By Thomas Barker

This brief covers the unique crime group of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs are adult criminal associations composed of “bikers” living a deviant lifestyle that includes individual, group, and club criminal behavior. These groups are sometimes called one percenters, due to the American Motorcycle Association statement that ninety-nine percent of motorcyclists are law abiding citizens. While many may be familiar with the reputation of the Hells' Angels, many may not realize the wide network of other Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs or the extent of their involvement in criminal activities. The brief includes a breakdown of the criminal networks and activities of these groups, which operate similarly to an organized crime group. It also covers the evolution of motorcycle clubs to motorcycle gangs. It examines the recent trend of American-based motorcycle gangs into international organized crime activities. This book will be of interest to researcher studying criminology, particularly organized crime and criminal networks, as well as international and comparative law and public policy.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2014. 58p.

By Mark Lauchs, Andy Bain, Peter Bell

Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs are increasingly seen as a threat to communities around the world. They are a visible threat as a recognizable symbol of deviance and violence. This book discusses the social context within which Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs and groups have emerged and the implication of labelling these groups as deviant and outlaw. There is no doubt that members of these clubs have been involved in serious criminal activity and this book explores whether gang and organised crime theory can effectively explain their criminal activities. Importantly, the book also assesses policing and political responses to the clubs' activities. It argues that there is an increasing need for national and international cooperation on the part of law enforcement agencies with various levels of government as well as the private sector. Importantly, the book offers suggestions for the best responses to the crimes committed by members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.

Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 113p.

Edited by Tereza Kuldova , Martín Sánchez-Jankowski

This edited collection offers in-depth essays on outlaw motorcycle clubs and street gangs. Written by sociologists, anthropologists and criminologists, it asks the question of how the self-proclaimed ‘outlaws’ integrate into society. While these groups may cultivate a deviant image, these original studies show that we should not let ourselves be deceived by appearances. These ‘outlaws’ are, paradoxically, well integrated into mainstream society. The essays read the relationship of these groups to the media, law enforcement and society through the lens of their strategies of ‘scheming legality’ and ‘resisting criminalization’. These reveal most strikingly how the knowledge of social codes, norms and mechanisms is put to use by these groups. This groundbreaking volume provides answers to previously understudied questions through well-researched case studies drawn from across Europe and the United States.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 234p.

By Dennis Rodgers, Robert Muggah, and Chris Stevenson

Violence is on the upswing in Central America, with the region currently exhibiting some of the highest rates of reported criminal violence in Latin America and indeed the world (Moser and McIlwaine, 2004). The recent Global Burden of Armed Violence report estimates the annual global homicide rate to be around 7.6 per 100,000, yet in the Americas the figure exceeds 20 per 100,000, and in Central America it is almost 30 per 100,000 (Geneva Declaration Secretariat, 2008). Not surprisingly, perhaps, homicide is described as one of the primary regional public health issues (WHO, 2008a; Briceño-León, 2005, p. 1629). Many factors have shaped this particular panorama of violence, which is both heterogeneous and dynamic. The World Bank, for example, attributes the rise in Central American violence to ‘a complex set of factors, including rapid urbanization, persistent poverty and inequality, social exclusion, political violence, organized crime, post-conflict cultures, the emergence of illegal drug use and trafficking and authoritarian family structures’ (World Bank, 2008a, p. 3).S

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  The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, for its part, emphasizes the role of geography and weak institutions as aggravating rates of violence; with almost 90 per cent of the United States’ cocaine supply inevitably passing through weak Central American states from Andean production centres, it is little wonder that organized crime violence is deeply entrenched (UNODC, 2008, p. 38). Most of this regional violence tends to be perpetrated and experienced among young men between 15 and 34 years of age.1 These statistics are not necessarily surprising considering that the most prominent aspect of the new landscape of Central American violence is the gang phenomenon. Although gangs have long been a feature of Central American societies, they have come to the fore in the region in an unprecedented manner since the early 1990s.2 Estimates of the total proportion of contemporary regional violence attributable to gangs vary widely—from 10 to 60 per cent3 —as they have been accused of a whole slew of crimes and delinquency, ranging from mugging, theft, and intimidation to rape, assault, and drug dealing. There have even been attempts to link them to revolution and global terrorism. A 2005 US Army War College publication, for example, contends that Central American gangs constitute a ‘new urban insurgency’ that has as ultimate objective ‘to depose or control the governments of targeted countries’ through ‘coups d’street’ (Manwaring, 2005; 2006).4 Along similar lines, Anne Aguilera, head of the Central America office of the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs branch of the US State Department, asserted in an interview published in the Salvadoran newspaper La Prensa Gráfica on 8 April 2005 that gangs were ‘the greatest problem for national security at this time in Central America’ (Bruneau, 2005). Although gangs are unquestionably a significant contemporary concern in the region, such sensationalist pronouncements suggest that they remain profoundly misunderstood.5 The purpose of this Occasional Paper is to debunk some of these myths and present a balanced assessment of the causes, costs, and interventions relating to Central American gang violence.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, 2009. 44p.

By Michael Lohmuller

This paper examines the relevance of prevailing gang paradigms as it relates to the case of El Salvador. It is particularly concerned with the concept of ‘Third Generation Gangs,’ which holds that Salvadoran street gangs are becoming sophisticated political actors seeking to maintain an international reach, and are increasingly capable of confronting the state. El Salvador is in the midst of a violent upheaval. In 2012, El Salvador’s two main street gangs signed a truce, which was tacitly endorsed and facilitated by the government. However, following the breakdown of the truce, violence in El Salvador has rapidly escalated, with the gangs increasingly targeting security forces. This paper discusses whether this rising violence is indicative of the gangs’ collective maturation process into a ‘Third Generation Gang,’ or, alternatively, if autonomous spasms of violence by individual gang factions as a means of self-preservation are being misinterpreted as a collective maturation process.

Washington, DC: Insight Crime, 2015. 31p;.

By Douglas Farah and kathryn Babineau

The Mara Salvatrucha (MS 13) gang is now a tier one criminal, political, military and economic threat in the Northern Triangle.1 While it employs differing strategies from country to country, the organization nonetheless competes with – and often defeats – the state in important theaters of operation. The evolution was described by one gang expert in El Salvador as moving from “gangsters to political conspirators,” visible in the spikes in gang-driven homicide rates (up to 40 a day when necessary) when the gangs are seeking to pressure the government for concessions on key issues. This study focuses on the MS 13 in Honduras and El Salvador, where it represents an existential threat to the viability of the state. In both countries, the gang has achieved new levels of power and sophistication, via increased revenues from its control of multiple steps in the cocaine supply chain. Now, the MS 13 is not solely involved in transporting cocaine; it also unloads shipments arriving by air from Venezuela and in Honduras runs laboratories that transform coca paste – mostly from Colombia - to hydrochloric acid (HCl).2

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  While Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia absorb the vast majority of the U.S. attention and resources paid to the Western Hemisphere, the evolution of the MS 13 poses a challenge that could greatly weaken the security of the U.S. southern border. The threat is at least as complex and real as those posed by structures in Mexico and the United States, and far harder to overcome due to the lack of political will and functioning institutions in the Northern Triangle. In order to successfully meet this challenge from the next generation MS 13, the United States and its limited number of reliable allies in the region must adopt a new and different strategy that treats the organization as a fully functional transnational organized crime (TOC) group with increasingly strong political components.

Washington, DC: William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, 2018. 32p.

By Luciana Vosnick

This research examines and compares how humanitarian and peacebuilding organizations approach engagement with street gangs in North and Latin America for risk management purposes. Drawing from multiple semi-structured interviews with humanitarian and peacebuilding organizations, the study demonstrates that humanitarians and peacebuilders adopt either a risk mitigation or risk prevention approach when engaging with street gangs. Such risk management strategies are informed both by the organizations’ mission and by the normative lenses they adopt when looking at gangs. The research shows that the prevention and mitigation dichotomy responds to a perception of gangs being either a static source of violence to be contained or a social entity capable of change and transformation. Such lenses contribute to creating the framework through which organizations work because they influence how these organizations perceive risk and, as a result, affect how they manage risk on the tactical level.

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  The research results demonstrate that these distinct strategies produce very different outcomes. For instance, a risk mitigation approach produces an apolitical, neutral relationship with gangs that might benefit organizations with a strategic objective centered on delivering immediate, short-term emergency aid. In comparison, a risk prevention approach embodies a more robust engagement with gangs, leading to a higher level of interpersonal trust that might be beneficial for organizations aiming to implement long-term development or violence reduction programs. The research shows that each risk management strategy carries consequences because it affects an organization’s ability to implement programs successfully. The study concludes by offering practical suggestions to charitable organizations seeking to engage with street gangs in violent urban contexts.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Division of Continuing Education, 2022. 71p.

By Mark Freeman and Vanda Felbab-Brown

Negotiations with violent criminal groups – such as mafias, cartels, gangs and pirates – occur more often than imagined. This publication, grounded in more than three years of in-depth IFIT research and dozens of first-person interviews conducted with actual negotiators, offers key lessons drawn from the most diverse set of negotiations with violent criminal groups ever examined in one place. One of the prominent discoveries of this study – which centres on negotiations intended to reduce or end violence – is how the best of theory and practice regarding peace talks with militant groups (and associated areas such as transitional justice) appears largely absent from consideration or application in talks with violent criminal groups. The gap is striking and counterproductive, but also heralds an opportunity to achieve greater results in future. Another key discovery relates to the endgame of the negotiation. With militant groups, the point of negotiations is typically to end the use of organised political violence, by exchanging disarmament (and/or incorporation into the army) for some form of political empowerment and rehabilitation. With violent criminal groups, the endgame is harder to pin down, because their motivations are understood to be mainly pecuniary, leaving it unclear what they could transform into. However, the examined cases suggest that the challenge is surmountable – and under a surprising variety of conditions.

Barcelona: Institute for Integrated Transitions, 2021.

By Teun van Ruitenburg and Arjan Blokland

The Netherlands is known as one of the pioneering countries adopting a whole-of-government approach to fighting organised crime. In 2012, the Dutch government launched a similar multi-agency approach to tackle outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs). This paper provides a brief overview of the problem of OMCGs in the Netherlands and describes the different aspects of the Dutch whole-of-government approach. After reflecting on these efforts, we conclude that little is yet known about the effectiveness of this whole-of government approach to OMCG crime.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2022. 15p.

By Anna Applebaum and Briana Mawby

Gang violence is most often considered a criminal rather than a conflict issue, which limits the international community’s willingness to mitigate the conflict or provide humanitarian aid. However, the disruption of daily life caused by widespread gang violence is increasingly similar to experiences of war, including limited freedom of movement and high numbers of civilian casualties. High levels of violence lead to significant migration flows and displacement, as has been seen in individuals fleeing from Syria to Europe and from Central America’s Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) to the United States. This note, which focuses on El Salvador, highlights the scale and nature of gang violence and points to the ways in which the Women, Peace, and Security agenda can help to strengthen prevention and responses.

Washington, DC: Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security,2018. 8p.

By Pamela Ruiz

Government officials in northern Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) claim the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 are primarily responsible for violence in their countries. These gangs have been identified to exert violence, extortion rackets, and confront security forces that enter gang-controlled communities (Seelke, 2014; Natarajan et al, 2015; International Crisis Group, 2017; Servicio Social Pasionista (SSPAS), 2017; Insight Crime and Asociación para una Sociedad mas Justa (ASJ) [Association for a more Just Society] 2016, Arce, 2015). But exactly how do gangs contribute to violence and extortion rackets in these countries? What are the differences, if any, on how the gangs commit these crimes in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador? This working paper discusses the complex violence dynamics in northern Central America and argues that a chronic deficiency in data, weak rule of law, and impunity exacerbate insecurity in these countries. The Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 originated in Los Angeles, California and are now present throughout the United States, northern Central America, Spain, and Italy (Franco, 2008; Valdez, 2009; Seelke, 2016; Valencia, 2016; Finklea, 2018; Dudley & Avalos, 2018). Barrio 18 was formed in the 1960s by mixed-race Mexican, and MS-13 was formed in latter 1980s by Salvadorans who fled the civil war (Franco, 2008; Valdez, 2009; Seelke, 2016; Wolf, 2012). Some scholars argue gang culture was exported when individuals with criminal records were deported to their country of origin, while other scholars argue voluntary migration contributed to gangs’ presence in northern Central America (Arana, 2005; Franco, 2008; Seelke, 2016; Cruz, 2010). It is imperative to clarify that a criminal removal from the United States is not synonymous, nor does it imply a perfect correlation with a gang member being removed .

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  Nonetheless, these gangs have become major security concerns in northern Central America. This study examined the concentration of crimes often attributed exclusively to gangs (homicides, extortion, and confrontations) using administrative data from the Salvadoran National Civilian Police, Honduran Prosecutor’s Office, and Guatemalan National Civilian Police. Interviews with subject matter experts supplemented the quantitative analysis to gain further understanding of violence dynamics per country. This paper follows with a literature review on homicides, extortion, and confrontations trends in northern Central America, a methodology section, results, and a discussion.

Miami: Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, Florida International University, 2022. 31p.

By Reana Bezić

Juveniles represent the most important human capital on which societies have to rely in order to achieve sustainable progress and social change. Their delinquency is a complex phenomenon and one of the most challenging criminological and social problems. Throughout the 20th century, criminology has produced numerous studies focusing on aetiological factors and phenomenological characteristics of juvenile delinquency. However, juvenile crime research in the Balkans has remained scarce, with only few empirical studies having been carried out thus far. Such an 'empirical black hole' makes cross=national and comparative criminological research on juvenile crime in the Balkans far overdue. This volume provides a first comprehensive account of the prevalence and incidence of juvenile crime in the Balkans, based on self-reports in youth populations of five countries of the region: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia. The analyses focus on differences and common characteristics among the five country samples, involving a total of 8,460 respondents. Based on these findings, further analyses are centered on indicators that might impact the development of juvenile crime. In general, this study is focused on theory-testing and the search for mechanisms that explain juvenile crime in the region. The main theory that was tested is the social control theory. The study presents important empirical evidence for establishing, developing and evaluating prevention programmes, which are an important component of rational, evidence-based crime policies in the Balkans.

Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2021. 200p.

By Kirsten Elisa Petersen and Lars Ladefoged

This research and knowledge gathering project presents international, Nordic, and Danish research and knowledge regarding youth in gangs. This research and knowledge gathering constitutes part II of a combined research project focused on young men in gangs, which has been running since January of 2013. Earlier in the course of the project, report number 1 was published with the title “Voices from a Gang – Young Gang Members Own Stories as told by themselves about Growing Up, Daily Life, and Their Future"..

The research project also encompassed a temporal and economic opportunity to develop research and knowledge gathering specifically with a focus on pinning down existing research-based knowledge on the subject of youth in gangs, both in a Danish and international context – and this is what is now being presented in this report. The third and last report (Report Part III) presents the results of that part of the research project that focused on the social programs and efforts that are being implemented across the country in various forms to prevent gang affiliation, as well as focusing on efforts that help young people leave gangs. Here, the professional workers are included, meaning those who work with young people in gangs in various ways, their knowledge and experience, and the social and social-pedagogical efforts, theories, and methods, on which the professionals base their work. The third and last report in the complete research project about young men in gangs is expected to be published in December of 2018.

Copenhaven: DPU, Aarhus Universitet, 2018. 154p.

By Julia Stanyard

As the coronavirus pandemic began to infiltrate East and southern Africa, authorities across the region imposed unprecedented restrictions on the movement and freedoms of their citizens. As many observers argued in the following months, the reliance on the police to enforce these restrictions turned a public-health crisis into a security and human-rights crisis. Overnight, many in poor and marginalized communities saw their legitimate livelihoods become impossible. But what became of the illegitimate livelihoods and illegal economies? How did groups that were already operating outside the law react to the lockdowns?

This study explores these questions by using Cape Town, South Africa, as a lens to analyze trends across the East and southern African region. Drawing on in-depth reporting as well as interviews across the Cape Flats with gang members, community members and civil-society activists, the report charts the first hundred days of lockdown. This reporting is integrated with further research drawn from our network of researchers in Cape Town, other cities in South Africa and in Kenya and Tanzania. The report concludes that the lockdowns have brought about significant change in a number of areas, namely how gangs operate economically; the political power they wield over communities; levels of violence and street-level crime; and the relationship between corrupt law-enforcement officials and gang members.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime, 2020. 33p.

By Summer Walker

The growth of gang violence in Haiti has been a major concern in recent years. Years of political dysfunction in the Caribbean country have combined with deteriorating economic conditions, the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters, to create a weakening of state power. Under these conditions, gangs have multiplied, joined up forces and asserted authority in an increasingly destructive manner.

In the last five years, gangs have grown rapidly in number, expanding their territories and tightening their control over Haiti’s political and economic infrastructure. They have established themselves as the mercenary partners of politicians and state administrators, as mafia-style armed groups profiting from the private sector and as the local coordinators of international criminal networks.

There are now an estimated 200 gangs operating across Haiti, and around 95 in the capital, Port-au-Prince, alone. This has resulted in a major insecurity crisis, with large-scale attacks on communities, politicians and journalists, high levels of violence, mass kidnappings and large-scale forced displacements

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime, 2022. 26p.

By the U.S. Department of Justice

La Mara Salvatrucha (“MS-13”) is a violent street gang that operates as a transnational criminal organization (“TCO”) and has been designated as such by federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of the Treasury. MS-13 operates in the United States, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and other countries. Each year, MS-13 is responsible for violent crimes in the United States, including murders, extortion, arms and drug trafficking, assaults, rapes, human trafficking, robberies, and kidnappings. For decades, MS-13 has exploited weaknesses in U.S. immigration enforcement policies to move its members in and out of the United States and to recruit new members who have arrived in the United States illegally.3 Moreover, MS-13 has infiltrated both cities and suburbs of the United States and established cliques in California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia,

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  This report describes the Department’s work to dismantle La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) in the United States and abroad. The data show that since 2016, the Department has prosecuted approximately 749 MS-13 gang members. So far, more than 500 of these MS-13 gang members have been convicted, including 37 who received life sentences. Department prosecutors are using more than 20 federal criminal statutes to prosecute MS-13 members, including, for the first time, filing terrorism charges against MS-13’s leadership. The data also show that for decades MS-13 has exploited weaknesses in border enforcement policies, as approximately 74 percent of the defendants prosecuted were unlawfully present in the United States. The report also describes the Department’s efforts to combat MS-13 internationally through increased partnerships with law enforcement in Mexico and Central America. Through international cooperation, hundreds of MS-13 members have been arrested abroad and more than 50 MS-13 members have been extradited to the United States.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2022. 17p.

By Barbara Bloom and David Steinhart

In I978,The National council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) published a study entitledWhy Punish the Children? The study JL offered a comprehensive and critical view of the nation's treatment of children whose mothers were incarcerated in the nation's jails and prisons. It documented a neglected and forgotten class of young people whose lives were disrupted and often damaged by the experience of isolation from their imprisoned mothers. Recommendations presented in the study were intended to focus attention on these children and their needs. The present work is a reassessment of the study published in I978. The need for a current appraisal is sharpened by the fact that the incarceration rate for female offenders has skyrocketed in recent years. This has spurred unwelcome growth of the invisible class of infants, children and teenagers who find themselves without a mother at home. While new legions of children are growing up separated from their mothers, government agencies appear more powerless than ever to attend to the needs of the children, their mothers and their caregivers. Now more than ever, we must renew our concern and define our commitment to these children. This report offers an appraisal of their needs and a current agenda for reform.

San Francisco: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1993. 86p.

By Frederic M. Thrasher

While gangs and gang culture have been around for countless centuries, The Gang is one of the first academic studies of the phenomenon. Originally published in 1927, Frederic Milton Thrasher’s magnum opus offers a profound and careful analysis of hundreds of gangs in Chicago in the early part of the twentieth century. With rich prose and an eye for detail, Thrasher looked specifically at the way in which urban geography shaped gangs, and posited the thesis that neighborhoods in flux were more likely to produce gangs. Moreover, he traced gang culture back to feudal and medieval power systems and linked tribal ethos in other societies to codes of honor and glory found in American gangs

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. 214p.

Edited by Scott H. Decker and David C. Pyrooz

Pulling together the most salient, current issues in the field today, The Handbook of Gangs provides a significant assessment by leading scholars of key topics related to gangs, gang members, and responses to gangs.

• Chapters cover a wide array of the most prominent issues in the field of gangs, written by scholars who have been leaders in developing new ways of thinking about the topics

• Delivers cutting-edge reviews of the current state of research and practice and addresses where the field has been, where it is today and where it should go in the future

• Includes extensive coverage of the individual theories of delinquency and provides special emphasis on policy and prevention program implications in the study of gangs

Chichester, West Sussex:Wiley Blackwell, 2015. 592p

Edited by Finn-Aage Esbensen and Cheryl L. Maxson

As a steady source of juvenile delinquents and an incubator for future adult offenders, the youth gang has long been a focus of attention, from their origins and prevalence to intervention and prevention strategies. But while delinquent youth form gangs worldwide, youth gang research has generally focused on the U.S.

Youth Gangs in International Perspective provides a needed corrective by offering significant studies from across Europe, as well as Trinidad-Tobago and Israel. The book spans the diversity of the field in the cultural and scholarly traditions represented and methods used, analyzing not only the social processes under which gangs operate and cohere, but also the evolution of the research base, starting with the Eurogang Program’s definition of the term youth gang. Cross-national and gender issues are discussed, as are measurement concerns and the possibility that the American conception of the youth gang is impeding European understanding of these groups.

New York Dordrecht: Springer, 2012. 322p.