steps that turn people away from gang membership in the first place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217557/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kris Gledhill is currently working on a project relating to the Sentencing Act 2002 the expenses for which are funded by the Borrin Foundation. He is also a co-opted member of the Criminal Bar Association's Executive Committee. The views expressed in this article are his own.</span></em></p>The government’s promised crack-down on gangs may have to work around existing legislation – and human rights provisions.Kris Gledhill, Professor of Law, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2114582023-08-16T07:29:49Z2023-08-16T07:29:49ZEcuador: how this ‘island of peace’ in Latin America has become a hotbed of violence run by criminal gangs and drug cartels<p>After <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-66457472">the assassination</a> of Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in Quito on August 9, former president Rafael Correa posted a message on his social media feed: “<a href="https://twitter.com/MashiRafael/status/1689463483732033536">Ecuador has become a failed state</a>.” It was a stark message as the country prepares to go to the polls on Sunday August 20.</p>
<p>Villavicencio’s shooting followed the murder on July 23 of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-66289355">Agustín Intriago</a>, the mayor of the port city of Manta, and <a href="https://gazettengr.com/candidate-assassinated-ahead-of-national-assembly-election-in-ecuador/">that of Rider Sánchez</a>, who was running for a seat in the national assembly when he was shot dead on July 17 while campaigning in the northern coastal province of Esmeraldas. </p>
<p>Sunday’s parliamentary and presidential election are being held as a result of outgoing president Guillermo Lasso dissolving parliament in May. Lasso <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ecuador-president-dissolves-legislature-bringing-elections-forward-2023-05-17/">faced impeachment by opposition parties</a> over allegations of connections to corrupt government contracts, something he and his supporters <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/16/impeachment-hearing-begins-in-ecuador-against-president-lasso">vehemently deny</a>. Villavicencio campaigned on a pro-security and anti-corruption platform and, while not considered a frontrunner, his assassination deeply shocked the nation.</p>
<h2>Island of peace?</h2>
<p>Sitting between Colombia to the north and Peru to the south, two of the world’s largest producers of cocaine, Ecuador was until recently known as an “island of peace” in this war-torn region. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542798/original/file-20230815-19-70up5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Locator map of Ecuador showing Colombia and Peru." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542798/original/file-20230815-19-70up5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542798/original/file-20230815-19-70up5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542798/original/file-20230815-19-70up5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542798/original/file-20230815-19-70up5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542798/original/file-20230815-19-70up5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542798/original/file-20230815-19-70up5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542798/original/file-20230815-19-70up5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ecuador sits between Colombia and Peru, two of the world’s biggest producers of cocaine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/world-map-south-american-continent-peru-2333922879">Libin Jose/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>This had a great deal to do with the success of Correa’s policy while president from 2007-2017 of <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/26/18281325/ecuador-legalize-gangs">effectively legalising gangs</a> as “cultural associations” or urban youth groups. This allowed them to apply for government funding and grants in return for a pledge to end violence. </p>
<p>Correa’s policy saw the country’s <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/ecuador-crime-lasso-corruption-politics-protests-violence/?loggedin=1">homicide rate fall sharply</a>. In the past five years, however, the murder rate has begun to increase sharply again, making Ecuador one of the region’s <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ECU/ecuador/murder-homicide-rate">most violent countries</a>.</p>
<p>Villaviciencio had already made plenty of enemies when he took up politics, having exposed multiple cases of corruption during his time as a journalist. In January, while still a member of the national assembly before its dissolution, Villavicencio <a href="https://apnews.com/article/725a9f1ba7bb9f5f9796b1e2fe121946">denounced 21 mayoral candidates</a> for alleged links to drug trafficking. He also revealed he’d received death threats from <em>Los Choneros</em>, one of Ecuador’s most powerful “mega-gangs”, involved in illegal activities ranging from <a href="https://insightcrime.org/ecuador-organized-crime-news/ecuador-profile/">narco-trafficking to contract killings and extortion</a>.</p>
<p>Villavicencio’s killer was shot by security forces in the immediate aftermath of the attack, and six further suspects have been detained. They are <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-66489199#">all of Colombian origin</a> and reportedly members of criminal groups. After decades of armed conflict, Colombia has a reputation for producing and exporting <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/07/26/colombian-mercenaries-haiti-jovenel-moise-assassination/">contract killers</a>. Both <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-57762246">Haiti’s former president, Jovenel Moïse</a>, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/18/four-jailed-in-colombia-for-honeymoon-of-prosecutor">Paraguayan anti-corruption prosecutor Marcelo Pecci</a> were assassinated by Colombian mercenaries. </p>
<h2>Culture of violence</h2>
<p>As recently as 2018, Ecuador had <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/insight-crime-2018-homicide-roundup/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=7466034b-64f2-44a1-ace5-13c89cd0dac0">one of the lowest annual homicide rates in Latin America</a>, at 5.7 people per 100,000. This compared favourably with neighbouring <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/984798/homicide-rate-colombia/#:%7E:text=In%202022%2C%20there%20were%20approximately,of%2026.8%20a%20year%20earlier.">Colombia at 25</a> people per 100,000, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/867725/homicide-rate-brazil/#:%7E:text=Brazil%3A%20homicide%20rate%202012%2D2021&text=In%202021%2C%20the%20homicide%20rate,in%20the%20country%20since%202012.">Brazil at 27.6</a> and <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/984669/homicide-rate-venezuela/">Venezuela at 81.4</a> – a rate which has since fallen to the (still-calamitous) level of 40 murders per 100,000 people.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542819/original/file-20230815-19-5xb8yc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bar chart showing homicide rate in Ecuador" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542819/original/file-20230815-19-5xb8yc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542819/original/file-20230815-19-5xb8yc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542819/original/file-20230815-19-5xb8yc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542819/original/file-20230815-19-5xb8yc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542819/original/file-20230815-19-5xb8yc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542819/original/file-20230815-19-5xb8yc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542819/original/file-20230815-19-5xb8yc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">After falling in the early 2000s up to 2016, the homicide rate in Ecuador has risen rapidly over the past few years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Statista</span></span>
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<p>But following a recent sharp rise in drug trafficking and gang violence, Ecuador is now one of the region’s four most violent countries. The latest data shows the homicide rate <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/why-has-ecuador-become-so-violent-2023-08-10/#">increasing to 22 people per 100,000 in 2022</a> – above the average of 20 per 100,000 for Latin America (but still below that of Colombia at 27 per 100,000). </p>
<p>Much of this violence is directed from the country’s jails, which are now <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/26/americas/ecuador-drug-violence-crisis-explainer-intl/index.html#:%7E:text=The%20country%20has%20also%20lost,a%20series%20of%20macabre%20massacres.">virtually controlled by criminal gangs</a>. Despite being incarcerated, gang leaders control a wide range of criminal activities – including networks which move cocaine from Colombia and Peru through Ecuador’s massive ports into major drug markets in Europe and the US.</p>
<p>Ecuador itself isn’t a major drug-producer and, unlike Colombia, has no history of guerilla or paramilitary activity. Yet, in the past 15 years, the country developed into a major logistical hub for international criminal organisations. In an <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-66469463">interview with BBC Mundo</a> in 2019, Ecuador’s former director of military intelligence, Colonel Mario Pazmiño, estimated that 40% of Colombia’s cocaine production transited via Ecuador – and data on seizures and raids on processing labs suggests Ecuador’s role as a transit hub has <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/insight-crimes-cocaine-seizure-round-up-2022/">increased further since then</a>.</p>
<p>Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement and the resulting dismantling of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) was a turning point. Until then, Farc controlled drug trafficking routes from southern Colombia to Ecuadorean ports. Its dismantling led to the creation of dissident groups in Colombia, and opened the door to Mexican criminal organisations attempting to gain control of Farc routes. </p>
<p>According to the UN’s 2023 Global Report on Cocaine, the <em>Cártel de Sinaloa</em> and <em>Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación</em> “<a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/cocaine/Global_cocaine_report_2023.pdf">largely control the trafficking corridors between Mexico and the US</a>” and are fighting for supremacy. Villaviciencio had campaigned on the growth of this drug trafficking and explicitly named the organisations involved, for which he was murdered.</p>
<h2>Bleak outlook</h2>
<p>The outlook for Ecuador isn’t promising. Global demand for cocaine continues to increase and production in Colombia is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombias-potential-cocaine-production-record-high-un-says-2022-10-20/">at a record high</a>. The UN estimates that one-third of Colombia’s illicit coca fields are located within 10km of its frontier with Ecuador. </p>
<p>This can only mean that Ecuador’s role in the drug supply chains continues to grow in importance, especially as peace efforts in Colombia continue. Venezuela, through which 24% of global cocaine production transits, <a href="https://dialogo-americas.com/articles/is-venezuela-becoming-a-major-cocaine-producer/#:%7E:text=The%20world%27s%20fourth%20cocaine%2Dproducing%20country&text=According%20to%20the%20same%20report,even%20as%20the%20country%20collapses.">has a similar problem</a></p>
<p>After three days of mourning for Villavicencio, campaigning has resumed ahead of the election on August 20. Opinions polls show that security is by far the biggest concern for voters, and all candidates are campaigning on the issue – understandable in the wake of Villavicencio’s murder. But in a country where <a href="https://www.latinobarometro.org/lat.jsp">87% of people don’t trust democracy itself</a>, the outlook is gloomy, to say the least.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicolas Forsans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ecuador’s murder rate has shot up in recent years and now a presidential candidate has been assassinated.Nicolas Forsans, Professor of Management and Co-director of the Centre for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2083832023-07-13T13:27:35Z2023-07-13T13:27:35ZStreet gangs in South Africa and Canada are worlds apart - but they have a great deal in common<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534820/original/file-20230629-25-xiuneg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A former gang member in Cape Town, South Africa, shows off his tattoos.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Dariusz Dziewanski</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At first glance, it would appear that there’s little in common between the vast plains of the Canadian Prairies and the mountainous swells of South Africa’s southernmost coastline. But take a closer look into cities like Calgary, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon, on one hand, and Cape Town, on the other, and you’ll come across the gangs in each city. </p>
<p>Although they exist in different socioeconomic, historical, and geographic contexts, our <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10612-022-09659-4">recent paper</a> finds that street gangs in Cape Town have key things in common with those in Prairie cities. Both are subcultural groups seeking empowerment and protection in areas defined by structural oppression and exclusion. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cape-town-gangsters-who-use-extreme-violence-to-operate-solo-143750">The Cape Town gangsters who use extreme violence to operate solo</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As a criminologist with extensive research experience in South Africa and a <a href="https://www.metisnation.org/culture-heritage/#:%7E:text=Who%20are%20the%20M%C3%A9tis%3F,Nations%20women%20and%20European%20men.">Métis</a> professor of Indigenous studies in Canada, we’ve both studied how and why individuals become engaged in street gangs in our respective countries of interest. </p>
<p>Researchers often overlook the similarities between street gang involvement and its connection to marginalisation and colonisation in South Africa and Canada. Our paper compared the life histories of 24 gang members from Cape Town to those of 53 members in Prairie cities. Our findings are represented through the accounts of two former gang members, Gavin and Roddy, in South Africa and Canada.</p>
<p>Whether in South Africa, Canada, or elsewhere, gangs are an embedded, systemic feature of unequal and exclusionary urban landscapes. They are often an indication of larger problems in the societies in which they exist. The deep-rooted contours of discrimination, disenfranchisement, and disempowerment – past and present – shape social life in Cape Town and on the Canadian Prairies. They create the conditions in which many young <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Coloured">Coloured</a> and Indigenous men and women turn to gangs. </p>
<h2>Gavin and Roddy</h2>
<p>The paper presented in this article adds to a small but growing body of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/minnesota-scholarship-online/book/21312">gang literature</a> that draws comparisons across international contexts.</p>
<p>Gavin, a long-time member of the Mongrels gang, grew up with an abusive father in an impoverished informal settlement on the outskirts of Cape Town. He explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s no jobs, right. It’s the gangsters here that have the money. They put food on the table … It’s what I was attracted to. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-how-some-of-cape-towns-gangsters-got-out-and-stayed-out-170485">Street cultural gang research</a> suggests that, for those living in tough circumstances, aggression and violence are a sure way to get respect – or “street cred”. Says Gavin:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The reason (gangsters) shoot constantly – that they do it every day – is they want to … make a statement and become famous – put their name out. Then he has the power…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Roddy, a member of the Native Syndicate in Winnipeg, Manitoba, respect was associated with <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.anthro.32.061002.093426">“acting crazy”</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At the time, being crazy gave you that status and people knew you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Roddy also spoke about the same challenges Gavin faced, and how being in a gang provided a solution:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No water, no money, no brotherhood … the identity of something (the gang) made you feel important … I felt so awesome when I joined the gang, I felt like: wow your problems are over. I didn’t even know what I was getting into. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although Gavin and Roddy grew up on different sides of the world, each saw gangs and street culture as a way to gain access to the basic amenities of life where legitimate opportunities were not afforded.</p>
<h2>Mapping marginality</h2>
<p>Cape Town’s most powerful street gangs are found in <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2019/09/john-w-fredericks-1946-2019">communities</a> that are predominantly Cape Coloured – a multiracial ethnic category in South Africa – and often beset by <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/688371/south-africas-unemployment-rate-ticks-higher/">joblessness</a> and <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/407087/cape-town-now-ranks-as-the-8th-most-violent-city-in-the-world/">violence</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534823/original/file-20230629-13286-3tbalc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A block of apartments and a parking lot in a modest area." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534823/original/file-20230629-13286-3tbalc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534823/original/file-20230629-13286-3tbalc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534823/original/file-20230629-13286-3tbalc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534823/original/file-20230629-13286-3tbalc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534823/original/file-20230629-13286-3tbalc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534823/original/file-20230629-13286-3tbalc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534823/original/file-20230629-13286-3tbalc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A housing project in a peripheral part of Cape Town where gangs are common.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Dariusz Dziewanski</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Winnipeg and other Prairie cities, gang membership is dominated by <a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/settler-city-limits">Indigenous youth</a> living in marginalised neighbourhoods that are seen as gang controlled. </p>
<p>Gang membership in each research context has long colonial roots linked to historical struggles of Coloured and Indigenous populations to endure successive state campaigns directed at their cultural erasure through institutionalised violence. </p>
<p>For example, in South Africa, the term “Coloured” was produced through colonial efforts to force people of diverse geographical and cultural origins into a single <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582479208671739">racial classification</a>. Later, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/cape-town-segregated-city#:%7E:text=Between%201957%20and%201961%2C%20an,proclaimed%20for%20%27white%27%20people.">forced relocations</a> under the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> regime violently tore apart Coloured communities – as well as other racialised groups – to make space for white-owned real estate in the city centre. This encouraged the <a href="https://theconversation.com/cape-towns-bloody-gang-violence-is-inextricably-bound-up-in-its-history-121384">formation of gangs</a> that provided adrift youth with a sense of belonging, purpose and empowerment.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535549/original/file-20230704-20097-jom9rr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A building with graffiti on the roof, reading " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535549/original/file-20230704-20097-jom9rr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535549/original/file-20230704-20097-jom9rr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535549/original/file-20230704-20097-jom9rr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535549/original/file-20230704-20097-jom9rr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535549/original/file-20230704-20097-jom9rr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535549/original/file-20230704-20097-jom9rr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535549/original/file-20230704-20097-jom9rr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gang graffiti in Canada.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Robert Henry</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly across the Prairies, street gangs have emerged due to the fragmentation of Indigenous families and identities. This occurred first through the <a href="https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525">Indian residential school policy</a>, which removed children from their families, placing them in state and church run schools. Here they were stripped of their cultures and languages, and many children died. It later also happened through <a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/settler-city-limits">child welfare policies</a> which <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sixties-scoop">scooped</a> children away from their families and placed them in non-Indigenous homes. Settler colonial policies such as these have created the social conditions and inequities that enable Indigenous street gangs to emerge and expand. </p>
<h2>What this means</h2>
<p>Actions taken in the streets can seem random or senseless to the outside observer. But consistently acting “crazy” and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cape-town-gangsters-who-use-extreme-violence-to-operate-solo-143750">seeking violent confrontation</a> expands a gang member’s social and personal esteem by conforming to gang ideals of toughness and fearlessness. </p>
<p>Gang membership was a calculated move that provided Gavin, Roddy, and others in our study with what they believed to be their best chance to survive.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534825/original/file-20230629-19-cww47l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man without a shirt pictured from behind, a prominent tattoo on his shoulders reads " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534825/original/file-20230629-19-cww47l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534825/original/file-20230629-19-cww47l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534825/original/file-20230629-19-cww47l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534825/original/file-20230629-19-cww47l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534825/original/file-20230629-19-cww47l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534825/original/file-20230629-19-cww47l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534825/original/file-20230629-19-cww47l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Prairie gang member in Canada.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Robert Henry</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Denied access to legal sources of income and other forms of human capital, marginal populations turn to the streets and to violence. Gang membership helps them construct defiant identities. In the short term street culture gives gang members some hope for empowerment and connections to underground economies. </p>
<p>However, long-term prospects for gang membership are not promising. Most literature on street gangs has shown that involvement is often <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1748895815603774">short-lived and highly violent</a>. Although gang members like Gavin and Roddy do make it out, it’s not easy and can be deadly. </p>
<p>More needs to be done to create equitable and just societies in which young men and women do not feel that the gang is their only choice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Henry receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dariusz Dziewanski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More than being the social problem they are often made out to be, gangs are an indication of larger problems present in their societies.Dariusz Dziewanski, Honorary research affiliate, Centre of Criminology, University of Cape TownRobert Henry, Assistant professor, Indigenous Studies, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2057402023-05-22T11:34:41Z2023-05-22T11:34:41ZWith Haiti in chaos, Canada buries its head in the sand<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526909/original/file-20230517-23-z98m4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C492%2C6720%2C3973&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police officers take cover during an anti-gang operation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in April 2023, a day after a mob in the Haitian capital pulled 13 suspected gang members from police custody at a traffic stop, beat and burned them to death with gasoline-soaked tires. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>“Things are now at a breaking point. This crisis will not pass.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/12/1131572">So said Jean-Martin Bauer</a>, the Haiti director of the United Nations World Food Program, in December 2022.</p>
<p>He was correct. The situation in Haiti has been deteriorating badly over the past few months. <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article275437056.html#storylink=cpy">Hundreds of people have been killed across metropolitan Port-au-Prince</a> <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/haiti-gangs-organized-crime/">by armed gangs seeking to assert their authority</a>, while half of the Haitian population — approximately 4.7 million people — <a href="https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-port-au-prince-haiti-famine-humanitarian-assistance-191e47637939fb81a8454de5a69ff4ba">faces acute hunger.</a></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of toddlers play and rest on a blue and white mat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526910/original/file-20230517-23266-6wh0i9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526910/original/file-20230517-23266-6wh0i9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526910/original/file-20230517-23266-6wh0i9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526910/original/file-20230517-23266-6wh0i9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526910/original/file-20230517-23266-6wh0i9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526910/original/file-20230517-23266-6wh0i9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526910/original/file-20230517-23266-6wh0i9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Malnourished young children rest and play in a malnutrition stabilization centre in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in January 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/haiti">The State Department in the United States has cited</a> “credible reports of unlawful or arbitrary killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by government agents…as well as…widespread civilian deaths or harm, enforced disappearances or abductions, torture, and physical abuse.” </p>
<p>Helen La Lime, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti, <a href="https://caribbeannewsservice.com/haiti-police-riot-after-crime-gangs-kill-14-officers/">warned of kidnappings every six hours in 2022.</a> She said that without the deployment of an international specialized force, any progress in Haiti “will remain fragile and vulnerable to being reversed.”</p>
<p>UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently reaffirmed <a href="https://apnews.com/article/haiti-gangs-violence-rights-crisis-force-57f6850d22458eb5b30e2a82e86e9287">“the urgent need for the deployment of an international specialized armed force.”</a> </p>
<p>So where’s Canada?</p>
<h2>Abject poverty</h2>
<p>Haiti, a country of 11 million people, shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, where I spend my winters. From there I continue to have regular contact with Haitians who have fled their country. </p>
<p>Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview">Its estimated annual GDP per capita is US$1,829</a> compared to US$18,626 for the Dominican Republic. </p>
<p>In the mid-20th century, the economies of the two countries were comparable. Since that time, the Haitian economy shrank, partly due to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/16/1027990749/haiti-earthquake-why-deadly-explainer">external factors like earthquakes</a> but also ineffectual and corrupt leaders, notably dictators <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/terror-repression-and-diaspora-baby-doc-legacy-haiti/">Papa Doc Duvalier and “Baby Doc.”</a></p>
<p>There are widespread fears in Washington and among Haiti’s <a href="https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20230201/pm-pledges-help-haiti">Caribbean neighbours</a> that without external intervention, the social devastation in Haiti could destabilize the entire region and that its implosion will produce a flood of people seeking to escape repression, violence and unspeakable social misery. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman holding a baby stands in front of a shack made of rusted corrogated metal under bright sunlight." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526912/original/file-20230517-27752-42nqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526912/original/file-20230517-27752-42nqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526912/original/file-20230517-27752-42nqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526912/original/file-20230517-27752-42nqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526912/original/file-20230517-27752-42nqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526912/original/file-20230517-27752-42nqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526912/original/file-20230517-27752-42nqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman poses for a photo outside her makeshift home built after gangs set her home on fire in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in April 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When it comes to the UN’s call for a specialized support force, <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/peacekeeping">Canada’s reputation as an impartial peacekeeper</a> makes it an obvious candidate. Canada has good relations with the countries in the region that are ready to support such a mission, <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/gac-amc/publications/evaluation/2015/dev-eval-canada-haiti03.aspx?lang=eng">and its historical record of relations with Haiti</a> is mixed rather than mainly negative, like that of the U.S. and France.</p>
<p>During his visit to Ottawa in March, however, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/haiti-canada-biden-trudeau-1.6788656">U.S. President Joe Biden failed to persuade Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to send Canadian soldiers to Haiti</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-haiti-funding-gang-violence-1.6789606">Canada promised another $100 million in new aid and equipment for the Haitian National Police</a>, some of which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/02/haiti-cops-outgunned-gangs">may end up in the hands of gangs</a>. </p>
<p>In late fall, <a href="https://tridentnewspaper.com/canada-deploys-two-kingston-class-ships-to-haiti/">Canada deployed two navy ships to patrol Haitian waters.</a> Georges Michel, a Haitian historian who helped write the nation’s 1987 constitution, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/21/canada-united-states-haiti-sanctions/">had this response</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When Canada sent a plane and a boat to fight against the insecurity, the population laughed. We don’t have problems with the birds or the fish.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Media antipathy</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, the Canadian media is largely ignoring the situation in Haiti. News outlets in Québec, with its large Haitian diaspora, pay a bit more attention, but typically turn to Haitian “experts” <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/opening-of-haiti-fuel-terminal-means-less-pressure-on-canada-to-intervene-experts-say">who rule out any proposed solutions that aren’t coming from Haitians themselves.</a></p>
<p>But any observer of what’s happening on the ground knows that solutions cannot come from within. The fact that interventions failed in the past is no excuse for inaction, but instead offers lessons on avoiding prior mistakes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young boy wearing a fedora is carried by his father towards two RCMP officers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526914/original/file-20230517-29661-4y9scd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526914/original/file-20230517-29661-4y9scd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526914/original/file-20230517-29661-4y9scd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526914/original/file-20230517-29661-4y9scd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526914/original/file-20230517-29661-4y9scd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526914/original/file-20230517-29661-4y9scd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526914/original/file-20230517-29661-4y9scd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Haitian boy holds onto his father as they approach an irregular border crossing staffed by the RCMP, near Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Québec, in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This attitude reinforces the reluctance to consider taking on a dangerous mission. No one seems opposed <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nato-canadian-troops-latvia-1.6417411">to more Canadian soldiers being sent to Latvia as the war in Ukraine rages on</a>, but support for taking on armed gangs in Port-au-Prince will have to be won. </p>
<h2>What needs to happen</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/haiti">A report in December 2022 by the International Crisis Group, a transnational, non-governmental organization</a>, sets out the challenges facing a military intervention in Haiti. It reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The collapsing Haitian state and the severity of the humanitarian emergency justify preparations for a mission…Its deployment should hinge on adequate planning to operate in urban areas and support from Haiti’s main political forces, including their firm commitment to work together in creating a legitimate transitional government.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since the urban gangs are divided, such a force could enable life in gang-controlled areas to return to something closer to normal. But alternate institutions take time to build, meaning the gangs could return once the intervention is over. </p>
<p>There will need to be a simultaneous effort to liberate territory in regions close to the Dominican Republic where the gangs are relatively weak. That’s also where the task of rebuilding functioning political and economic institutions could be undertaken. </p>
<p>Short of an intervention, sooner or later the border situation with the Dominican Republic will explode.</p>
<p>When will Canada act?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Milner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The UN is calling for a specialized support force in Haiti, where urban gangs are terrorizing the population and people are starving. Why won’t Canada step up to help?Henry Milner, Research Fellow, Electoral Studies, Political Science, Université de MontréalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2042512023-04-26T12:28:10Z2023-04-26T12:28:10ZA tweak to the University of Nebraska’s logo shows how the once benign ‘OK’ sign has entered a ‘purgatory of meaning’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522694/original/file-20230424-24-f223jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C54%2C5160%2C3391&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nebraska Cornhuskers mascot Herbie Husker pumps up the crowd during a 2015 football game.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nebraska-cornhuskers-mascot-herbie-husker-is-seen-during-news-photo/493666358?adppopup=true">Michael Hickey/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 17, 2023, the Nebraska Cornhuskers unveiled the latest version of their beloved mascot, <a href="https://myhusker.com/herbie-husker-nebraska/">Herbie Husker</a>.</p>
<p>Herbie’s left hand no longer forms the “OK” symbol. Instead, an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/04/19/nebraska-herbie-husker-mascot-change/">index finger is raised</a> to indicate that the team is No. 1.</p>
<p>The change was made, University of Nebraska officials explained, because the universal <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-say-ok-122528">symbol of approbation</a> – curling the index finger to touch the thumb, forming an “O” – had become associated with white supremacy and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-gesture-is-now-listed-as-a-symbol-of-hate">hate speech</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two cartoon logos of farmers in overalls wearing red cowboy hats." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522812/original/file-20230425-14-dy9dxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The University of Nebraska determined that the ‘OK’ gesture was too prone to misinterpretation, prompting a change to one of its logos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.si.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_700/MTk3MzE2MzY5MjI0NTc0MjI5/herbiehuskeroldnew.webp">University of Nebraska Athletics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How did something as benign and commonplace as the “OK” hand gesture come to assume such sinister undertones? And what does the University of Nebraska’s willingness to change its mascot say about the ways in which ambiguous signs and symbols can take on a life of their own?</p>
<h2>A new way to hate?</h2>
<p>In 2015, Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer and other figures of the “<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/alt-right">alt-right</a>,” a white nationalist movement, started using the hand gesture in <a href="https://twitter.com/RichardBSpencer/status/796132542739083264">posed photos of themselves</a>. But it took off in February 2017, when a prank message was posted on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/09/25/absolutely-everything-you-need-to-know-to-understand-4chan-the-internets-own-bogeyman/">4-chan</a>, the anonymous messaging site that has been a breeding ground for racism and conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/249/757/858.jpg_large">Operation O-KKK</a>” encouraged the flooding of social media sites like Twitter with posts proclaiming the familiar gesture to be a symbol of the alt-right. But what began as an effort to “<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/18/ok-sign-white-power-symbol-or-just-right-wing-troll">troll the libs</a>” quickly took on a life of its own.</p>
<p>In May 2019, an attendee at a Chicago Cubs baseball game made the gesture on camera behind a Black reporter, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/cubs-fan-banned-wrigley-field-after-flashing-white-power-symbol-n1003681">prompting the team to ban him</a> from Wrigley Field.</p>
<p>Shortly thereafter, school officials recalled yearbooks in <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/white-power-sign-yearbook-photo-symbol-gesture/5323243/">Petaluma, California</a>, and <a href="https://www.insider.com/oak-park-river-forest-high-school-reprinting-yearbooks-white-power-symbols-2019-5">Chicago</a> after discovering pictures of students making the gesture. The Anti-Defamation League went on to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/26/okay-hand-sign-has-moved-trolling-campaign-real-hate-symbol-civil-rights-group-says/">add the gesture</a> to its database of hate symbols.</p>
<p>There have also been cases of mistaken identity, however.</p>
<p>During the 2019 Army-Navy football game, midshipmen and cadets flashed what seemed to be the white power gesture on-camera behind the ESPN commentator – a game that was politically charged because then-President Donald Trump was in attendance.</p>
<p>The academies, however, determined that the students had been playing the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/army-navy-circle-game.html">Circle Game</a> instead – a practical joke in which participants try to trick each other into looking at a circle gesture, which prompts a punch.</p>
<p>The Army-Navy incident was a high-profile example of misperception. But there have been several similar episodes involving the same gesture.</p>
<h2>Symbolic overreaction</h2>
<p>In June 2020, for example, a utility employee in San Diego supposedly made a white power sign while dangling his arm from a company truck. Another motorist took a picture and reported the worker to his company. The employee was fired, even though he claimed to be merely <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-california-man-fired-over-alleged-white-power-sign-says-he-was/">cracking his knuckles</a>.</p>
<p>And in April 2021, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/business/media/jeopardy-hand-gesture-maga-conspiracy.html">a contestant on “Jeopardy!”</a> held up three fingers when he was introduced in celebration of having won the three previous games. Yet the belief that it was a white power gesture prompted nearly 600 former contestants to <a href="https://medium.com/@j.contestants.letter/letter-from-former-jeopardy-2eda854efdf1">sign a statement</a> denouncing what they perceived as a gesture of hate.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9ET15AOp-6Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A ‘Jeopardy!’ contestant came under fire for flashing a symbol meant to indicate his three wins in 2021.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As I describe in my recently published book on the <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781633888906/Failure-to-Communicate-Why-We-Misunderstand-What-We-Hear-Read-and-See">causes of miscommunication</a>, these types of incidents are not new and not unusual. </p>
<p>They can be characterized as symptoms of <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100208829;jsessionid=C4EB93703624B46E08D17572D94A202C">moral panic</a>, in which the media, politicians and activists fan the flames of uncertainty and worry.</p>
<p>In the case of the “OK” symbol, <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-far-right-extremist-violence-really-spike-in-2017-89067">concerns about white supremacy snowballed</a> in the wake of events like <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-ryan-kellys-pulitzer-prize-winning-photograph-an-american-guernica-82567">the 2017 Unite the Right rally</a>, when white nationalists and far-right militias converged on Charlottesville, Virginia.</p>
<p>The ensuing clashes with counterprotesters resulted in more than 30 injuries and one death. Afterward, many Americans were particularly sensitive to racist symbols – and perhaps more prone to interpret ambiguous gestures as white power signs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Marchers holding Nazi and Confederate flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522839/original/file-20230425-14-3mecq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators carry Confederate and Nazi flags during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-carry-confederate-and-nazi-flags-during-the-news-photo/830922288?adppopup=true">Emily Molli/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gang signs and moral panic</h2>
<p>A very similar dynamic involving gang signs has played out over the past couple of decades. </p>
<p>In 2007, the Virginia Tourism Agency created an <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-08-19-0708180225-story.html">ad campaign</a> that included actors making the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/fashion/hand-heart-gesture-grows-in-popularity-noticed.html">heart sign</a>: curled fingers joined with thumbs pointing downward. The campaign was changed when state officials discovered that the street and prison gang the Gangster Disciples <a href="https://www.c-ville.com/Thug_life">also used the symbol</a>.</p>
<p>In 2013, a group of California <a href="https://www.wtvr.com/2013/11/06/police-students-could-be-mistaken-as-gang-members-with-new-school-sweatshirt">high school seniors</a> ordered sweatshirts with “XIV” – their year of graduation – emblazoned on them. However, the number is also a symbol of the northern California <a href="https://unitedgangs.com/nortenos-norte-14/">Norteños gangs</a>, as “N” is the 14th letter of the alphabet. To avoid any association with the gangs, school officials advised students to avoid wearing the clothing.</p>
<p>And in March 2014, a Mississippi high school placed a student on indefinite suspension after he had been photographed standing next to his biology project. He was accused of flashing a gang sign because his thumb and two other fingers were outstretched. These form a “V” and an “L” – a symbol of the Vice Lords gang. But the student <a href="https://reason.com/2014/03/10/mississippi-high-school-suspended-studen/">protested that he was merely indicating</a> “3,” the number of his football jersey, which he was also wearing in the photo.</p>
<p>Tragically, there have also been episodes in which sign language was <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/deaf-woman-asl-sign-language-shot-gang-signs-1639018">misinterpreted</a> as gang symbols, leading to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/deaf-man-stabbed-sign-language-mistaken-gang-signs/story?id=18213488">acts of violence</a> against those simply trying to communicate.</p>
<h2>Kids, cats and devils?</h2>
<p>As these examples make clear, moral panics often reflect society’s anxieties. </p>
<p>They run the gamut, from uneasiness about young children <a href="https://theconversation.com/banning-smartphones-for-kids-is-just-another-technology-fearing-moral-panic-74485">using smartphones</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-blame-cats-for-destroying-wildlife-shaky-logic-is-leading-to-moral-panic-138710">house cats killing wildlife</a> and even to role-playing games fostering <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/us/when-dungeons-dragons-set-off-a-moral-panic.html?">demon worship</a>.</p>
<p>Fears of gangs and hate groups are just the latest manifestation of this phenomenon.</p>
<p>At the time of the Army-Navy game, The Washington Post wrote that the “OK” gesture “now lives in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/16/how-okay-hand-sign-keeps-tricking-us-into-looking/">purgatory of meaning</a>.” </p>
<p>It’s hardly surprising, then, that universities are distancing themselves from ambiguous and controversial symbols. </p>
<p>Moral panics may not be grounded in reality, but the concerns they give life to can still be bad for one’s image – or one’s team.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204251/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger J. Kreuz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hand gestures are notoriously prone to misinterpretation.Roger J. Kreuz, Associate Dean and Professor of Psychology, University of MemphisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1961482023-01-30T14:28:04Z2023-01-30T14:28:04ZThe Badoo ritual gang created fear in Lagos: here’s what made victims vulnerable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504020/original/file-20230111-16-rmyhvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Head of a Celestial Church of Christ parish stands in front of the church where worshippers were killed and valuables stolen by the Badoo gang in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Violent cult gangs are well known in Nigeria. Though there are no statistics on their numbers and impact, Lagos State in southwest Nigeria <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/01/shocking-tales-of-cult-gangs-that-terrorise-lagos/">has more than 10 of these groups</a> controlling different areas. They operate in neighbourhoods and their memberships cut across age groups. They control certain territories as their own, extorting money from businesses and residents.</p>
<p>But the Badoo cult gang that operated in Ikorodu area of the state between 2016 and 2018 was different. It was a violent ritual gang. The <a href="https://www.channelstv.com/2018/01/02/police-arrest-suspected-badoo-cult-leader-chief-herbalist/">capture</a> of its leader and herbalist ended its operations. The Badoo cult <a href="https://www.pulse.ng/gist/badoo-ikorodu-resident-narrates-how-the-deadly-cult-gang-started/d99wpd7">was known</a> for killing its victims in mysterious circumstances for ritual purposes.</p>
<p>Through mastery of the environment and target selection, the Badoo cult gang was able to impose fear in the minds of residents. Unlike other known violent cult gangs, like the <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/5843fa644.html">Eiye</a> and <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/50ebf7a82.html">Black Axe</a> cults, the Badoo cult gang did not use guns in its operation; its weapons were the pestle, mortar, grinding stone and white handkerchief. The pestle was used to hit victims on the head and the handkerchief to clean their blood – indicating the motive as ritual.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/25166069221127375">Our study</a> explored how the ritual gang selected its victims and how it operated. This was with a view to understanding how environment predisposes people to become victims of crime.</p>
<p>Our findings could stimulate policy actions towards improving environmental design and crime prevention. </p>
<p>The study was carried out in Ikorodu, Lagos state, where more than 20 attacks took place. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with three traditional rulers, three religious leaders (one Muslim and two Christians), the leader of the vigilante group in Ikorodu who was involved in arresting some Badoo suspects and 13 other participants who lived near houses that were attacked by members of the gang.</p>
<h2>Selecting targets</h2>
<p>Each gang member was assigned responsibilities. A key gang member, usually a community insider, would provide information on households that looked like easy targets. We found that women spies were sent to the potential area of attack, because they would be less likely than men to raise any community suspicions. This way, the gang would gain advance knowledge of the targets and how to get into their houses. An informant said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They might be going round to know that a particular house has no burglar proofs. The women give them information on where they would strike. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of the targets could be characterised as soft targets in isolated spaces in the community. The targets were also relatively poor people. They lived in partially completed structures, usually single room apartments and sometimes without burglar proofing. Some stayed in stand-alone house quarters detached from main buildings. One participant said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The people they attacked were not rich. The husband was a motorcyclist while the wife roasts corn by the side of the road. Their house has no burglar proof and the door is made of plywood. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Operation patterns</h2>
<p>Our participants and reports indicated that the gang operated in the early hours of the day, usually between 1am and 3am.</p>
<p>While parading arrested gang members, the then Commissioner of Police of Lagos State, Edgar Imhohimi, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmKzVeYk_vc">described</a> what they had done:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The gang of three murderers and ritualists usually spray a powdery substance into the victims’ dwelling place that will make their targets fall into deep sleep before the group ends their lives by smashing their skulls with grinding stone. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another participant in our study, a victim of Badoo attacks, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They hit my husband on the head with a stone, something like the stone they use to grind pepper, that native grinding stone. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our informants’ responses suggest that buildings under construction or unoccupied are a threat to security, and overgrown vegetation obstructs visibility. Isolated houses may compromise the security of neighbourhoods and make inhabitants of those structures easy targets. </p>
<h2>Combating crime</h2>
<p>The reign of terror of the Badoo cult gang in Ikorodu eventually ended when the formal and informal agencies of social control collaborated. That is, the police enlisted the support of local vigilance groups. This shows that cooperation between the police and local security operatives could work well in combating crime. Local people use traditional methods of vigilance similar to those that the Badoo gang used. And they know their community.</p>
<p>Security could also be improved by clearing overgrown vegetation and paying attention to empty or isolated buildings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196148/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oludayo Tade does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Through their mastery of the environment and target selection, the Badoo cult gang was able to unleash terror among residents.Oludayo Tade, Sociologist/Criminologist/Victimologist and Media Communication Expert, University of IbadanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1873202022-10-04T15:06:14Z2022-10-04T15:06:14ZUniversity students are hidden targets of county lines drug dealing – new report<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477655/original/file-20220804-25-6fktf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=241%2C80%2C6433%2C4399&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/multiracial-students-walking-university-hall-during-685407808">4 PM production / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For young adults, university is a period of firsts: their first time living away from home, having to budget their money and going to pubs and nightclubs. For many, it will also be the first time they will try drugs, and as our <a href="http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/42209/1/County%20Lines%20%26%20Criminal%20Exploitation%20of%20UK%20University%20Students.pdf">new report shows</a>, be exploited by county lines drug dealers. </p>
<p>County lines is a model of drugs distribution that involves transporting and trading illicit drugs from one part of the country to another, and selling them via dedicated phone lines. It is a form of exploitation often associated with children and vulnerable adults, but anyone can be targeted. </p>
<p>We have investigated the prevalence of county lines drug dealing targeting university students, who are known to have increased exposure to drugs, but are often overlooked in discussions about organised crime and county lines.</p>
<p>In March 2022, we sent freedom of information requests to 127 UK universities enquiring about county lines and drug incidents involving their students. From the 113 responses we received, we learned that since the academic year of 2016-17 there have been approximately 14,000 drug-related incidents on university campuses and in student accommodation. Of these, approximately 300 specifically related to drugs distribution. </p>
<p>Students may be exploited to transport drugs (for which travelling to and from university provides an ideal cover story). They may also have their student accommodation “cuckooed”, used as a base to store and sell drugs.</p>
<p>Fifty universities did not hold any data relating to county lines, and 44 said they had no recorded cases. However, data from seven universities revealed that since 2017, there have been as many as 109 university students involved in county lines, as either a victim or perpetrator, at those institutions alone. </p>
<p>We also conducted a student survey of 140 students. The responses, combined with the data (or lack thereof) from universities, suggest that the prevalence of county lines exploitation on campuses may be much higher than universities are aware of. </p>
<p>Up to a third of students reported witnessing common signs of county lines among their fellow students, such as sudden unexplained increases in money (27%) and luxury goods (24%), owning multiple “burner” phones (29%), being scared of particular people (22%) and having unexplained injuries (25%). </p>
<p>They also observed non-students frequently visiting student accommodation at unsociable hours (34%) or unofficially moving into student accommodation (22%). Around one in ten respondents said they witnessed other students carrying weapons or keeping them in their homes.</p>
<h2>Why students are a target</h2>
<p>There are a number of reasons why county lines perpetrators would want to target students. For a start, there is a huge drug market in the student population. </p>
<p>A 2018 <a href="https://www.release.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf/publications/Taking%20the%20Hit%20-%20Student%20drug%20use%20and%20how%20institutions%20respond%20-.pdf">report</a> by the drug law charity <a href="https://www.release.org.uk/">Release</a> and the <a href="https://www.nus.org.uk/">National Union of Students</a> found that 56% of university students have taken drugs. It makes sense that county lines groups would want to capitalise on this market. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2017/09/20/drug-dealers-are-handing-out-free-samples-and-business-cards-during-freshers-week-6943082/">previous years</a>, posts on social media have sparked fears about dealers advertising to students during freshers week by handing out business cards and samples of their drugs. </p>
<p>Students can also be targeted online. Our survey found that 60% of students had seen drugs advertised on Snapchat, with others saying they had seen this on Instagram (35%) or other social media (38%). </p>
<p>Students also reported that they had seen non-students joining and posting in group chats specifically for students. Although this may be for a number of motives, county lines perpetrators are known to target and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12117-021-09442-x">infiltrate group chats</a> in areas where they want to begin trading.</p>
<p>Research suggests that the student drug market is a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30955401/">hybrid</a> of purchasing from traditional dealers and the social supply of sharing drugs among friends. Students are not just potential consumers, but also potential suppliers. Over 40% of respondents to our survey said that they had witnessed students selling drugs to their peers. </p>
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<img alt="A young man sitting on his bed looking down at a mobile phone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477658/original/file-20220804-16-shfeux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477658/original/file-20220804-16-shfeux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477658/original/file-20220804-16-shfeux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477658/original/file-20220804-16-shfeux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477658/original/file-20220804-16-shfeux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477658/original/file-20220804-16-shfeux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477658/original/file-20220804-16-shfeux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Phone lines and social media are one way organised crime groups exploit young people for drug dealing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/teenage-boy-bedroom-listening-music-through-1170692434">Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Our survey found that three in ten students had been approached to purchase drugs from students or non-students, and one in ten had been approached to sell drugs by students or non-students. However, students were more likely to be offered drugs for free by other students (53%) than non-students (32%). </p>
<p>While the social sharing of drugs is not uncommon, providing drugs for free can also be part of the <a href="https://crimestoppers-uk.org/getmedia/9685d017-ea4c-4644-8511-59efb83c7266/Ch-Society-Criminal-Exploitation-Stages-of-Recruitment-CaRE.pdf">exploitation process</a>, with victims later being told that they must repay these costs. Additionally, some victims of exploitation may be coerced to recruit and exploit their peers.</p>
<p>All of this shows why students also make valuable targets for organised crime groups, because they can easily access and blend in with other students to sell drugs.</p>
<h2>Protecting students</h2>
<p>County lines groups can be quick to <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12117-021-09442-x.pdf#12117_2021_9442_Article.indd%3ACR78%3A159">adapt</a> to policing responses. As <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/modern-slavery-national-referral-mechanism-and-duty-to-notify-statistics-uk-quarter-1-2022-january-to-march/modern-slavery-national-referral-mechanism-and-duty-to-notify-statistics-uk-quarter-1-2022-january-to-march#key-results">children</a> are increasingly recognised as victims, students may be the next best demographic to target. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-gangs-are-exploiting-children-to-do-their-dirty-work-71926">How gangs are exploiting children to do their dirty work</a>
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<p>University students may be at increased risk of county lines exploitation by mere exposure to drugs and dealers, regardless of whether or not they use drugs themselves. This risk may be increased by vulnerabilities such as <a href="https://www.savethestudent.org/money/surveys/student-money-survey-2021-results.html#financialstruggle">financial worries</a> and <a href="https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/sites/default/files/field/downloads/2021-07/minding-our-future-starting-conversation-student-mental-health.pdf">poor mental health</a>.</p>
<p>University students are adults, and do not have the same laws to protect them that children have. In UK law, the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/990426/dhsc_transitional_safeguarding_report_bridging_the_gap_web.pdf">transition</a> from childhood to adulthood is abrupt, occurring the day a young person turns 18 years old. However, the developmental transition from childhood to adulthood does not happen overnight. </p>
<p>Recognising the risks of drug use and supply is one of the first steps to protecting students. As students head to university, many for the first time, they should be aware of how they could become a target for exploitation via county lines.</p>
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<p><em>For more information on county lines, and what to do you if you are concerned, visit <a href="https://crimestoppers-uk.org/campaigns-media/campaigns/crimes-which-could-affect-students">Crimestoppers</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Hall received funding from The Centre for Criminal Justice Research & Partnerships at the University of Central Lancashire.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roxanne Khan received funding from The Centre for Criminal Justice Research & Partnerships at the University of Central Lancashire.</span></em></p>Universities and students need to be aware of the prevalence of organised drug dealing on campuses.Beth Hall, Graduate Teaching Assistant/PhD Candidate, University of Central LancashireRoxanne Khan, Director of HARM (Honour Abuse Research Matrix); Course Leader, Forensic Psychology, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1871822022-07-18T13:49:33Z2022-07-18T13:49:33ZMass shootings in South Africa are often over group turf: how to stop the cycle of reprisals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474584/original/file-20220718-72671-c54j9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African police minister, Bheki Cele, centre, at the scene of the tavern shooting that claimed 16 lives in Soweto. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In just two days in early July 2022, 25 people were shot dead in four separate incidents at taverns across South Africa. In one of these shootings, in <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2022-07-13-police-have-footage-of-soweto-tavern-shooting-mazibuko-says/">Soweto</a>, 16 people lost their lives. </p>
<p>The killings made <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/10/africa/soweto-south-africa-shooting-intl/index.html">international headlines</a> and were shocking even in South Africa, a society with one of the highest <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?locations=ZA">murder rates</a> in the world.</p>
<p>There has been intense speculation about the motives behind the killings in the absence of reliable evidence that explains why the multiple murders took place. </p>
<p>To provide some insights into the possible reasons, I reflect on some of the research about mass shootings in South Africa with a view to recommending violence prevention interventions. </p>
<p>South African police <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/05/16/wc-has-seen-more-than-400-mass-shootings-between-june-2019-and-december-2021">classify</a> a mass shooting as an incident in which three or more people are shot with a firearm. Available evidence indicates that mass shootings in South Africa are mostly perpetrated by organised criminal groups, such as gangs, with motives often linked to competition over territory and resources. And that shooting incidents have a tendency to result in reprisal attacks.</p>
<p>Based on my insights gained over decades of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Guy-Lamb-3">researching violence in South Africa</a>, my view is that the police will need to prioritise the confiscation of illegal firearms and improve the functioning of crime intelligence to reduce the occurrence of mass shootings.</p>
<h2>Patterns of crime</h2>
<p>Mass shootings have been taking place in South Africa for decades. Incidents were prominent during the 1990s, especially in the province of <a href="https://www.accord.org.za/ajcr-issues/voting-and-violence-in-kwazulu-natals-no-go-areas/">KwaZulu-Natal</a> as a result of tensions between supporters of the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party. Over the past three decades conflicts between <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/docs/taxiviolence/fromlowintensity.pdf">minibus taxi associations</a> and between <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/books/organised-crime-a-study-from-the-cape-flats">criminal gangs</a> (especially in the Western Cape province) have frequently been characterised by mass shootings.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php">Quarterly crime data</a> indicate that incidents involving multiple murder victims have increased substantially over the past year. </p>
<p>Most murder cases involve the use of a firearm in which a single perpetrator murders a single victim. Nonetheless, multiple murders are perpetrated on a regular basis. For example, the <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/april_to_march_2019_20_presentation.pdf">2019/20 crime data</a> indicated that there were 508 murder cases where two or more people were slain simultaneously. A total of 1,133 people died in the incidents. This represented 5% of murders for 2019/20. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/plasma-gangs-how-south-africans-fears-about-crime-created-an-urban-legend-185544">Plasma gangs: how South Africans' fears about crime created an urban legend</a>
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<p>No data for multiple murder cases was provided for 2020/21. But <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php">quarterly crime data</a> for 2021/22 showed a significant increase in such murders. For the six-month period between 1 October 2021 and 31 March 2022, there were 416 multiple murder cases involving 953 victims. This equated to 9% of murders for this period.</p>
<p>Historically, most mass shootings in South Africa have been associated with three main things: gang conflicts, rivalries in the minibus taxi sector and factional or inter-group feuds (mainly in KwaZulu-Natal). These forms of collective violence have ultimately emerged from efforts to control certain spaces and resources.</p>
<p>Criminal gangs operate in most major cities in South Africa, especially in Cape Town and Gqeberha, in the Eastern Cape, where much of the <a href="https://www.sacities.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Web_SACN-State-of-Urban-Safety-2018-19-1204-1.pdf">violent crime</a> has been attributed to gang activity. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/world/africa/cape-town-crime-military.html">Gang conflicts</a> have traditionally revolved around gangs seeking to dominate poorer urban neighbourhoods to facilitate and benefit from the trade in illegal goods, especially drugs. </p>
<p>Violence in the <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/docs/taxiviolence/fromlowintensity.pdf">minibus taxi industry</a> has often arisen from conflicts between taxi organisations over access to transport routes and taxi ranks. Another driver has been the perceived competition from other public transport service providers, such as <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/amabhungane-taxi-mafia-blamed-for-deadly-attacks-on-long-distance-buses-20220608-2">bus companies</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newframe.com/going-back-to-the-future-of-kwazulu-natal-politics/">Factional disputes</a>, which have frequently been linked to party politics, have often been related to access to and control over territory.</p>
<p>Mass shootings have at times been the outcome of conflicts between vigilantes and gangsters (or those regarded as criminals by vigilante groups) over control over specific communities. This has been an ongoing problem in Philippi East in the Western Cape. For example in September 2017, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-10-03-patrollers-in-marikana-philippi-east-live-in-fear-after-mass-shooting/">11 people</a> were fatally shot in one evening at the <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/marikana-informal-settlement-erupts-protests/">Marikana informal settlement</a> in fighting between gangsters and other residents. </p>
<p>Vigilantes in <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-28-phoenix-massacre-what-really-happened-in-the-deadly-collision-of-brutalised-communities/">Phoenix</a> were also responsible for mass shootings during the July 2021 unrest in KwaZulu-Natal.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/crime-statistics-show-south-africas-lockdown-crime-holiday-is-over-166785">Crime statistics show South Africa's lockdown 'crime holiday' is over</a>
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<p>Mass shootings have also been associated with the illegal gold mining sector, due to conflicts between <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/5/1/illicit-gold-trade-fuels-conflict-in-south-african-mining-town">competing groups of miners</a> (or “zama zamas”) and between zama zamas and law enforcement or private security personnel. For instance, eight illegal miners died in a shootout with police at a mine in Orkney in <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/news/six-killed-as-police-exchange-fire-with-zama-zamas-in-north-west-20211007">October 2021</a>. And in <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2018/01/15/police-suspect-gang-rivalry-after-7-men-found-dead-at-benoni-mine-shaft">January 2018</a>, seven died in a shootout between different groups of miners.</p>
<p>Since 2017, mass shootings, particularly in <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Lifting-the-veil-on-extortion-in-Cape-Town-GITOC.pdf">Khayelitsha</a> in the Western Cape, have increasingly been attributed to extortion efforts by gangs. Acts of mass firearm violence have been used to terrorise township businesses and residents into paying “protection” fees. </p>
<p>Such violent organised criminality appears to have become more prevalent. <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/tavern-shootings-extortion-among-possible-motives-say-experts-20220711">Extortion</a> efforts might be the cause of the recent tavern shootings in Soweto and Pietermaritzburg. </p>
<p>Turf battles between extortion gangs have also tended to result in mass shootings between these groups.</p>
<p>All these forms of collective violence appear to have become self-perpetuating. Mass shootings have tended to ignite <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/bodies-pile-up-as-cape-towns-hard-livings-gang-goes-to-war-in-durban-a97c039f-f0a8-4e60-8364-f266baa0c74e">retaliatory attacks</a>, which in turn have led to further violent reprisals. This has contributed to norms and beliefs that prioritise the use of violence to manage inter-group conflicts becoming more entrenched in crime-affected communities. </p>
<p>On top of this, COVID and the war in Ukraine have had serious implications for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-economy-has-taken-some-heavy-body-blows-can-it-recover-183165">legal economy</a> as well as the illegal economy. Organised criminal groups have been feeling the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-11-03-gugulethu-massacre-gang-sends-out-grim-video-message-warning-of-more-carnage/">economic pinch</a>. Hence <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/extortion-rackets-likely-behind-spate-of-mass-shootings-in-cape-town-20220513">competition</a> between groups, especially between street gangs and groups specialising in extortion, appears to have become more acute and more violent.</p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>The South African government has two options to reduce mass shootings. Both will require monumental policing efforts. </p>
<p>The first entails the establishment of <a href="https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/01/11/how-to-reduce-gun-violence-in-baltimore-city/">targeted police operations</a> that focus on the confiscation of illegal firearms and ammunition where the risk of mass shootings is the highest, such as Khayelitsha and Delft in the Western Cape and Soweto in Gauteng. This is critically important as the upturn in violent crime appears to be linked to the widespread availability of illegal firearms. These are the <a href="http://www.policesecretariat.gov.za/downloads/reports/CSPS-WSG_Firearms_Report.pdf">most common weapon</a> used to commit murder, attempted murder and robberies with aggravating circumstances in the country.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-turn-the-tide-against-south-africas-crime-wave-131839">How to turn the tide against South Africa's crime wave</a>
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<p>This would need to be linked to a process of tightening the <a href="https://www.saferspaces.org.za/understand/entry/gun-violence">firearm law</a> to reduce the diversion of firearms into criminal hands. More than 5,000 licensed firearms are lost or stolen each year.</p>
<p>The second option necessitates considerable <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/role-intelligence-combating-organised-crime">intelligence gathering</a>. The police service’s crime intelligence arm needs to be able to identify and monitor the activities of groups responsible for mass shootings to secure arrests and convictions in court.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guy Lamb receives funding from the Peace Research Institute, Oslo. He also serves as a Commissioner on South Africa's National Planning Commission where he chairs the Commission's Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Task Team.</span></em></p>Historically, most mass shootings in South Africa have been associated with three main things: gang conflicts, rivalries in the minibus taxi sector and factional or inter-group feuds.Guy Lamb, Criminologist / Lecturer, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1855442022-07-03T08:10:53Z2022-07-03T08:10:53ZPlasma gangs: how South Africans’ fears about crime created an urban legend<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470312/original/file-20220622-3417-d2mg4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Rushay Booysen/EyeEm via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around the middle of 2013 a series of <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/plasma-tv-powder-drug-craze-1570154">stories</a> appeared in the South African press about a new phenomenon called ‘plasma gangs’, presented as the latest iteration of the country’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/minister-bheki-cele-release-quarter-four-crime-statistics-202122-3-jun-2022-0000">crime crisis</a>. Journalists, broadcasters, police and government spokespeople, social media users and local residents shared tales online and in mainstream media of the frightening <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/xenophobia-erupts-over-plasma-tv-gang-1571182">exploits</a> of these gangs, said to be located in Alexandra (Alex) township in the north of Johannesburg. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/alexandra-township-johannesburg">Alex</a>, like other South African townships, is an underdeveloped and sometimes precarious area, blighted by the inequality and racial segregation that were central to apartheid spatial engineering. Developed in the early 20th century to house around 30,000 people, it is now home to an estimated <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-10-18-waiting-to-exhale-the-story-of-alexandra-township/">700,000</a>. This density creates intense pressure on infrastructure and resources, as well as a powerful community culture that lends itself to the transmission of urban legends.</p>
<h2>Plasma gangs</h2>
<p>Plasma gangs were not like “normal” robbers, who stole anything of value. They had very specific modus operandi. They were said to break into Alex homes with the express purpose of stealing plasma televisions. According to the stories, the gangs used various technologies to achieve this aim, such as hypermodern electronic devices that could tell from outside which homes contained the TVs. Another method involved techniques of <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/04/19/mandela.muti/index.html">muti</a>, indigenous magic, that sent residents to sleep while their homes were plundered.</p>
<p>They were extremely violent and often caused death or harm. But rather than selling the desirable consumer goods they stole, as one might expect from criminal syndicates, the gangs were said to dismantle them and break them open. Then they extracted a mysterious white powder that was used to make <a href="https://www.newframe.com/nyaope-the-drug-that-never-lets-go/">nyaope</a>, a street drug otherwise known as wonga or <a href="http://www.kznhealth.gov.za/mental/Whoonga.pdf">whoonga</a>. Depending on which story one heard, the gangs were either nyaope addicts themselves or professional dealers of the drug.</p>
<h2>Nyaope</h2>
<p>Nyaope is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfn9o_Aqn6k">notorious</a> in South African cities. It is extremely destructive and the subject of a large body of urban mythology. Experts generally agree that it is comprised of a mix of substances, usually a base of cheap heroin with additions like asbestos, rat poison, milk powder, bicarbonate of soda and even swimming pool cleaner. As is common with drug-related panics, stories about nyaope pull a range of other social anxieties into their axis. </p>
<p>There is no mysterious powder in plasma televisions that can <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2013/09/25/Plasma-gang-myth-busted">be used</a> to get high. Plasma is a descriptor for a technology rather than a substance. The powder contained in these devices is magnesium oxide, a small amount of which coats the display electrodes in a thin layer. Magnesium oxide is easily purchased at health food stores. It has never been shown to have any psychotropic effects. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anxiety-in-johannesburg-new-views-on-a-global-south-city-147517">Anxiety in Johannesburg: new views on a global south city</a>
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<p>Concerns about drug users and dealers played powerfully into the plasma gangs narrative. The nyaope connection is part of what set this story aside from “normal, everyday” crime and helped it morph into an urban legend that continues to be disseminated as one of the risks of living in South Africa. </p>
<h2>Social anxiety</h2>
<p>The plasma gangs story shows the way in which <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/townships">township</a> residents’ narratives about their own precarity are both hypermodern and related to globalised and transnational anxieties about status, consumption, belonging and identity. It combines the local and the global, the historical and the contemporary, to reveal the social utility of urban legends. </p>
<p>The fact that plasma gangs are not empirically ‘real’ is almost beside the point. The story condenses fears about security and crime, drug dealers and drug users, police failures and corruption, dangerous foreigners, unruly youth, the intersection between crime, witchcraft and technology and the insecurity and visibility of township life. It illustrates the way in which certain South Africans develop and transmit stories and rumours that helped them to make sense of the world they live in. </p>
<p>In considering the plasma gangs we can see how myth, uncertainty, rumour and strangeness inform South African cultures of fear: crime is not just frightening in and of itself but also because it connotes the presence of hidden forces that undermine the predictability of everyday life. This kind of “crime talk” is endemic in South Africa but oddly quiet in academic literature, which often associates fear of crime with whiteness and wealth.</p>
<h2>Making sense of fear</h2>
<p>The plasma gang scare is a compelling example of the power of narrative to condense and codify collective anxieties. A series of existing fears, spurred by the experiences of people living in a place that is both insecure and community-minded, both high risk and aspirational, layered on top of each other to produce a story that had a peculiar amount of social power. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
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<p>A tale of gangster criminality, personal danger, magic, violence and fear offered a way to foreground the contradictions that come with living in the South African township, a place that both defines residents as aspirational global citizens and imposes conditions of insecurity upon them. </p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from the author’s book Worrier State: Risk, anxiety and moral panic in South Africa <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/worrier-state/">available</a> from Wits University Press</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicky Falkof receives funding from the University of the Witwatersrand and the South African National Research Foundation</span></em></p>In 2013 stories emerged of gangs stealing plasma TV screens to use to make street drugs. It’s a myth, but it tells us something about South Africa’s social anxieties.Nicky Falkof, Associate professor, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1856772022-06-23T02:37:51Z2022-06-23T02:37:51ZNew Zealand needs a new gang strategy – political consensus would be a good start<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470452/original/file-20220623-50706-xiz1zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=144%2C625%2C3285%2C2146&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The concern about gangs and gang-related violence in New Zealand continues to be <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018845752/poto-williams-axed-as-police-minister-in-cabinet-reshuffle">highly politicised</a>. Government ministers are under constant media scrutiny and political pressure, with both sides trying to look more staunch on crime than the other. The problem is that these debates often lack history, context or vision.</p>
<p>Every generation panics intermittently about crime, especially when it concerns gangs and youth. One of the earliest New Zealand examples was in 1842 and 1843 when more than 100 male juveniles were <a href="https://www.geni.com/projects/Parkhurst-Boys-Australia-and-New-Zealand-1842-1861/40626">transported from Parkhurst Prison</a>. The arrival of these former delinquents and a perceived rise in crime caused concern.</p>
<p>Although a plea by the head of police for a prohibition on further deportations was accepted, the country realised it had a problem.</p>
<p>The following years saw the introduction of new legislation, such as that designed to <a href="http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_bill/vb1866107.pdf">deal with “vagabonds and rogues”</a> (including the particularly troublesome “incorrigible” ones). This overlapped with generic laws designed to protect public order and keep criminals locked up.</p>
<p>Crime did not stop, but it did evolve. It was recognised as “organised” in the 1920s, well before the first post-WWII counterculture emerged. But the country was so shocked by youth behaviour in the 1950s that a dedicated committee on “<a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/the-mazengarb-report-on-juvenile-moral-delinquency-is-released">Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents</a>” was established. Its findings on the sexual morality of teenagers were posted to every home in the land.</p>
<p>It was not a huge success. By the late 1950s there were around 41 “milkbar cowboy” gangs in Auckland and 17 in Wellington. By the early 1960s, more enduring brands like the Mongrel Mob and a New Zealand chapter of the Hells Angels were beginning to put down roots.</p>
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<h2>Six decades of a growing challenge</h2>
<p>Since then, politicians have swung left and right, wielding sticks and then carrots to deal with the issue. As we examine in our recent book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/People-Power-Law-Zealand-History/dp/1509931619">People, Power, and Law: a New Zealand History</a>, government responses have moved from involving isolated ministries towards multiple overlapping agencies approaching the problem strategically and holistically.</p>
<p>There has also been a plethora of legislation. As well as the continually evolving criminal law, there have been laws on everything from fortified houses and the recovery of criminal proceeds, through to the prohibition of gang patches in public spaces.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-claims-nzs-policing-is-too-woke-crime-rates-are-largely-static-and-even-declining-156103">Despite claims NZ's policing is too 'woke', crime rates are largely static — and even declining</a>
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<p>While the practicality of many of these laws is <a href="http://www.nzlii.org/nz/journals/NZLFRRp/2022/4.html">questionable</a>, the fundamental point is that none has stemmed the tide. Gang membership reached about 2,300 by 1980. It took nearly 35 years to reach just under <a href="https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/cabinet-paper-whole-government-action-plan-reduce-harms-caused-new-zealand#:%7E:text=In%20June%202014%2C%20Cabinet%20agreed,(PDF%2C%20190%20KB).">4,000 in 2014</a>, but then only seven years before the numbers <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300464553/gang-numbers-have-nearly-doubled-in-five-years-police-say">doubled again to 8,061</a> in 2021.</p>
<p>Gang members are over-represented in crime statistics. As of mid-2021, <a href="https://www.corrections.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/44398/Annual_Report_2020_2021_Final_Web.pdf">2,938 people in prison</a> had a gang affiliation – approximately 35% of the prison population.</p>
<p>In many ways, these people have joined gangs for similar reasons for generations: alienation, identity, purpose, respect, friendship, excitement, security and even economic opportunity.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-coronavirus-is-changing-the-market-for-illegal-drugs-134753">How coronavirus is changing the market for illegal drugs</a>
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<h2>Drugs and gangs</h2>
<p>But today’s gangs are not the same. Their scale, <a href="https://www.policeassn.org.nz/news/501s-mean-business">methods</a> and social impact (especially <a href="https://voxdev.org/topic/labour-markets-migration/how-globalisation-made-narcos-understanding-violent-crime-urban-mexico">overseas</a>) have all changed. They’ve become mobile, transnational enterprises worth an <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/toc/factsheets/TOC12_fs_general_EN_HIRES.pdf">estimated 1.5% of global GDP</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.unodc.org/res/wdr2021/field/WDR21_Booklet_2.pdf">ever-expanding</a> global supply and demand for illegal narcotics has impacts everywhere. Although New Zealand Customs’ illegal drug take was <a href="https://www.customs.govt.nz/globalassets/documents/annual-report-2021/annual-report-2021.pdf">down during the pandemic</a>, the overall trend is one of growing seizures and a diversity of offshore suppliers.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-reducing-harm-to-society-is-the-goal-a-cost-benefit-analysis-shows-cannabis-prohibition-has-failed-145688">If reducing harm to society is the goal, a cost-benefit analysis shows cannabis prohibition has failed</a>
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<p>Drugs are obviously attractive to gangs. In the <a href="https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/national-wastewater-testing-programme-quarter-1-2021">first quarter of 2021</a>, methamphetamine, MDMA and cocaine netted an estimated NZ$77 million through illegal distribution. </p>
<p>The previous quarter was even higher, with about <a href="https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/national-wastewater-testing-programme-quarter-4-2020">$8.5 million generated</a> every week. The estimated 74 tonnes of cannabis consumed in New Zealand each year may add up to <a href="https://berl.co.nz/sites/default/files/2020-09/Evidence-to-inform-a-regulated-cannabis-market-June-2020-PROACTIVE-FINAL.pdf">$1.5 billion</a> to the total.</p>
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<h2>A bipartisan approach</h2>
<p>Solving a problem of this scale will require a strategic shift away from treating organised criminal groups like a partisan political game. It’s an intergenerational challenge that should ideally be a cross-party issue.</p>
<p>One way to achieve this would be through a new framework law that encourages whichever government is in power to focus consistently on illegal activity by organised groups. It should begin with a detailed review of what has worked and what has failed legally, socially and culturally.</p>
<p>There would then need to be an agreed system of political accountability set against known and transparent targets and indicators. But laws and policies designed to deter and punish criminal activity must also be seen in a wider context.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/policing-by-consent-is-not-woke-it-is-fundamental-to-a-democratic-society-155866">Policing by consent is not ‘woke’ — it is fundamental to a democratic society</a>
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<p>The law does not exist in a vacuum. The rights of victims of organised crime should be measurably enhanced. And the rights of freedom of association and freedom from discrimination due to group identity need to be reconciled.</p>
<p>We also need to accept that gangs will not simply disappear. Areas for co-operation on shared lawful projects should be found. Helping people safely leave organised criminal organisations would be another priority. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most critical aim of all will be to slow gang recruitment. Of course, that is a fundamental challenge well beyond any single policy or program – to create an inclusive society where the pathways, opportunities and benefits of being a lawful citizen outweigh the alternative.</p>
<p><em>Correction: Two sentences in this article have been updated for clarity. The original version read “One of the earliest New Zealand examples was in 1842 when 123 male juveniles who had been <a href="https://www.geni.com/projects/Parkhurst-Boys-Australia-and-New-Zealand-1842-1861/40626">transported from Parkhurst Prison</a> in England began roaming the streets of Auckland.”</em></p>
<p><em>This has been changed to “One of the earliest New Zealand examples was in 1842 and 1843, when more than 100 male juveniles were <a href="https://www.geni.com/projects/Parkhurst-Boys-Australia-and-New-Zealand-1842-1861/40626">transported from Parkhurst Prison</a>. The arrival of these former delinquents and a perceived rise in crime caused concern.”</em></p>
<p><em>The second sentence originally began: “In many ways, these people have joined gangs for similar reasons the Parkhurst boys got together in the early 1840s: […]”. It was changed to “In many ways, these people have joined gangs for similar reasons for generations: […]”.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>History shows there is no magic bullet for solving gang crime. Only an evidence-based approach, coupled with mutually agreed targets and indicators, will start to achieve real change.Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoClaire Breen, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1843732022-06-14T12:29:27Z2022-06-14T12:29:27ZWhen all else fails to explain American violence, blame a rapper and hip-hop music<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468098/original/file-20220609-24-ehtoua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=94%2C152%2C3406%2C2178&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Young Thug performs onstage on March 17, 2022, in Austin, Texas. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/young-thug-performs-onstage-at-samsung-galaxy-billboard-news-photo/1386115571?adppopup=true">Amy E. Price/Getty Images for SXSW</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The day after the <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/25/uvalde-school-shooting-victims/">May 24, 2022, mass shooting</a> at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, U.S. Rep. <a href="https://www.congress.gov/member/district/ronny-jackson/J000304">Ronny Jackson</a> promptly blamed the violence on rap music and video games.</p>
<p>“Kids are exposed to all kinds of horrible stuff nowadays,” the Texas Republican <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/texas-school-shooting-god-family-ronny-jackson">told Fox News on May 25, 2022</a>. “I think about the horrible stuff that they hear when they listen to rap music, the video games that they watch … with all of this horrible violence.”</p>
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<p>For Jackson and other critics, rap seems to explain criminal behavior and signal moral decline. In the eyes of <a href="https://fultoncountyga.gov/districtattorney">Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis</a>, rap might be something else as well – evidence. </p>
<p>Atlanta rappers <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/young-thug-focused-faith-mental-192746912.html">Young Thug</a> and <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/rapper-gunna-now-in-fulton-jail-on-racketeering-charge/SW5HGGXXIJFNLAYD2A5EZEH324/">Gunna</a> were among 28 defendants <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/05/13/young-thung-gunna-rap-lyrics-court/">charged under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act</a> in May 2022 with conspiracy and street gang activity. </p>
<p>They are now in jail in Atlanta awaiting trial. </p>
<p>In the indictment, prosecutors cite lyrics from Young Thug’s songs as “overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.” </p>
<p>Several tracks are quoted, including “Slatty,” on which <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=slatty+lyrics&oq=%22Slatty%2C%22&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i512l2j46i512l2j0i512j46i10i512j0i512j46i10i512j0i10i512.3369j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Young Thug raps</a>: “I killed his man in front of his mama /
Like f–k lil bruh, his sister, and cousin.”</p>
<p>Free speech has its limits. </p>
<p>“The First Amendment,” Willis explained, “does not protect people from prosecutors using [lyrics] as evidence if it is such.” </p>
<h2>Scapegoating rap</h2>
<p>Rap has long been used to conspicuously stereotype, caricature and reinforce mythologies about Black people. As <a href="https://music.virginia.edu/people/profile/acarson">a rapper and scholar</a>, I wrote about this scapegoating in a <a href="https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/file_sets/pv63g236n">chapbook</a>, “Rap & Storytellingly Invention,” published with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hip-hop-professor-looks-to-open-doors-with-worlds-first-peer-reviewed-rap-album-153761">peer-reviewed album</a> I released in 2020. </p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 410px; height: 406px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=734046536/size=large/bgcol=333333/linkcol=0f91ff/artwork=small/transparent=true/" seamless="" width="100%" height="400"><a href="https://aydeethegreat.bandcamp.com/album/i-used-to-love-to-dream">i used to love to dream by A.D. Carson</a></iframe>
<p>Since the rise of hip-hop in the early 1980s, critics of rap sought to tie the music to violent crime. </p>
<p>One of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com./music/music-news/run-d-m-c-is-beating-the-rap-106981/">the first targets</a> was <a href="https://www.rundmc.com/">Run-DMC</a>, the rappers from Queens, New York, given credit for <a href="https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/a30644382/run-dmc-facts/">bringing hip-hip to mainstream</a> music and culture. </p>
<p>During the group’s 1986 “Raising Hell” tour, police and journalists <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-08-19-me-16897-story.html">blamed its music for violence</a> that occurred in towns it visited. At its show in Long Beach, California, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/19/us/42-are-hurt-as-gang-fighting-breaks-up-california-concert.html">gang violence in the crowd</a> also was blamed on rap. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, politician and civil rights activist <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/la-fi-tupacdelores20march2096-story.html">C. Delores Tucker</a> became one of the most outspoken anti-rap voices, focusing her ire on <a href="https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/tupac-shakur">Tupac Shakur</a> and the <a href="https://historyofthehiphop.wordpress.com/music-genres/gangsta-rap/">“gangsta rap”</a> subgenre.</p>
<p>The finger-pointing against rap – or some version of it – continues to this day.</p>
<p>The latest target is <a href="https://theconversation.com/chief-keef-changed-the-music-industry-and-its-time-he-gets-the-credit-he-deserves-170172">drill rap</a>, a hip-hop subgenre that originated in Chicago and has since spread across the world.</p>
<p>New York City Mayor Eric Adams <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/mayor-eric-adams-drill-rap-1299108/">condemned drill rap</a> on Feb. 11, 2022, after the murders of two Brooklyn rap artists, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/jayquan-mckenley-funeral/">Jayquan McKenley </a> and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/rising-brooklyn-rapper-tdott-woo-fatally-shot-gun/story?id=82647146">Tahjay Dobson</a>. </p>
<p>Adams said the violence portrayed in drill rap music videos was “alarming” and that he would sit down with social media companies to try to remove the content by telling them they “have a civic and corporate responsibility.” </p>
<p>“We pulled Trump off Twitter for what he was spewing,” Adams said, “yet we are allowing music, displaying of guns, violence. We’re allowing it to stay on these sites.”</p>
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<p>Similar tactics have been employed in the past to shut down drill music. </p>
<p>London drill rappers have been targeted since 2015 by the Metropolitan Police’s <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvnp8v/met-police-youtube-drill-music-removal">Operation Domain</a>, a joint effort with YouTube to monitor for “videos that incite violence.”</p>
<p>It’s as if politicians and police don’t understand that the music emerging from these places is a reflection of crisis, not the source of it.</p>
<h2>Tragic myths and realities</h2>
<p>Despite the immense popularity of hip-hop, the culture and the music continue to be portrayed as a cultural wasteland in both subtle and explicit ways.</p>
<p>Worse, in my view, these harmful assumptions affect the ways ordinary people who experience tragedies are described. </p>
<p>The word “rapper” is used to conjure negative imagery. It leaves hollow expectations in its place, to be filled with the specter of death and the spectacle of violence. The person described by it becomes a <a href="https://scalawagmagazine.org/2018/11/boogeymen/">boogeyman</a> in the public imagination. </p>
<p>In the most unjust of circumstances, “rapper” has become a social shorthand for presumptions of guilt, expectations of violence and sometimes worthiness of death. </p>
<p>Such was the case with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/12/willie-mccoy-shooting-vallejo-police-55-shots">Willie McCoy</a>. In 2019, the 20-year-old was killed by six policemen while he slept in his car at a Vallejo, California, Taco Bell. The officers claimed they saw a gun and tried to wake him. When McCoy moved, the officers fired 55 shots in 3.5 seconds. </p>
<p>While rap music appears to have had nothing to do with the tragic events of his death, <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/17/vallejo-police-officer-colin-eaton-disciplined-for-excessive-force-in-2020-according-to-investigation/">descriptions of McCoy</a> as a rapper were reported more prominently and consistently than the 55 shots police fired at him while he slept.</p>
<p>Even playing rap music might result in death. In 2012, a 17-year-old named <a href="https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/crime/2016/11/17/michael-dunn-convicted-killing-17-year-old-after-telling-teen-turn-down-rap-music/15732203007/">Jordan Davis</a> was shot and killed by a man who complained about the <a href="https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/monday-night-marks-8-years-since-murder-of-jordan-davis-over-loud-music-at-jacksonville-gas-station/77-2297d230-84cb-4cdf-bacd-00b583df6648">“loud” music Davis was playing</a> in his car at a Florida gas station. </p>
<p>During the proceedings dubbed “the loud music trial,” Michael Dunn testified that <a href="http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/atonal-notes/on-white-thugs-like-michael-dunn-and-the-scapegoating-of-hip-hop">the music Davis and his friends were playing</a> in Davis’ car was “thug music” or “rap crap.”</p>
<p>Dunn’s defense depended on his victims’ being viewed as thugs by association with rap. </p>
<p>In jail, Dunn was <a href="https://participant.com/film/3-12-minutes-ten-bullets">recorded</a> on the phone speculating whether Davis and his friends were “gangster rappers.” He claimed he’d seen YouTube videos. </p>
<p>In describing these tragedies, the words “rappers” and “rap music” are code for “Black” and “other,” meant to elicit fear and justify violence. There’s no question in my mind that they would have been perceived differently if the words “poets” or “poetry” were used instead. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1327368426550071298"}"></div></p>
<h2>Made in America</h2>
<p>Indeed, violence perpetuated by people who rap is as real any other American violence.</p>
<p>Young Thug, Gunna, or any other rapper accused of crimes are not exempt from accountability. But, in my view, assuming people are criminals simply because they rap – even if they rap about violence – is wrong. </p>
<p>Admittedly, throughout hip-hop history, rappers have constructed personas as antiheroes. Performances of masculinity, violence, intimidation, gun ownership and misogyny are meant to signal a kind of authenticity. </p>
<p>In her 1994 book “Outlaw Culture,” bell hooks included a <a href="http://challengingmalesupremacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Misogyny-gangsta-rap-and-The-Piano-bell-hooks.pdf">chapter on “gangsta rap.”</a> Hooks explained that the abhorrent behaviors scrutinized and highlighted in rappers are American values that people living and surviving here adopt.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com./music/music-news/run-d-m-c-is-beating-the-rap-106981/">December 1986 story on Run-DMC</a>, Rolling Stone writer Ed Kiersh said out loud what many were thinking.</p>
<p>“To much of white America,” Kiersh wrote, “rap means mayhem and bloodletting.” </p>
<p>Perhaps.</p>
<p>But those who still seek to vilify rap might do well to focus on the sources of the crisis of violence in America rather than blaming the music that reflects it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184373/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>A.D. Carson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since rap music emerged in mainstream culture in the late 1980s, conservatives have derided its lyrics and imagery as violent. But hip-hop artists argue those images reflect urban realities.A.D. Carson, Assistant Professor of Hip-Hop, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769252022-05-17T14:23:18Z2022-05-17T14:23:18ZThe UK government wants to crack down on knife crime – research can tell us why young people start carrying weapons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447079/original/file-20220217-6550-az0auw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=137%2C96%2C4463%2C2911&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/crime-robbery-concept-robber-killer-person-1485339854">Golden_Hind / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The government has <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/16/priti-patel-lifts-restrictions-use-stop-search-combat-knife/">lifted restrictions</a> on stop and search powers in an effort to combat knife crime. This approach focuses on people who are already carrying weapons. My research, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14773708211046193">published late last year</a>, can help explain what happens in young people’s lives before they start carrying a weapon – important information if we are to stop young people becoming involved in knife crime.</p>
<p>Reflecting on his childhood in Baltimore, US writer Ta-Nehisi Coates said that “when you live around violence, there is no <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/opinion/sunday/coates-beyond-the-code-of-the-streets.html">opting out</a>”. As a violence researcher, I spend much of my day thinking about why people become involved in violence and, in particular, why someone might carry a weapon. Coates’s words, as relevant to England today as they are to 1980s Baltimore, are never far from my mind. They eloquently remind us that while violence and weapon-carrying may be individual decisions, these choices are not made in a vacuum.</p>
<p>Although weapon-carrying is rare – <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/59/3/571/5071681">around 4%</a> of young people in England and Wales carry a weapon once or more in a year – they contribute a great deal to the overall harm caused by violence. While around <a href="https://whatworks.college.police.uk/Research/Documents/Victims_SV_2011-2017.pdf">15% of all violent incidents</a> involve a weapon, more than <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2020">half of all homicides do</a>. Even when violence is not fatal, the harm weapons cause can have a significant emotional and <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/compendium/focusonviolentcrimeandsexualoffences/yearendingmarch2015/chapter1overviewofviolentcrimeandsexualoffences#emotional-impact">psychological</a> impact on the victim.</p>
<p>A study from 2019 <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/59/3/571/5071681">showed that</a> a history of violence, low trust in the police, drug use and criminal peers are common in young weapon carriers. However, because that study used data collected at a single point in time, it could not tell us what came first. For example, did violence lead to weapon-carrying? Or did carrying a weapon make them more likely to be violent? Similar questions about drug use, trust in the police and having friends in trouble with the police were also left unanswered.</p>
<p>The UK government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-offending-crime-and-justice-survey-longitudinal-analysis-2003-to-06">Offending, Crime and Justice survey</a> was a survey of around 4,000 young people (ten to 25 years old) that asked about their experience of crime and the police at two points in time, about a year apart. The survey was conducted between 2003 and 2006, but remarkably, it is still the best data to understand the paths to knife crime for young people in England and Wales. Using it, we can now better understand the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14773708211046193">order of these experiences</a>.</p>
<p>Because the researchers spoke to the same people twice, I was able to identify the people who started to carry a weapon sometime between the first and second surveys. I examined what these respondents said about their lives in the first year of the survey and compared their experiences and attitudes with those of young people who did not carry a weapon at all. </p>
<h2>Life as a weapon-carrier</h2>
<p>The first and most compelling finding was that for every violent incident a young person was involved in in the first year, the chance that they would carry a weapon the following year increased by about 6%. This was not just violence as a perpetrator, but also as a victim.</p>
<p>My research also found that, in the year before carrying a weapon, weapon-carriers were no more or less worried about being a victim than anyone else. This does not mean people involved in violence are not concerned about victimisation – they have repeatedly <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1473225419893781">said they are</a> – but it does suggest that this concern is not a direct cause of their weapon-carrying over a significant length of time. Maybe this is not surprising: the lives of young people can change quickly and a year between surveys may be too long to pick this up.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Close up of a young man's hand holding a knife, while a group of three other young people are huddledin the distance" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447088/original/file-20220217-25-1ol6m0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447088/original/file-20220217-25-1ol6m0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447088/original/file-20220217-25-1ol6m0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447088/original/file-20220217-25-1ol6m0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447088/original/file-20220217-25-1ol6m0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447088/original/file-20220217-25-1ol6m0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447088/original/file-20220217-25-1ol6m0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young weapon-carriers can be heavily influenced by the experiences of their friends.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-teenage-boy-urban-gang-holding-1433575952">SpeedKingz / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whether or not someone carried a weapon was strongly connected to their peers. Having friends in trouble with the police was rare – 20% of people in the survey had a few such friends and only <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14773708211046193">1% had a lot</a> – the more of their friends who were in trouble, the more likely that person was to carry a weapon in the following year. </p>
<p>There are many possible explanations for this. In adolescence, young people seem to value the opinions of their peers over anyone else. Their decisions about risky behaviour are unduly influenced by peers, as opposed to parents or other authority figures. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X11002850">Research</a> from the US shows that when one friend in a group begins carrying a weapon, the likelihood that other members of the group will start carrying a weapon rises dramatically.</p>
<p>Although we talk about “knife crime” as some distinct form of violence that has its own solutions, the truth is that weapon-carrying is the continuation of a long path paved with violence. For young people who live around violence, the decisions faced are often brutal and deeply unfair – and as Coates reminds us, there is no opting out. However, by identifying and tackling the early indicators, we can make violence preventable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iain Brennan receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council, Home Office, College of Policing and the Youth Endowment Fund.</span></em></p>A look at what was happening in the lives of young people one year before they started carrying a weapon.Iain Brennan, Professor of Criminology, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769212022-03-01T15:04:14Z2022-03-01T15:04:14ZIdle and frustrated: young South Africans speak about the need for recreational facilities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447589/original/file-20220221-28422-1eri5rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A gang member shows his tattoos.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Per-Anders Pettersson/ Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recreational facilities play a crucial role in youth development. Research has <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11399146/RECREATIONAL_ACTIVITIES_IN_CRIME_PREVENTION_AND_REDUCTION">shown</a> that sports and fitness centres, community halls, parks, libraries, cultural centres and other facilities can keep young people out of harm’s way and reduce crime. </p>
<p>In South Africa, however, these facilities aren’t available to everyone and townships are hardest hit as they continue to have large numbers of unengaged and uninvolved youths who are not in employment, education or training – persons referred to as NEETs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.dhet.gov.za/Planning%20Monitoring%20and%20Evaluation%20Coordination/Fact%20Sheet%20on%20NEET%20-%202021.pdf">Research</a> on NEETs found that approximately 17 million people in South Africa between the ages of 15-60 were not in employment, education or training in the latter part of 2020 and more than half were below the age of 35. This significant number of idle youths has an impact on crime and community safety – as many African township youths are forced to achieve a sense of belonging through engaging in crime, violence, drug abuse and alcohol abuse. </p>
<p>Studies in South Africa have repeatedly <a href="https://socialwork.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/739">shown the link</a> between idle youths and troubled social behaviour, including drug abuse and violence. Some studies have also found that access to recreational facilities can help learners to leave gangs.</p>
<p><a href="https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/SWPR/article/view/7687">Our research</a> explored the intricate link between recreational facilities and gang involvement in marginalised communities. It sought to help youth development practitioners better understand the significant role played by recreational facilities in reducing gangs and anti-social behaviour. </p>
<p>We studied the experiences of youths from Nyanga in South Africa’s Western Cape province and Bophelong in Gauteng province, who perceived themselves as excluded from well-resourced and well-managed recreational facilities. We explored the way this exclusion had influenced youth gang violence in both areas, which are African townships characterised by unemployment, low quality education, poor housing conditions, high levels of crime and underdevelopment.</p>
<p>In both communities, young people lacked the facilities that could keep them occupied and off the streets. As a result some of them passed time by joining gangs and were then compelled to join in violent, criminal and anti-social behaviour. This ranged from “ukubloma emakhoneni” (being idle on street corners) to drug use and physical assault. </p>
<p>So the study revealed a link between youth, troubled behaviour and exclusion from recreational facilities. The findings show that youth development practitioners – such as those employed in the public sector, private sector and civil society to serve the needs of South African youths – have excluded African youths from actively and fully participating in recreational activities.</p>
<h2>The study</h2>
<p>Nyanga and Bophelong both battle with the issue of gangs, substance abuse and the subsequent illegal activities that are a direct consequence of gangs and drugs. </p>
<p>For our study, we interviewed 18 unemployed youths aged between 14 and 35 years, 18 former gang members between the ages of 14 and 35, and 36 practitioners working on the issue of youth and gang violence. We took an exploratory, qualitative approach to obtain an in-depth understanding of the participants’ perceptions of the topic.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of boys gathers at a club house, one sitting and entering information into a computer at an outside table, others standing around him or peering through the security gate of the clubhouse, which sports painted murals of football players." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A football programme in Khayelitsha township created to keep youths off the streets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Per-Anders Pettersson/ Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We asked questions about how a lack of access to well-resourced and well-managed recreational facilities has intentionally or unintentionally influenced the issue of gang violence. Other questions included the benefits of recreation in the prevention of youth delinquency, gang involvement and violence. </p>
<p>The responses showed a strong link between idleness and crime. Many young people said youths had too much time on their hands, “which is a recipe for mischief”. Especially former gang members attributed their involvement in gangs and crime to a lack of programmes that could keep them busy with developmental activities. One former gang member admitted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we had things to do, we wouldn’t be having all this time to be killing each other. We have too much time here, gangs and drugs keep us busy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>After school, we have nothing to do … We have too much free time and we are free to move around with guns and knives, not books.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some practitioners, too, noted that youths with too much time on their hands are vulnerable to social ills such as substance abuse, crime or gangs. These findings echo other <a href="https://doi.org/10.34051/p/2020.101">studies</a> about problem behaviour.</p>
<h2>Gangs take over neglected facilities</h2>
<p>The South African government has an <a href="http://www.nyda.gov.za/Portals/0/Downloads/Integrated%20Youth%20Development%20Strategy.pdf">Integrated Youth Development Strategy</a> which highlights the importance of programmes for youths from underprivileged backgrounds. But practitioners and young people in our study said that children growing up in townships joined gangs and abused substances because they lacked youth-friendly facilities. </p>
<p>A former gang member from Bophelong indicated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our homes are too small, they are suffocating us. There are no facilities for young people in this area, young people have nothing to do … We need facilities or else we join gangs and do drugs just to forget about our circumstances.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both practitioners and young people in our study pointed out that some of the few facilities that were available were either abandoned or unsupervised. As a result some of them had been used as a space for antisocial behaviour by gangs and drug lords. Instead of serving as areas of recreation to keep young people safe, these spaces were now traps for the vulnerable. As one practitioner put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then there was a park and then this park was captured by gangs simply because there was nobody who was owning the space, so they decided that the space is theirs.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Meeting real needs</h2>
<p>Recreational facilities should meet the real needs of marginalised young people. But our findings highlighted that they didn’t. This defeated the whole purpose because the facilities failed to attract the very people they were meant to serve. An unemployed youth from Nyanga said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sisteri, ekasi (Sister, the African township) is full of useful people doing useless things. A lot of talents and gifts are wasted ekasi because of limited resources, that’s why people end up using their gifts for wrong things like crime … There is a lot of frustration … for example go around Nyanga and look around, the facilities are not attractive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These findings indicate the importance of understanding specific youth needs and contexts to bring about targeted programmes that prevent and redress antisocial behaviour. Well-organised and well-managed recreational facilities play an important role in removing youths from the streets of marginalised, crime ridden communities and keeping them occupied with constructive activities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>G. Nokukhanya Ndhlovu receives funding from the Govan Mbeki Research and Development Centre (GMRDC) at the University of Fort Hare.</span></em></p>The study revealed a link between youth, troubled behaviour and a lack of access to recreational spaces in marginalised communities.G. Nokukhanya Ndhlovu, Post-doctoral fellow, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1753692022-02-17T11:21:35Z2022-02-17T11:21:35ZGirls in gangs: how they are recruited, exploited and trapped<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445759/original/file-20220210-50318-1qwdh6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C32%2C3072%2C2267&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-eye-close-face-155146973">Cafe Racer / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There has long been a misconception that gangs are made up of boys and young men, typically from ethnic minority groups and disadvantaged backgrounds. But the reality is very different. </p>
<p>Girls and young women from all demographics are targeted by gang members, and used to transport drugs and weapons from urban areas to rural locations and coastal towns. </p>
<p>Research in London’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322677141_From_Postcodes_to_Profits_Changes_in_gang_activity_in_Waltham_Forest">Waltham Forest</a> in 2018 found that “clean skins” – children, especially young women and girls, not previously known to police and statutory agencies and often from wealthier backgrounds – are being targeted by gangs.</p>
<p>When young women and girls are recognised as part of gangs, they tend to be viewed as willing participants, and judged according to sexist social norms and stereotypes. Their behaviours are interpreted as one of two extremes: they are either very violent, or immoral and sexually promiscuous. For example, so-called hooks or honey traps are commonly seen as perpetrators, willingly manipulating their sexuality to entice rival gang members or attract new ones. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17488958211051513">The truth</a> is far more complex. Women and girls involved in gangs are often <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6akZmp_qkQE">both perpetrator and victim</a>, actively recruiting other young people to avoid their own sexual and <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9264/CBP-9264.pdf">criminal exploitation</a>. </p>
<p>The limited public awareness of girls and young women in gangs is to the gang’s advantage. Absent from the statistics and viewed as deviant, they are <a href="https://www.northlondonsocialwork.co.uk/news/we-must-protect-the-silent-and-invisible-youth/">seldom seen</a> and less often believed, which means they can more readily avoid detection. In this sense, girls and young women from diverse backgrounds are ideally placed to help gangs run their <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10610-019-09408-4">profit making business model</a>.</p>
<p>Challenging these conceptions and improving public understanding about girls in gangs could help prevent more young women from being recruited and used to perpetuate criminal activity.</p>
<h2>Coercive control</h2>
<p>A better way to understand the behaviour of girls and young women in gangs is the concept of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17488958211051513">coercive control</a>. Historically associated with domestic abuse, coercive control is built on a foundation of trust, where the victim shares intimate experiences and information with the perpetrator, including personal dreams and fears. It is different from other forms of abuse, because abusers leverage the privileged and trusted information to exert influence or control over their victim.</p>
<p>The BBC documentary <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010dbw/hidden-girls">Hidden Girls</a>, which I consulted on, describes first-hand accounts of the ways girls are recruited into gangs. Young men in gangs show an interest in or feign concern about young women and girls. They target these children and deliberately foster a dependency which leads to an emotional commitment. </p>
<p>In the hands of gang members, technology becomes a <a href="https://www.northlondonsocialwork.co.uk/news/we-must-protect-the-silent-and-invisible-youth/">tool for coercive control</a>. Gang members regularly use <a href="https://archive.voice-online.co.uk/article/girls-gangs-and-social-media">social media</a> to recruit young women and girls from all backgrounds to parties. Here, they are plied with drink and drugs and sexually exploited, often by several gang members at a time. They are often too drunk to give consent or too frightened to say no, and the rape is filmed. Armed with evidence of the girl or young woman’s alleged promiscuity, gang members then threaten to expose them by posting the footage and their personal information on social media. These young women and girls are then bombarded with sexually explicit texts and phone calls from predatory strangers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A distressed-looking young woman sits in the dark with her head resting on her hand and holding a mobile phone in her other hand" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445753/original/file-20220210-21-nmcnk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445753/original/file-20220210-21-nmcnk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445753/original/file-20220210-21-nmcnk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445753/original/file-20220210-21-nmcnk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445753/original/file-20220210-21-nmcnk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445753/original/file-20220210-21-nmcnk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445753/original/file-20220210-21-nmcnk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mobile phones are an easy tool for gang members to maintain control over their victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-scared-worried-teenager-girl-holding-1285787740">Burdun Iliya / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Technology can also be used to groom young women and girls by creating the impression of a romantic relationship. Once in the gang fold, this same technology is used to intimidate and maintain <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/jgbv/2020/00000004/00000002/art00007;jsessionid=1vffoncsf7pe1.x-ic-live-02">round the clock surveillance</a>. Equipped with their personal numbers, elder gang members are able to track young women and girls through GPS apps on their phones. </p>
<p>Always knowing where they are and able to text or call at any time, gang members can make demands at a moment’s notice, while monitoring the girls to check on their whereabouts and ensure they are following instructions. This creates the impression that the perpetrator is always present, even when he cannot be seen. This fear traps the girls in gang life and forces them to comply with the demands of gang members.</p>
<p>Gangs are targeting young women and girls from all backgrounds. The myths and stereotypes associated with gang demographics only serve to isolate these women and girls and keep them hidden. We need to recognise that all children are vulnerable to recruitment and that their decisions, however unwise, may be a consequence of fear and control. Rather than judge these young women and girls, it may be helpful to understand their behaviours as a strategy to manage their abuse and a tool to keep themselves safe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175369/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Some of the findings from this research came from research in Waltham Forest that was funded by the local authority. The research was a 10 year follow up and the purpose was to understand how gangs had changed over this timescale. </span></em></p>Gangs are using coercive control tactics to recruit young women into criminal activity.Tirion E. Havard, Associate Professor of Social Work, London South Bank UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1735432021-12-09T20:52:28Z2021-12-09T20:52:28Z‘West Side Story’ may be timeless – but life in gangs today differs drastically from when the Jets and Sharks ruled the streets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436757/original/file-20211209-172173-l3qs80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C13%2C949%2C502&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dancing with danger.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://amblin.com/movie/west-side-story/">West Side Story/Amblin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The songs are timeless, the casting contemporary and dance routines still daring.</p>
<p>But for <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/sociology/our-people/david-pyrooz">social</a> <a href="https://ccj.asu.edu/content/scott-decker">scientists</a> <a href="https://www.metrostate.edu/about/directory/james-densley">like us</a>, Steven Spielberg’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/movies/west-side-story-review.html">remake of the 1961 hit musical “West Side Story”</a> – a film about two rival street gangs – is more than a 21st-century face-lift of a Broadway classic. Released in theaters on Dec. 10, 2021, it is an opportunity to consider societal changes in the six decades since Maria and Tony stole the hearts of audiences across the world – particularly in the world of gangs.</p>
<p>As scholars who have <a href="http://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000010332">studied gang culture</a>, we find that the soul of the street gang hasn’t changed much since the days of the Jets and the Sharks – but the world around them has. Demographics, economics, technology and public policy have reshaped and reshuffled gang life in America. So dramatic are the changes that the romanticized “West Side Story” characterization of gangs is <a href="http://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000010332">now a relic of a bygone era</a>.</p>
<h2>Evolving demographics</h2>
<p>Perhaps the biggest shift in gangs is skin-deep – urban white-ethnic neighborhood-based gangs like the Jets <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300453/alt-right-gangs">no longer really exist</a>.</p>
<p>Ethnonational conflict among Italian, Irish, Jewish and Polish youth in cities like Boston, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia culminated with the end of mass migration from Europe in the early to mid-20th century. Many urban white people moved to the suburbs in the 1960s and, generally speaking, <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498511346/The-History-of-Street-Gangs-in-the-United-States-Their-Origins-and-Transformations">took their gangs</a> with them. Today, when people think of the American street gang, they are more likely to think of Black gangs, like the Bloods and Crips, or Latino gangs, like the Nortenos and Surenos. White street gangs are located outside of urban areas and cast as <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300453/alt-right-gangs">domestic extremists</a> such as the Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Skinheads.</p>
<h2>The gang as an American enterprise</h2>
<p>The gangs of the “West Side Story” era were often a normal yet fleeting aspect of adolescence, soon to be supplanted by work, marriage and children.</p>
<p>But in the 1970s and 1980s, globalization and industrial restructuring caused the well-paying, stable blue-collar jobs that young men in gangs were qualified for to largely <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Gang_as_an_American_Enterprise/Xgi5BWKFuqoC?hl=en">disappear</a>. Around this same time, gang involvement became more prolonged into <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262522967_From_Your_First_Cigarette_to_Your_Last_Dyin'_Day_The_Patterning_of_Gang_Membership_in_the_Life-Course">adulthood</a> and intergenerational within <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Going_Down_To_The_Barrio/at3ol3zcrsMC?hl=en">families</a>.</p>
<p>This era also coincided with an increase in imported drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine. With the rise of the illicit drug economy, the gang itself became an <a href="https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittVenkateshAnEconomicAnalysis2000.pdf">institutionalized route</a> to mythologized riches. Gang activity <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles/171153.pdf">expanded</a> throughout the country, emerging in the suburbs and even rural towns, leading to the most recent estimates from the <a href="https://nationalgangcenter.ojp.gov/survey-analysis/measuring-the-extent-of-gang-problems">National Gang Center</a> of 31,000 gangs and 850,000 gang members. </p>
<h2>The West Side goes digital</h2>
<p>Gang life saw more changes with the emergence of the internet. The internet and social media were in the realms of far-fetched fantasy when “West Side Story” was made, but they now provide a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274265882_Criminal_and_Routine_Activities_in_Online_Settings_Gangs_Offenders_and_the_Internet">repository</a> for gang content, a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317662741_Broadcasting_Badness_Violence_Identity_and_Performance_in_the_Online_Rap_Scene">blueprint</a> for gang activity and a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332043722_When_Twitter_Fingers_Turn_to_Trigger_Fingers_a_Qualitative_Study_of_Social_Media-Related_Gang_Violence">catalyst</a> for gang conflict. A modern “West Side Story” would entail taunts on Twitter, fights over Facebook, and reliving the rumble on Reddit.</p>
<p>Word always traveled fast on the streets; “West Side Story” shows that well. But social media makes it faster, more public and more permanent. Gossip, taunts and threats are now <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691194431/ballad-of-the-bullet">broadcast to a much bigger social world</a> – in some cases, with violent consequences.</p>
<h2>Gang violence becomes deadlier</h2>
<p>Contemporary gangs “shoot it out” rather than “slug it out.” In the 1960s, there were <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/34497NCJRS.pdf">several hundred</a> gang homicides annually; now there are <a href="https://nationalgangcenter.ojp.gov/survey-analysis/measuring-the-extent-of-gang-problems#homicidesnumber">several thousand</a>.</p>
<p>When compared with other homicides, gang-related homicides disproportionately involve the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354422122_Gang_Homicide_The_Road_so_Far_and_a_Map_for_the_Future">use of firearms</a>. Firearms are far more <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2021/12/atf-time-to-crime-gun-data-shooting-pandemic/">prevalent and accessible</a> now than when “West Side Story” was conceived. But what original “West Side Story” director and choreographer Jerome Robbins understood back in the 1950s still holds true: When guns and knives are present, pushing and shoving can escalate quickly into stabbing and shooting. The movie’s fateful knife fight dramatically illustrates this.</p>
<h2>Gangs are a criminal justice priority</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-american-street-gang-9780195115734">gangs and violence proliferated</a> in the decades after “West Side Story” first hit screens, the cure for the Jets’ self-diagnosis of “<a href="https://www.westsidestory.com/gee-officer-krupke">sociological sickness</a>” has shifted from social work to suppression. Criminal justice is now the rule of the day. Beat police officers like Officer Krupke and Lt. Shrank have been replaced by <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/gang-units-large-local-law-enforcement-agencies-2007">gang unit officers and special investigators</a> tasked with gathering intelligence and documenting and collating gang members in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336810674_The_Matrix_in_Context_Taking_Stock_of_Police_Gang_Databases_in_London_and_Beyond">databases</a>.</p>
<p>States also responded <a href="https://nationalgangcenter.ojp.gov/legislation">legislatively</a> to gangs. California first passed its anti-gang laws in 1988, and 44 states have since followed suit. Gang membership and recruitment have been criminalized, while sentencing enhancements for crimes with a gang nexus have been controversially introduced.</p>
<p>In the days of “West Side Story,” gangs were not a significant issue in prisons. Since the onset of mass incarceration in the 1970s, prisons have become a <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-spoke-to-hundreds-of-prison-gang-members-heres-what-they-said-about-life-behind-bars-132573">vector for gang activity</a> – around 15% of U.S. prisoners today are affiliated with gangs.</p>
<h2>American street gangs in the 21st century</h2>
<p>It is impossible to understand gangs in the 21st century without considering how the world around them has shifted. And while structural shifts in policy, population and technology clearly matter, what is perhaps the starkest change has little to do with the gangs themselves, but the way in which the general public and the legal system <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814776384/punished/">stigmatize the children</a> within them. The <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262522967_From_Your_First_Cigarette_to_Your_Last_Dyin'_Day_The_Patterning_of_Gang_Membership_in_the_Life-Course">average age</a> of a gang member is 15 – these are kids who are trying to survive in the worst of circumstances.</p>
<p>If the gang was a rite of passage when Riff and Bernardo roamed the streets of New York City in “West Side Story,” the reality of the contemporary gang has become much bleaker because of worsening violence, mass incarceration and other factors that have operated largely outside of their control.</p>
<p>“West Side Story” harks back to simpler times, with less <a href="https://time.com/2862299/how-the-united-states-is-growing-more-partisan-in-10-charts/">polarization</a> and <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/187592/death-rate-from-homicide-in-the-us-since-1950/">violence</a>. Perhaps it could also assist in revising what we know about gangs and reforming some of our more punitive impulses to respond to them.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.\</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Pyrooz receives funding from the National Institute of Justice, National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, Charles Koch Foundation, and Laura and John Arnold Foundation</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley has received funding from The National Institute of Justice.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott H. Decker has received funding from the National Institute of Justice. </span></em></p>Gangs have changed in the decades since ‘West Side Story’ first came out – they are deadlier, and their demographics are different – as are the means law enforcement use to control them.David Pyrooz, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Colorado BoulderJames Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Scott H. Decker, Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1708392021-11-15T14:06:13Z2021-11-15T14:06:13ZZakes Mda on his latest novel, set in Lesotho’s musical gang wars<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430839/original/file-20211108-21-1gx3sb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A masked herdsman in Lesotho.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Edwin Remsberg/The Image Bank via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Zakes Mda is one of South Africa’s best-loved novelists – though he is also a celebrated playwright, children’s book author and an increasingly visible painter. His latest novel, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/wayfarers-hymns/9781415210826">Wayfarers’ Hymns</a>, is at once full of drama and mirth, set in Lesotho and playing out in the bloody world of famo musicians. At a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze1piSqrasA">launch of the book</a> at the University of Pretoria, Dr Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang interviewed Mda about it. This is an edited transcription of that interview.</em></p>
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<p><strong>Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang</strong> I was intrigued that yes, you talk about the culture of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sotho-south-sotho-or-basotho">Basotho</a> and the <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/musical-instruments-lesotho">instruments</a> of Basotho, but not in the way that you’ve done before, as a kind of healing salve to our colonial oppression and apartheid and so on. This is a different ballgame. Tell us a little bit about what inspired you. And about the process of writing this <a href="https://www.newframe.com/sharp-read-the-hymns-of-a-kheleke/">book about musical gangsters</a>, really.</p>
<p><strong>Zakes Mda</strong> This book is centred around <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/famo-music-lesotho">famo music</a>. Which is a genre of music in Lesotho. Very popular there, predominantly the instrument there is the accordion, it used to be the concertina before. So Basothos have taken the concertina and the accordion and turned them into Sesotho traditional instruments. And it’s a kind of music that’s full of poetry. And the poetry is known as hymns, <em>difela</em>, but these are secular hymns, they are not religious hymns. And so that is why the title is <em>Wayfarers’ Hymns</em>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430988/original/file-20211109-19-ok7pso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with the title Wayfarers' Hymns and an illustration in blues and browns of a man in a blanket looking out over snow capped mountains beneath a full moon and an accordion , sheep and wild lilies also featured." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430988/original/file-20211109-19-ok7pso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430988/original/file-20211109-19-ok7pso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430988/original/file-20211109-19-ok7pso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430988/original/file-20211109-19-ok7pso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430988/original/file-20211109-19-ok7pso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430988/original/file-20211109-19-ok7pso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430988/original/file-20211109-19-ok7pso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin Random House</span></span>
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<p>Wayfarers are travellers. The title comes from the Sesotho name of the genre, it’s <em>difela tsa batsamai</em>, which means the hymns of those who traverse the land … Now, I grew up knowing this music because I grew up in Lesotho. But it’s only recently that I learned new things about it, which are <a href="https://chimurengachronic.co.za/accordion-cowboys/">recent developments</a>, gang wars, the wars, amongst the <a href="https://www.thereporter.co.ls/2021/08/15/famo-gang-violence-leads-to-internal-displacement/">gangs</a> that are led by musicians themselves. </p>
<p>So these musicians have evolved into gang leaders. And every weekend in <a href="https://www.lesotho-info.co.za/country/province/29/mafeteng">Mafeteng</a>, which is a district in Lesotho, there are their funerals of musicians who have died in these wars, of their followers, of the chorus boys and so on. Fighting for territory, fighting for followers, but also fighting for <a href="https://www.mineralscouncil.org.za/work/illegal-mining">illegal mining</a>. </p>
<p>The illegal mining that happens here in Gauteng, in Welkom and so on, is actually led by the musicians, the leaders of these gangs. So I was fascinated to hear of this because I’ve never read about it, even in the newspapers. Sometimes you will hear that four <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2021/04/30/the-plight-of-south-africa-s-zama-zama-illegal-miners//"><em>zama zamas</em></a>, by which they mean the illegal miners, were found dead on the roadside or something like that. And they never dig deeper, who were they, why were they there? And then right into the fact that the mining operations, the illegal mining operations are actually run by syndicates of Basotho musicians. They are fighting over these territories as well.</p>
<p>And indeed, when you listen to the music, I mean, it’s beautiful, it’s healing, with wonderful poetry, but it engenders a lot of death. You know, which is a contradiction in terms. I think that’s what fascinated me to write a novel set in this community of famo music, examining the culture that gave birth to it, the culture of the old <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/200611080910.html">MaRussia gangs</a>, the Russian gangs of the 50s. And then up to the contemporary musicians, because you see, you trace the ancestry of the current famo musicians to those early MaRussia gangs.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/virtual-exhibition-breathes-life-into-lesothos-musical-tradition-and-clay-art-167315">Virtual exhibition breathes life into Lesotho's musical tradition and clay art</a>
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<p><strong>Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang:</strong> Scholars of African literature will know about the history of the MaRussia. And I grew up in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/soweto-johannesburg">Soweto</a>, in Pimville. So MaRussia were really big in Pimville. We all knew even as children, that, you know, when you see a Mosotho with a blanket … It might be an <a href="https://theconversation.com/worlds-deadliest-inventor-mikhail-kalashnikov-and-his-ak-47-126253">AK47</a> under the blanket.</p>
<p><strong>Zakes Mda:</strong> We know <em>difela</em>, the wayfarers hymns, as melodic, it’s so deceptively beautiful and calm, you know, but there is this kind of underbelly. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Pretoria launch of Wayfarers’ Hymns.</span></figcaption>
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<p><strong>Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang:</strong> And very elegantly done. The way you balance dramatic and sometimes very difficult issues, to do with race, to do with land, to do with economic freedom, but it’s tempered with humour. But specifically in this book, the issue of the toxic masculinities, the whole persona of the mine worker, you know, <em>o sebetsa dimaineng</em> don’t be a layabout, go and be a man and work in the mines, and the cost of that to the individuals and to the community. Talk to us about that, because in the past, you’ve spoken about strong women, but now you seem to be shining a light more on the many layers of masculinities.</p>
<p><strong>Zakes Mda:</strong> Yes. But even then, I still talk about strong women. But even there, it is not something that is preplanned, that this woman has to be strong, this man has to be toxic, and so on. The story takes me there. And the story is informed by the culture of the setting. The strong women don’t come from my imagination … “Oh, I wish there were strong women in the world, okay, let me create them in my fiction.” It is because in the environment that I’m writing about, they are there. In many instances, they’re the people who drive life in those environments. And therefore, they drive my story. The toxic environment of the men, in the setting of the wayfarers, this is one novel which is much more informed by the reality, than any other of my novels. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431780/original/file-20211113-15-slarr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a man in a denim shirt with a colourful scarf and a hat smiles and gestures with his hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431780/original/file-20211113-15-slarr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431780/original/file-20211113-15-slarr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431780/original/file-20211113-15-slarr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431780/original/file-20211113-15-slarr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431780/original/file-20211113-15-slarr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431780/original/file-20211113-15-slarr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431780/original/file-20211113-15-slarr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Zakes Mda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joanne Olivier/Courtesy Penguin Random House</span></span>
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<p>The story itself is told a lot through the lyrics of their songs, and of their poetry, and those lyrics are full of that toxic masculinity that you are talking about. Because they are lyrics of war, and they challenge one another. And they do in Sesotho what is known as <em>ho kobisa</em> which means, you know, talking obliquely about each other in an insulting way, even without directly mentioning the names. But when you hear the song, you know that song is about me. And I’m going back to kill those people.</p>
<p><strong>Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang:</strong> I’ve got a question from one of the people watching: what is the one thing Prof Mda would like to see his books do in African communities? What kind of impact does he hope to achieve?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-award-winning-lesotho-film-also-has-social-justice-at-heart-154204">This award-winning Lesotho film also has social justice at heart</a>
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<p><strong>Zakes Mda:</strong> Well, like every writer in the world, you hope that your books will be read, that’s the main reason you write them. And first and foremost, you want them to entertain, because that’s what the intention is. That’s why it is a novel and not a pamphlet of ideas. It’s a novel because storytelling in itself is entertaining and therefore highly digestible and you transmit knowledge through a medium that gives you joy, just the joy of the stories itself … </p>
<p>But of course, there is no writer in the world who will be loved by everybody. There will be those who will love your work. There will be others who will say it’s so-so, it’s mediocre, but okay. And there are others who say, this is awful. That’s what we live with as artists in all the arts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lesotho’s famo music is known for the use of accordions - and gang violence. In Wayfarers’ Hymns, Zakes Mda explores this tradition.Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang, Artist in Residency, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1704852021-11-15T14:06:08Z2021-11-15T14:06:08ZHere’s how some of Cape Town’s gangsters got out – and stayed out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430300/original/file-20211104-20415-zna9xl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A housing project in a Cape Town gang area.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dariusz Dziewanski</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are as many as 130 gangs in Cape Town, South Africa. They have the tightest grip on those parts of the city where poverty and insecurity have pushed an estimated <a href="https://media.africaportal.org/documents/Mono48.pdf">100,000</a> young men and women into a struggle over identity, interpersonal grievances and drug turf.</p>
<p>Cape Town’s history of gangsterism is rooted in the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2012.749060">social disorder</a> that was brought about by white minority rule under <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/africa/apartheid">apartheid</a>. The city’s gangs later <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/monographs/monograph-48-from-urban-street-gangs-to-criminal-empires-the-changing-face-of-gangs-in-the-western-cape-by-irvin-kinnes">expanded and professionalised</a> after a globalising post-apartheid South Africa connected them to the transnational drug economy.</p>
<p>Gangsters now thrive in the <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/cape-town-after-apartheid">segregated spaces</a> that define the persistently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/21/why-are-south-african-cities-still-segregated-after-apartheid">unequal South African urban landscape</a>. For the people living along the margins of Cape Town, joining a gang offsets a lack of <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/books/organised-crime-a-study-from-the-cape-flats">development and governance</a>, and helps members access opportunities for <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1466138106069517">self-protection</a>, <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo6161597.html">dignity</a> and <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Gang_Town.html?id=32fYjwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">income</a>. </p>
<p>Once in, it might feel like there is no way out of a gang alive, a fact seemingly confirmed by <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/downloads/april_june_2021_22_quarter1_presentation.pdf">murder statistics</a> showing that an average of two lives are lost to gangland killings in Cape Town every day. But gangsters do get out, as chronicled in my new <a href="https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Gang-Entry-and-Exit-in-Cape-Town/?k=9781839097317">book</a> on gang entry and exit in what has become <a href="http://www.seguridadjusticiaypaz.org.mx/sala-de-prensa/1597-metodologi-a-del-ranking-2020-de-las-50-ciudades-ma-s-violentas-del-mundo">Africa’s most murderous city</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-soldiers-wont-end-gang-violence-a-co-ordinated-plan-might-120775">South Africa's soldiers won't end gang violence. A co-ordinated plan might</a>
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<p>The book is based on the life histories of 24 former gang members, with hundreds of hours of additional interviews and observation from five years of ethnographic research. It reimagines gangsterism by heeding the difficulties of disengagement, while confirming the possibility of leaving behind crime and violence – even for people facing many disadvantages in life.</p>
<p>Little has been published on gang exit in Cape Town. In an earlier <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0891241620915942?journalCode=jcec">study</a>, I looked at the different stages of <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo5952245.html">role transition</a> gang members move through when shifting from a gangster identity to an ex-gangster one. This book focuses instead on the kinds of cultural learning – skills, tastes, styles, mannerisms, credentials – that ex-members draw on during their exits, when all they have known, for decades sometimes, are criminal networks and gang culture.</p>
<h2>Getting in is easy</h2>
<p>Joining a gang can seem like a good option for somebody with few prospects of employment, who lives in a neighbourhood with little policing, insufficient public services and inadequate opportunities. Surviving in such a setting calls for toughness. One of my informants, Gavin, put it like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You need to be hard like this place to survive here … You won’t show emotions. You’ll kill if you have to. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gavin controlled drug distribution for his gang, the Mongrels, in several areas. When cunning was not enough, he resorted to conflict – and sometimes murder. </p>
<p>Frequent and ferocious displays of violence are the surest path towards status and authority – “street capital” – for a gangster trying to rule a local drug market. Street capital is a play on “<a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095652799">cultural capital</a>”, a concept developed by French sociologist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pierre-Bourdieu">Pierre Bourdieu</a> to demonstrate the benefits a person can gain by being familiar with the mannerisms, vocabularies, styles and practices of a particular social space. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430303/original/file-20211104-19-bjk5um.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man without a shirt, his torso and arms covered in tattoos, his face not revealed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430303/original/file-20211104-19-bjk5um.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430303/original/file-20211104-19-bjk5um.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430303/original/file-20211104-19-bjk5um.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430303/original/file-20211104-19-bjk5um.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430303/original/file-20211104-19-bjk5um.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430303/original/file-20211104-19-bjk5um.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430303/original/file-20211104-19-bjk5um.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Former gang member Gavin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dariusz Dziewanski</span></span>
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<p>Within street culture, risk-taking, bluster and extreme violence are valuable skills and sources of respect, even if they are ultimately self-defeating. A lifetime of pursuing street capital imprints gang tattoos, street slang, puffed-up personas and an erratic demeanour onto hitmen, drug merchants and street soldiers. That makes it less likely they can get a job, keep a healthy relationship or stay out of prison. They’re held captive to socially ingrained <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13676261.2013.793791">habits, skills and dispositions</a> that encourage volatility and violence.</p>
<p>This helps explain why Gavin would join a gang even after witnessing his brother die in gang violence. And why he would waste years in jail for a gang-related murder, seemingly fulfilling the stereotype that either a prison cell or a body bag are the only ways to exit a Cape Town street gang.</p>
<h2>Getting out is hard, but possible</h2>
<p>But there are other ways to get out and the 24 men and women in my book explained how they did it. Each in their own way focused on creating what they called a “normal life” through some combination of employment, family or religion. Explains Gavin:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the normal life, you, like, need to be settled, be like any other man, and get married, get children, and work. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Family served as a source of emotional, social and material support. Gainful employment provided income and purpose. Gavin and others also relied on religion for moral guidance, community and resolve. </p>
<p>Being a dedicated employee, a devout believer and a good spouse and parent are personal tools ex-gangsters relied on. These were also outward-facing strategies the book’s protagonists used in order to prove to outsiders – family, neighbours, allies and foes – that their redemption stories could be trusted. A convincing performance of normal living gave them the best chance of keeping alive through the risky early stages of their out-of-gang transitions – when one’s gang history remains hottest to the touch. </p>
<p>Sadly, survival is far from assured. Gavin was shot at and almost killed three times, beaten and hospitalised twice, and stabbed once during disengagement. Eventually he survived for long enough that his enemies finally accepted his change and left him alone.</p>
<p>Gavin faced subtler challenges too. Although he landed a job, he found it hard to adapt to the environment of an upmarket coffee culture café: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like if I had tik and unga (methamphetamines and heroin), I will know this one is tik and this one is unga. But with the sauces (the café serves), I have to bring you both and just let you choose. And that’s how it moves. It’s like knowing what’s in front of you, but not knowing what it means. So, to adapt is hard. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As the months passed, though, he gained a grasp on the types of insider knowledge – or cultural capital – it took to succeed.</p>
<p>As gang members like Gavin try to master a lifestyle that is less hectic, less bellicose and less ruthless, they not only offer incontestable examples that leaving gangs is possible, but their journeys yield insights that can inform efforts to reduce gang violence. For instance, including and supporting <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jora.12074">informal mechanisms</a> – family, friends, community and church – in disengagement programming is key. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cape-town-gangsters-who-use-extreme-violence-to-operate-solo-143750">The Cape Town gangsters who use extreme violence to operate solo</a>
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<p>Gang prevention strategies that rely on hard policing and harsh prison sentences are only likely to undermine rehabilitation and reintegration. They cut people off from their communities, prevent them from finding work and separate them from family. Fighting gangs requires disengagement initiatives that help connect people to non-gang groups and practices, as well as efforts to tackle structural drivers of gang participation, like poverty, inequality, insecurity and exclusion.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430281/original/file-20211104-27-19oz5xs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with yellow writing - Gang entry and exit in Cape Town - and a red graphic of urban housing and a male figure walking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430281/original/file-20211104-27-19oz5xs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430281/original/file-20211104-27-19oz5xs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430281/original/file-20211104-27-19oz5xs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430281/original/file-20211104-27-19oz5xs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430281/original/file-20211104-27-19oz5xs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430281/original/file-20211104-27-19oz5xs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430281/original/file-20211104-27-19oz5xs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emerald Publishing Limited</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Gang-Entry-and-Exit-in-Cape-Town/?k=9781839097317"><em>Gang Entry and Exit in Cape Town</em></a> demonstrates that personal transformation among gang members is possible, providing a counterweight to the focus on cycles of poverty, incarceration and violence often found in street cultural writings. Rather than simply reproducing the poverty-crime-violence narrative, the book demonstrates how gang members reorient their lives for the better. Each successful exit is a challenge to the pessimistic conclusions commonly associated with gang life in Cape Town.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dariusz Dziewanski received funding from Rotary International to help undertake the research Gang Entry and Exit in Cape Town was based on.</span></em></p>Hard as it is, some gangsters do leave gangs. A new book, based on a 5-year study, tracks the lives of 24 former gang members.Dariusz Dziewanski, Honorary research affiliate, Centre of Criminology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1688612021-10-11T15:06:38Z2021-10-11T15:06:38ZStudy paints a grim picture of what young gangsters think about violence and manhood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424472/original/file-20211004-15-bvtz8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children watch as police work behind a cordon where a young victim of a gang shooting lies dead on the ground. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gang violence is a <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-94222014000300033">deeply rooted problem</a> in many impoverished communities across South Africa. This not only significantly affects the young people involved, but has adverse effects on communities: psychological violence, substance abuse and <a href="https://aidc.org.za/the-violent-work-of-south-african-gangs/">abnormal levels of crime and gun battles</a>.</p>
<p>Another grim side effect of gang violence is gender-based violence, which is one of the country’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/dialogue-mark-16-days-activism-26-nov-2020-0000">greatest concerns</a>. Research has repeatedly <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7599123/">shown</a> how gender-based violence is closely <a href="https://promundoglobal.org/resources/masculine-norms-violence-making-connections/">linked to toxic masculinities</a> – views about masculinity (what it means to be a man) that are harmful to the man himself and the people around him. It is also about the exercise of power by men over women and other men they consider weak.</p>
<p>Our study explored the intricate connection between marginalised youth in gangs, toxic masculinity and gender-based violence in <a href="https://www.mindat.org/feature-1017447.html">Bophelong</a>, a township about 70 kilometres south of Johannesburg, in the Vaal area. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03736245.1982.10559651?journalCode=rsag20#:%7E:text=Positioned%20just%20to%20the%20west,3">Townships</a> are historically black urban residential areas, mostly characterised by underdevelopment and high levels of poverty. </p>
<p>The study, <em>The Interconnection between Youth Gangs, Toxic Masculinity and Gender Based Violence in South Africa</em>, is a chapter in the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Negotiating-Patriarchy-Gender-Africa-Discourses-ebook/dp/B09BYQYSWZ">book</a> Negotiating Patriarchy and Gender in Africa: Discourses, Practices, and Policies.</p>
<p>We found that, in the absence of socio-economic opportunities – recreational and cultural facilities, jobs, other economic opportunities and social networks – gangs use violence to dominate and subordinate rival gangs in order to maintain their place as the “superior” men in their communities. </p>
<p>High levels of violence are used to “prove” gang members’ masculinity. The findings also highlight that the way young gang members think about and understand masculinity ultimately translates into gender-based violence.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cape-town-gangsters-who-use-extreme-violence-to-operate-solo-143750">The Cape Town gangsters who use extreme violence to operate solo</a>
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<p>Our findings are important because they highlight the link between harmful definitions of masculinity and violence. They show that in the face of marginalisation and social exclusion, youth in gangs think they have no options except violence to prove that they are “real” men in their communities.</p>
<h2>The study</h2>
<p>We interviewed 15 unemployed youths and former gang members between the ages of 14 and 35, and 19 practitioners working on the issue of youth and gang violence. </p>
<p>We asked questions about the development challenges facing youth in townships, as well as exploring what drives young people’s attraction to gangs. And we examined how gang members think about masculinity. We found that gangs use violence to construct and practise a toxic masculinity: it makes them engage in anti-social behaviour, resulting in them being maimed or killed. </p>
<p>Women in the areas are often caught in the crossfire of gang wars. This is because territory marking and revenge among rival gangs is not just about them fighting among themselves. It also spills over into sexual violence.</p>
<p>The gang members often lose their loved ones or put them in danger of revenge attacks while trying to prove that they are the better gangs and the better men. </p>
<p>A former gang member explained (page 82):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>you feel like you are a man if your gang is powerful but there is so much violence and there is so much revenge.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These results concur with those of other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X17000761">studies</a> which have noted that gangs use violence as a tool to eradicate all traces of femininity or weakness within them. Gangs enable their members to assert their manhood. As our study confirms, being a “real man” is about power and hierarchy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gangs-offer-a-tempting-home-to-frustrated-unhappy-youngsters-54840">Gangs offer a tempting 'home' to frustrated, unhappy youngsters</a>
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<p>Many participants in our study identified the masculine norms of power, control, being in command and aggression as some of the defining factors of being “top dogs” (<em>izinja ze game</em> in isiZulu). There was also an element of performance, whereby they displayed their so-called prowess on the streets to intimidate communities. </p>
<p>All of this is, of course, dangerous not just for the individual men, but for their communities more broadly.</p>
<h2>Sexual violence</h2>
<p><a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2017/07/18/breaking-bad-recognising-the-role-of-masculinities-can-help-prevent-gang-formation-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/">Research</a> indicates that, due to their glamorous lifestyle which includes access to cash, expensive clothes and flashy cars, gangs often construct their masculinity through promiscuity. Our findings show, however, that in Bophelong, gangs use rape as a weapon to assert their masculinity. A respondent working with former gang members noted (page 81):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They start raping girls around the area. I don’t know, maybe they are told that they are now men they must test their thing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We also found that the gangs extended their violence to the women and girls around them. To mark territory or exert revenge, a rival gang member’s female family member is sometimes raped. </p>
<p>Another respondent working with current and former gang members added (page 82):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You find that you are a gang member and you belong to a certain group. How do we hurt you? We hurt you by either touching your daughter, your wife, or your girlfriend. So now again you see gender-based violence … It plays right into the sexual violence domain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A former gang member confirmed (page 80):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My sister was raped by rival gangs as an act of revenge.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>This study has shown how gangs from the marginalised community of Bophelong, who feel that they have been “emasculated” by poverty, construct and practise masculinity. It also shows the impacts. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-soldiers-wont-end-gang-violence-a-co-ordinated-plan-might-120775">South Africa's soldiers won't end gang violence. A co-ordinated plan might</a>
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<p>It is, therefore, recommended that various government departments, civil society and communities work together to deny toxic masculinity its breeding ground. The focus should be on addressing the underlying, interlinked root causes of toxic masculinity. This includes a change in attitudes, socialisation, behaviours and beliefs about masculinity and manhood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>G. Nokukhanya Ndhlovu receives funding from the Govan Mbeki Research and Development Centre (GMRDC) at the University of Fort Hare.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pius Tanga does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Findings show that in the face of marginalisation and social exclusion, youth in gangs think that they have no options except violence to prove that they are ‘real’ men in their communities.G. Nokukhanya Ndhlovu, Post-doctoral fellow, University of Fort HarePius Tanga, Professor, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1692332021-10-05T13:33:50Z2021-10-05T13:33:50ZEcuador prison riot: 118 killed as gang violence spirals out of control in Latin America’s jails<p>One of the more distressing things about the savage riots that engulfed the Litoral prison in Ecuador on September 28 was that, several days after the violence was brought under control, the final death toll was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-58733202">still unknown</a> and many of the victims had still to be identified.</p>
<p>The most recent reports are that at least 118 inmates died in the fighting, at least six of whom had been beheaded by other inmates. By any standard, these are shocking figures and represent the worst death toll resulting from inter-prisoner violence in Ecuadorian prison history. The previous record was as recently as February, when <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/24/ecuador-increases-death-toll-prison-riots">79 prisoners were killed</a> in a series of riots in several prisons across the country. </p>
<p>In between these record-setting riots, another <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ecuador-deadly-prison-riots-1.6113924">22 prisoners were killed</a> at the Litoral prison in July. This means that in less than a year, 0.5% of the Ecuadorian prison population, which is a little under 40,000, has been murdered in these three sets of riots alone. </p>
<p>Inter-prisoner violence resulting in mass killings is not uncommon in the region. In 2019, over 50 detainees were killed in a riot in a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49157858">prison in Para Province</a>, Brazil, including 16 who were decapitated. Many more were killed in other riots across the prison system as a whole in that, and in preceding years. In other words, while the number of deaths during a single incident in the recent riots in Ecuador is shocking high, it is merely another gruesome milestone in the increasingly deadly violence that plagues prisons in many South American countries.</p>
<h2>Gang violence</h2>
<p>What is at least as shocking as the deaths themselves is that nobody can truly be claimed to be shocked that they are taking place. The causes are well known. In most instances, they are the product of <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2012/09/22/a-journey-into-hell">conflicts between rival gangs</a> and groups, these groups usually being linked to criminal gangs operating within the countries more generally. </p>
<p>While the violence that takes place is often sparked by particular incidents occurring within the prisons, rarely is this the sole reason. The prison is a tinderbox waiting to be ignited by sparks flying from the frictions between the factions: prisons have become merely another “theatre” in which rival criminal gangs jostle for influence. And those sent to prison have little practical option but to join a faction – to support it, and to be “protected” by it. Not being associated with a gang is likely to place a detainee at greater risk than being a member. Neutrality is rarely an option.</p>
<p>There is something already deeply dysfunctional about a prison system (and there are many) in which inmates appear to have easy access to guns and grenades and other such weapons. Much is made of the prisons in Ecuador suffering from serious overcrowding – and this is certainly the case: the prisons are at <a href="https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/ecuador">roughly 133% of their capacity</a>, making conditions even more difficult than would otherwise be the case. </p>
<p>In the aftermath of the most recent riots, the government has announced plans to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/death-toll-ecuadors-worst-ever-prison-riot-rises-118-2021-10-01/">reduce the numbers of inmates</a> in its jails. Though very welcome news, seeking to release the elderly, women, those with disabilities, those with terminal illnesses and those able to be deported is hardly likely to make much of a dent in the overall problem of overcrowding. And it will have very little impact on the prevalence of gang warfare that is rife in prisons. Relatively few of those to be released are likely to be housed in the high-security prisons such as the Litoral penitentiary. Transferring those involved in the recent violence to spaces created in other establishments is at least as likely to spread such violence as it is to contain it.</p>
<h2>Loss of control</h2>
<p>It is the unfortunate truth that prison authorities have significantly less authority over the day-to-day life in prisons than they would have us believe. As a result, while introducing heightened measures of internal control might dampen down violence in the short term, experience suggests that this cannot be maintained for very long and the net effect is to prompt even more violence in the longer term. So what can be done?</p>
<p>Some suggest the answer lies in holding members of different gangs in different prisons, as opposed to different wings in the same prison as is usually the case. But this is unlikely to be a practical option, as it would usually mean holding some detainees further from their families and dependents, making them even more reliant on their gang membership and factions for day-to-day support. </p>
<p>The real need is to try to break that dependency, by providing alternative routes through prison life – or alternatives to prison life – than those that reinforce dependency on gangs and cartels. There is no point being naive about the difficulty of doing this. The gangs that drive the prison violence are usually deeply embedded in the communities from which the detainees come. They have a long and powerful reach, exercising power over families, friends and others who are vulnerable, meaning that some detainees may be in no position to resist the demands and instructions of others.</p>
<p>The causes of, and solutions to, extreme and systemic violence in prisons rarely lie only in prisons. Important as prison reform is, on its own it is never going to be enough. Systemic and organised prisoner violence on this scale needs to be recognised for what it is: a reflection and replication of the violence between lawless groups within the broader community. Unless and until that can be addressed, prisons that are overfilled by those caught up with illegal gangs and cartels will remain at risk of erupting into communal and deadly violence. And the state that puts them there must take responsibility for that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169233/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malcolm Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gang violence is a serious problem in Latin American society – not just its jails.Malcolm Evans, Professor of Public International Law, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1656402021-09-22T15:30:42Z2021-09-22T15:30:42ZScouse Soldiers: the organised crime gangs of Merseyside<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416062/original/file-20210813-27-9p7pex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C17%2C5158%2C3728&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/silhouettes-shadows-people-on-street-crowd-1559767076">Oleg Elkov/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like many urban areas in the UK, Merseyside has a <a href="https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpools-historic-brutal-street-gangs-18533991">long and notorious history</a> of street gangs. From the Cornermen and High Rip gangs of the 19th century, to the Croxteth Crew, Nogga Dogs and Moss Edz, the self-perceived North Face “Scouse Soldiers” of today, all have left a dark and deadly legacy.</p>
<p>As someone who has always lived on a former Merseyside council housing estate in Knowsley, one of the most <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/apr/29/communities.socialexclusion">socially excluded</a> and poverty-stricken areas in the UK, and an academic whose research has focused on youth and gang crime, I have seen both sides of the fence. This experience has motivated me to <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JCRPP-03-2021-0012/full/html">research gangs</a> on Merseyside – one of the UK’s hot spots for gang and organised crime activity.</p>
<p>In 2018-19, <a href="https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/knowsley-highest-rate-children-risk-17227983">social services assessed 16,132</a> children in Merseyside County, of which 546 were deemed to be either active members of a gang, at risk of joining one, or at risk of being a victim of gang-related violence. </p>
<h2>Social networks</h2>
<p>In 2009, sociologist Hannah Smithson and colleagues <a href="http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/24788/1/acc-guns-and-gangs-report.pdf">examined the extent</a>, nature and causes of young people’s involvement in gang and gun crime. From interviews with Merseyside police, practitioners and young people aged between 16 and 29, they identified two types of gang structures. </p>
<p>The first, a loosely-knit, non-hierarchical group of young people who would get together on the streets at night and engage in antisocial behaviour and potentially violence and criminality. This is the classic, stereotypical assumption of what a street gang is. The second type was structured and hierarchical, with ties to illegal drug markets and cities’ adult organised crime groups. </p>
<p>In more recent years, these drug-dealing groups have become fiercely territorial and violent, resorting to the use of knives and firearms in order to protect their selling patch, and exploiting vulnerable young people.</p>
<p>Why do people get involved in gangs? I’ve sought to answer this key question in my own research, and found that a sense of belonging, respect and protection as well as membership as a source of income all contribute.</p>
<p>In 2018 <a href="https://www.academia.edu/39223463/DOCTORAL_THESIS_2018_DEPOSIT_VERSION">I interviewed</a> 44 young men – half involved in street gangs and half completely abstaining – to learn why some young people joined gangs. Social exclusion, coupled with cutbacks brought in by austerity policies, meant many young men who became involved in street gangs suffered from “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/43038234/Countering_network_poverty_as_a_precursor_to_gang_membership_bridging_and_social_capital_through_temporary_migration_research_and_practice">network poverty</a>”. This means that they lacked the ability to make good “pro-social” connections, which shape how young people perceive the welfare of others and their communities. </p>
<p>With friendships mainly restricted to the schoolyard or the residential streets, criminality is seen as a way to succeed in a world which values the ownership of material things. In the case of gang members, values become bound around deviant group formation and offending as a way of escape from continuing poverty and deprivation. </p>
<p>In contrast, young men who found opportunities beyond their local area abstained from gang affiliation and criminality. They joined interest groups such as martial arts classes or took weekend jobs, forging new friendships with peers away from their home streets. Their belief systems opened up, and they embraced legitimate employment and leisure activities, leading to further opportunities.</p>
<h2>Deviant entrepreneurship</h2>
<p>For those involved in street gangs, there was also the appeal of edgework – as risk-taking behaviour is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2780644?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">described in criminology</a> – which provided excitement and escapism from the boredom and routine existence that social exclusion brings. Quite simply, there were no real legitimate opportunities for young people to access. Such thrill-seeking behaviour has not been adequately addressed by interventions aimed at countering gang recruitment. </p>
<p>In the eyes of many gang-involved young people, the line between employment and criminality (specifically drug dealing) became blurred. This was evident in interviews with gang members living closer to Liverpool city centre and its vibrant nighttime economy. Here, the language used during interviews became more businesslike – one participant identified his group as a “firm of boys” and talked about serving punters (customers) and profit margins. </p>
<p>I coined the term <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/SC-05-2019-0016/full/html">“deviant entrepreneurship”</a> to describe the process of gangs making money through illegitimate means. Those gang members involved neutralised their criminal activity into the context of work, or as it is widely known on the streets around Liverpool, “grafting”. </p>
<p>Across Merseyside, many young people involved in street gangs have become embroiled with adult organised crime groups as part of the <a href="https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/what-we-do/crime-threats/drug-trafficking/county-lines">“county lines” phenomenon</a> – a form of exploitation in which gangs of adults coerce children and young people to carry drugs to rural or coastal areas of the country. </p>
<p>In 2018, modern slavery researcher Grace Robinson interviewed a combination of young people (aged 14-20) and people working in youth justice interventions. Her research focused on exploitation within gangs by adult criminals. She found that some young people were paid a commission in drugs (in most cases, cannabis) in return for selling a supply. </p>
<p>Moreover, she identified the widespread use of social media platforms to <a href="https://www.dressember.org/blog/dressemberday16">lure young people</a> into carrying out drug supplying tasks, and to manipulate them through debt bondage. Gang members offer young individuals trainers, designer clothes and sometimes even a place to stay or drugs for personal use. The young person is then forced into working to pay off the debt, by carrying drugs or recruiting other young people into the network, continuing the cycle of exploitation.</p>
<p>The existing research makes clear that gang activity on Merseyside is a major and continuing problem, and that addressing individualised symptoms alone will not stop young people becoming involved. A substantial part of this is the environment and lack of opportunities – something that should be addressed further by politicians.</p>
<p>Continuation of austerity policies, including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/20/youth-services-suffer-70-funding-cut-in-less-than-a-decade">cuts to youth services</a>, coupled with unemployment and the financial consequences of the pandemic, have created socially deprived breeding grounds for street gangs and organised crime groups to flourish.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165640/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Hesketh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some areas of Merseyside have more children at risk from gangs than in London. So why isn’t it studied more?Robert Hesketh, Lecturer in Policing Studies, School of Justice Studies., Liverpool John Moores UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.