STREET GANGS: THE NEW URBAN INSURGENCY (original) (raw)
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The Global Comparative Study of Gangs and Other Non-State Armed Groups
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2021
After nearly a hundred years of debate and analysis, the gang concept remains hotly contested within the social sciences. Once thought to be an exclusively American phenomenon, the study of gangs has become increasingly global over the last several decades. Countries from every world region have observed the emergence of gangs and gang-like groups. In some of these places, gangs resemble their American counterparts while in others they not only engage in petty crime and drug trafficking but targeted assassinations, corruption of public officials, and racketeering as well. These activities make them less like the delinquent youth groups they were once conceived as and more akin to organized crime. In less stable and violent contexts still, gangs have even been incorporated into ethnic militias, rebel groups, and paramilitaries or have taken on a more vigilante ethos by combating violence and providing some semblance of order. The remarkable proliferation of the gang form over the last several decades and the incredible variation in the phenomenon across the globe requires a reassessment of the gang concept. In the limited literature which focuses on the study of gangs cross-nationally, there have been several conceptualizations proposed. Some scholars have attempted to separate smaller street gangs from a variety of other related phenomena: prison gangs, drug gangs, and organized crime. They have done so by crafting a more restrictive concept. However, while separating street gangs from other criminal groups may make sense in the American or European context, it applies less well to other parts of the globe where such organizational forms have become thoroughly integrated thus blurring these traditional conceptual boundaries. On the other hand, some scholars have advocated for a conceptual framework which captures the transformative nature of gangs and encompasses any and all types of gangs and gang-like groups. Such an evolutionary framework fails, however, to distinguish between gangs and a huge variety of criminal and political non-state armed groups which share little in terms of their origins, motivations, or activities. The best conceptualization, this author argues, is a minimal one that incorporates gangs and many gang-like groups but avoids conceptual stretching to include virtually all non-state armed groups. Ultimately, contemporary scholars of gangs within any national context must be increasingly attentive to the global dimensions of the gang organizational form and the various overlapping and multi-faceted relationships they maintain with a variety of other non-state armed groups.
Urban Gangs Evolving As Criminal Netwar Actors
Small Wars and Insurgencies
The nature of conflict and crime is changing. Technology allows groups to spread their influence without regard to geographic limitations. A shift from hierarchies to network organizational forms is also occurring. As a consequence non-state actors can extend their influence to gain social, political or economic power and challenge state institutions. This article examines the potential tar gangs, transnational criminals and terrorists to embrace network forms and utilize technology to wage net war. Factors which influence 'third generation' gang organization (politicization, internationalization and sophistication) are described to illustrate how a net-based threat can mature. A move toward network organization within transnational criminal organizations and terrorist groups demonstrating the potential for these classic criminal entities to emerge as net war actors is also reviewed. Finally, the need for state institutions such as the police and military to develop networked responses to combat networked threats is stated.
On Gangs, Crime, and Terrorism
This paper discusses the dynamics of the gang-crime-terrorism continuum and its relationship to ”generations of warfare” within the contemporary spectrum of conflict. The focus is to explore the potential for gang-terrorist interaction in the current and emerging conflict environment. The concepts of third generation street gangs (3G2), netwar, and fourth generation warfare (4GW) are applied to investigate the typologies and relationships of third generation street gangs and terrorist groups.
As processes and patterns of organized violence across different contexts continue to take new and complex turns, this paper takes stock of some of the most important trends to emerge in research on gangs in recent years. Shifting social, political and economic conditions and diverse systemic shocks continue to interweave with often dynamic and flexible organizational and operational gang structures, contributing to ever more complex landscapes of violence. In addition, the increasingly blurred boundaries between violent groups at local, national and even regional scales have complicated attempts to disentangle and distinguish different violent actors and institutions. The paper grapples with contemporary dynamics of violence, conflict and gangs, considering both change and continuity. It highlights the need to continue developing research and interventions that move beyond pre-existing, inappropriate or exaggerated understandings of gangs, by engaging with the increasing blurring between different violent groups and the complex relationships between gangs, the state and society, so capturing the fluidity of gang identities and motivations.
Third Generation Street Gangs: Turf, Cartels, and Net Warriors
Traditional street gangs have focused on a narrow slice of violence. Primarily turf-oriented, they operate under loose leadership, with ill-defined roles and a focus on loyalty and turf protections. These "first generation" or "turf" gangs are limited in political scope. They are localized and not highly sophisticated. In terms of their position in emerging conflict, they are proto-net warriors. The more entrepreneurial, drug- centered gang emerges as a "second generation" type. "Second generation" gangs are more cohesive, with greater centralization of leadership. Drug-selling becomes a group rather than an individual activity. Drug gangs use violence to control their competition and assume a market rather than a turf orientation. They may embrace a broader political agenda (albeit market- focused), operate in a broader (sometimes multi-State) context, and conduct more sophisticated operations. The emerging phenomenon of the "third generation" street gang is a mercenary- type group with goals of power or financial acquisition and a set of fully evolved political aims. Third generation gangs operate at the global end of the spectrum and are more sophisticated in nature. This type of gang may embrace either quasi-terrorism or true terrorism to advance its influence; Such gangs are net warriors who challenge the nation-state. To date, no gang falls squarely into the third generation categorization, although some gangs are moving along the three spectra of politicization, internationalization, and sophistication toward that end.
Criminal Gangs in Global Perspective: Motivations, Transformations and Functions
Handbook of Collective Violence: Current Developments and Understanding, 2020
Since 1927, the year Frederic Thrasher published his seminal work on gangs in Chicago, gang research has produced numerous approaches across a variety of academic disciplines, highlighting different motivations behind a global phenomenon. Conventional criminological definitions of gangs tend to focus on their “involvement in illegal activity” (Klein, 1995; Covey, 2010, p. 4; Klein and Maxson, 2010). For instance, according to a classic definition offered by Criminal gangs as a global phenomenon have been the object of investigation in numerous studies in various parts of the world (Dowdney, 2005; Hagedorn, 2007b; Flynn and Brotherton, 2008). Yet, despite being increasingly recognized as a global and transnational challenge, most theoretical and conceptual approaches in gang research are still derived from specific case studies from the global North (Brotherton and Barrios, 2004; Klein and Maxson, 2010; Pitts, 2013). Based on an extensive literature review and field research on violent crime in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, this chapter provides empirical evidence on criminal gangs in the global South. Focusing on the case studies of Central America, Kenya and Haiti, this chapter discusses three aspects of contemporary global gangs: first, the motivation for members to join gangs; second, the transformation processes gangs typically undergo; and, third, the functions violence fulfils for various stakeholders of gangs, such as their politico-criminal sponsors and the community in which they are nested.
The Challenges of Territorial Gangs: Civil Strife, Criminal Insurgencies and Crime Wars
REVISTA DO MINISTÉRIO PÚBLICO MILITAR, 2019
Transnational gangs challenge states in a variety of way. First, they transcend geographical and jurisdictional boundaries. Second, when left unchecked, they can erode the legitimacy of state institutions, co-opt state officials, and exceed state capacity to control their actions. A combination of crime, corruption, and impunity can empower criminal enterprises—gangs and criminal cartels—at the expense of the state. Finally, transnational crime blurs the distinctions between crime and war, local and global, and state and non-state violence. This essay examines these challenges and the evolution of gangs and criminal cartel conflict.
Future Conflict: Criminal Insurgencies, Gangs and Intelligence
Gangs dominate the intersection between crime and war. Traditionally viewed as criminal enterprises of varying degrees of sophistication and reach, some gangs have evolved into potentially more dangerous and destabilizing actors. In many areas across the world—especially in 'criminal enclaves' or 'lawless zones' where civil governance, traditional security structures, and community or social bonds have eroded—gangs thrive. This essay briefly examines the dynamics of crime and war in these contested regions. Specifically, it provides a framework for understanding 'criminal insurgencies' where acute and endemic crime and gang violence challenge the solvency of state political control.
A Crucible of Conflict: Third Generation Gang Studies Revisited
Journal of Gang Research, 2012
This essay briefly recounts the evolution of the gangs that occupy failed communities and states, further discusses and updates lie model of third generation street gangs discussed in an earlier Journal of Gang Research article--typically described simply as third generation gangs (3 GEN Gangs), and suggests strategies for coping with and mitigating this evolved form of gang violence. Of note is the lack of impact 3GEN Gangs studies have had on domestically focused U.S. academic gang research while, at the same time, becoming a dominant model in use by defense analysts and scholars focusing on increasingly politicized non-state threat groups including heavily armed Latin American gangs.
Gangland: The Face of Modern Insurgency
The greatest threat to the Westphalian Nation State is no longer standing armies and the conduct of classical warfare across the deserts and plains and naval battles on the world’s oceans, nor is it the 20th Century’s threat of Communism or the Theocratic aspirations of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Today’s great threat arises from insurgency, not insurgency by traditional definition, but insurgency’s much more violent and insidious modern variant, the financially motivated insurgency of transnational gangs. Nothing threatens the Rule of Law which underpins the modern state emanating from the Peace of Westphalia more than the insurgencies of increasingly wealthy, powerful and sophisticated transnational gangs. Because unlike the ideo-political insurgencies besetting much of the developing world, which pose an external threat to the developed nations, transnational gangs have been conducting narco-terrorism and insurgency directly in the cities of the developed world for three generations. Effectively combating the increasing threat posed by transnational gangs requires an understanding not only of the classical methods employed in defeating organized crime, in conducting counterinsurgency, but also of how such organizations exploit the inevitable gaps arising from globalization and the Rule of Law.