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Being the victim of trauma can trigger the onset of PTSD. But so can being violent against others – which means young people in gangs risk deep psychological scars.
Hip hop star Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier for the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army in Ethiopia, visiting Sudanese school children in a Fitzroy community centre.
David Crosling/AAP
Recent media reports of South Sudanese ‘crime gangs’ do nothing to offer young people what they most need: inclusion, acceptance and employment.
Shutterstock/SydaProductions
Young people from poor backgrounds are being radicalised by criminal gangs.
Arrests aside, until the politicians who collude with gangs are stopped, crime in Central America will likely continue unchecked.
Reuters/Jose Cabezas
Corruption, not gang warfare, is the root cause of the record violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Until public officials stop shielding criminal groups like MS-13, lawlessness will reign.
Victims of violence by U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti say that the agency has neither investigated nor offered recompense for deaths and injuries that occurred during anti-gang raids.
Daniel Aguilar/Reuters
On the eve of its departure from Haiti after a 13-year stabilization effort, the UN faces accusations that its troops used excessive force to fight gangs, killing innocent bystanders.
How young men justify their need to carry a weapon.
Katie Collins/PA Wire
It’s too easy to blame gang culture.
Aggressive police patrolling of Rio’s poor favela neighbourhoods has turned streets into battlegrounds, with innocent bystanders in the middle.
Reuters/Bruno Domingos
In Rio de Janeiro, a stray bullet kills or injures one person every seven hours.
Clampdown: gang members arrested in El Salvador in 2016.
Ericka Chavez/EPA
Young people in El Salvador are finding themselves caught up in the war between the gangs and the state.
A protest by food delivery drivers calling for higher penalties against perpetrators of acid attacks.
Yui Mok/PA Wire
A spate of recent attacks using acid have gained attention, but little is known about the motivations of the perpetrators.
Killer Sean Mercer, played by Paddy Rowan in Little Boy Blue.
ITV
The murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Liverpool in 2007 sparked a national debate on armed gangs – but what has changed 10 years on?
A Salvadoran man believed to be a member of the MS-13 gang as he is arrested.
AP Photo/Josh Reynolds
Trump’s plans to crack down on immigration could create the same conditions that led to MS-13’s birth and expansion.
London-based gangs are sending youngsters around the country to deliver drugs.
Matt Lake/flickr
Next time you hear of a young person being branded as a feral gang member, dig a little deeper.
Inmates on the roof of State Penitentiary of Alcacuz during a riot on January 16.
Ney Douglas/EPA
Violent massacres at prisons in the country’s north, have disrupted a delicate balance of governance.
Apex graffiti sprayed on the wall of a tennis club in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran.
Seven News
In the age of social media and online self-promotion, being the subject of a moral panic can not only be a source of pride, but also an inducement to offend.
Flotsam mixes with the marginal São José community, overlooked by new-build apartment blocks in Brazil.
Fernando da Veiga Pessoa Flickr
Money and resources in Latin America often don’t reach those who need them most – and criminal gangs are on hand to take advantage.
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They’re a global phenomenon – but gangs are so varied that they barely merit the same name.
GongTo/Shutterstock
You won’t see the chains because modern slavery doesn’t work like that.
The scales of justice have been rebalanced.
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Law lords ruled that a controversial law which has led to hundreds of murder convictions has been misconstrued.
Some children from damaged homes and communities seek respect and power by joining gangs.
Siegfried Modola/Reuters
Youngsters who grow up in a culture of anger and violence may be drawn to gangs, and schools then become fertile grounds for criminal behaviour.
A suspected member of the Crips gang is cuffed in LA.
Jonathan Alcorn/REUTERS
Online threats can quickly lead to real-life shootings.