By Bram Ebus

In the jungle along the Colombian-Venezuelan frontier, guerrillas, criminals and shadowy state elements jostle for illicit profits. Venezuela’s campaign against one armed group has raised tensions. Bogotá and Caracas should temper their war of words and work to forestall an inadvertent bilateral escalation.

By Marisa Ross, Susan Burtner, and Andrew Papachristos

Introduction: Community violence intervention street outreach (CVI-SO) strategies are growing in popularity as non-punitive approaches to solving the public health problem of community gun violence. Evidence on the effectiveness of CVI-SO on rates of violence is mixed and faces challenges due to concerns with documentation and data privacy, intentional selection bias in program design, and variation in participant risk and needs. Effective evaluation requires methods that accurately capture the scope and delivery of services, starting with a greater understanding of the services CVI participants receive and how they vary based on individual characteristics.

Methods: This study explores the services that participants received from a coalition of Chicago CVI organizations from 2017–2023. Considering administrative and programmatic data from over 4,000 participants’ nearly 200,000 interactions with providers, the researchers examine patterns in demographics, network-based risk factors, and service provision and dosage. They then use descriptive and latent profile analyses to characterize the “typical” participant in Chicago.

Results: Results show that CVI work relies heavily on long-term mentoring relationships. Service patterns show that latent groups exist with varying dosage: higher dosage participants with higher risk for gun violence receive more frequent contacts over longer periods, demonstrating how organizations adjust their approach based on participant needs. Profiles that primarily receive behavioral or social supports-related services also emerge.

Conclusions: Findings underscore the need for evaluation frameworks that capture both the strategic variation in service delivery and the multiple pathways through which CVI programs influence participant outcomes.

By Yennesit Palacios Valencia and Ignacio García Marín

  Colombia is among the countries with the highest levels of violence and crime in the world, despite the peace agreements between the State and different armed groups, including the FARC. This is partly due to the fact that the Colombian case is complex and multifaceted because of the variety of participants in the armed conflict context and due to the mutation of new actors, under the modality of organized crime. Based on the above, the objective is to study the Colombian reality, contextually and diachronically, from theoretical and epistemological elements to demonstrate how violence and criminality factors intersect in the context of the armed conflict. The study concludes, among other findings, that in Colombia the ambiguity and the multiplicity of terms used to name the emerging criminal groups presents a legal problem because of their hybrid composition and regarding their treatment within or outside of the armed conflict

By The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime

Levels of organized crime have remained stable across Europe while increasing in most other regions, according to the 2025 Global Organized Crime Index. Europe remains the second-lowest continent for criminality after Oceania. However, this overall stability masks a dynamic situation across criminal markets and criminal actors.

Europe’s overall criminality score stands at 4.74, while its resilience score reaches 6.28 —the highest globally. Although Europe continues to outperform other continents across all 12 resilience indicators, criminality continues to expand and adapt, highlighting the need to update resilience strategies to keep pace with emerging threats.

Financial crime remains the most pervasive criminal market in Europe for the second consecutive edition of the Index. These crimes include increasingly complex and sophisticated fraud schemes, largely occurring online, such as investment fraud, business email compromise and romance scams, as well as embezzlement and tax evasion. Financial crimes are inherently transregional and are particularly facilitated by corruption.

Europe continues to be a global hotspot for cyber-dependent crimes, ranking second continentally. These crimes range from ransomware attacks to malware distribution and cryptocurrency fraud, often targeting government institutions, major corporations and critical infrastructure. Hybrid and traditional cybercrime actors are increasingly intertwined, with state-sponsored groups often disguising themselves as cybercriminals.

Drug markets remain salient. Cocaine and synthetic drugs have recorded the sharpest increases since 2023. Cocaine is a primary source of revenue for numerous organized crime groups in Europe, and the continent functions as a destination, transit hub and consumer market. Synthetic drug production is becoming increasingly dispersed across Europe, with Central and Eastern Europe registering the sharpest increase since 2021. Heroin, by contrast, is showing signs of decline, while cannabis remains the most widely consumed illicit drug.

Human trafficking and human smuggling remain far-reaching and widespread. Smuggling networks are entrenched along the Western Balkans route, and many European countries serve as final destinations where smuggled people may face forced labour or sexual exploitation.

The presence of criminal actors has grown steadily since 2021. Foreign actors remain the most concerning actor type, recording the largest overall increase since 2021. These groups are increasingly heterogeneous, multi-ethnic and interconnected. Private-sector actors also play a pivotal role in laundering illicit funds, while state-embedded actors, though less pervasive than elsewhere, are implicated in facilitating criminal activity in some contexts.

Europe’s resilience strengths lie in international cooperation, national policies and laws, and territorial integrity. However, government transparency and accountability consistently rank lowest among resilience indicators. Anti-money laundering and economic regulatory capacity also remain areas of concern.

While Europe demonstrates relatively strong resilience overall, certain criminal markets and actors are expanding. The findings underscore the need for more effective and tailored response mechanisms as organized crime continues to adapt across the continent.

By Nathan P. Jones and John P. Sullivan

Criminal cartels and gangs dominate the illicit economy in Mexico. These organized crime groups challenge the solvency (specifically capacity and legitimacy) of the state in Mexico. Organized crime in Mexico is involved in a range of activities including extortion, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and petroleum theft. Criminal cartels, often called drug trafficking organizations, have diversified into other illicit activities specifically petroleum theft. This paper provides an overview of the rise of a specialized organized criminal entity: huachicoleros. Huachicoleros specialize in fuel theft and like their narco counterparts use corruption and violence to protect their illicit market. The rise of Cártel de Santa Rosa Lima (CSRL) is discussed as a salient case study. The volatile mix of corruption, violence, and economic instability will be assessed, and government and national oil company (PEMEX) response is discussed

By Evan Ellis

The U.S. government threats of tariffs on the Mexican government if it did not do more to control illicit fentanyl ows into the United States have cast new attention on the growing problem of transnational organized crime that has wrought violence and corruption at all levels in Mexico. This work, based on the authors research in interviews with senior Mexican security ofcials in Mexico City in March 2025, examines the evolution of transnational organized crime in the country, and the Mexican government’s response, with the support of the United States and other partners.The principal drivers of transnational organized crime dynamics in Mexico are ows of cocaine through the country, largely destined for European and Asian markets, as well as the production of fentanyl there from Chinese and other precursors, mostly oriented toward export to the United States. In addition, other illicit activities including petroleum theft (huachicol), smuggling and exploitation of migrants transiting the country, extortion and kidnapping, illegal mining and money laundering, have also fueled Mexico’s evolving illicit economy. With respect to murders and other violence in Mexico, arms, including long arms imported from the United States, arms obtained on the black market from Central American and other global wars, drones and other military products principally from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as well as a large, welldeveloped illicit domestic industry for military vehicles and supplies all contribute to the lethality of multiple ongoing conict within the country.The organized crime dynamics in Mexico, the domestic and international groups involved, in the pattern of violence has evolved signicantly in the almost two decades since 2006 when Mexican president Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels for their escalating violence and deployed federal troops into Michoacan to respond. This work analyzes of those dynamics, their evolution, and the response of the Mexican government, in conjunction with the US and other partners.

By Patricia Faraldo Cabana

In recent years the interrelation of the trafficking of cultural property with other forms of organised crime has gained prominence in EU policies on the protection of cultural heritage. This article analyses how the EU has conceptualized and operationalized this overlap in terms of describing the phenomenon and designing countermeasures. Through a content analysis, we evaluate the articulation and use of this connection in EU policy documents published from 1993 to 2023 that include both organised crime and trafficking of cultural property or similar terms (n = 58). The analysis demonstrates conceptual and organizational deficits and a correspondingly weak foundation for EU policy. Misunderstandings related to the organised nature of trafficking of cultural property and its overlaps with other forms of organised crime, particularly the financing of terrorism, may result in misguided policies with the potential to undermine law enforcement efforts. Conversely, the addition to the list of obliged entities and persons in the anti-money laundering framework of persons trading or acting as intermediaries in the trade of works of art opens new opportunities to disrupt the illicit financial flow in the art and antiquities market.

By Omar García-Ponce 

Organized criminal groups (OCGs), ranging from local gangs to powerful drug cartels that operate across national boundaries, represent the single most important security threat in Mexico and Central America. A growing body of research in political science and other disciplines has examined the political and socioeconomic roots of these organizations, as well as the mechanisms underlying the production of organized criminal violence. The unprecedented wave of organized criminal violence that has been affecting the region in recent years can be traced back to political transformations and policy changes that disrupted the social and political order at the local level, redefining the organization of illicit markets, and undermining the rule of law. On these issues there is a particularly rich literature that focuses on understanding the outbreak of violence and criminal rivalry in Mexico. Several studies have emphasized the role of state-criminal group relationships as a key factor to understand the challenges that organized crime poses in terms of peacebuilding and democratic rule. Within this framework, the existing literature has identified various forms of criminal governance prevalent in Mexico and Central America, and shed light on how communities respond to crime and violence in contexts of low state capacity. Some of these responses include social mobilization, vigilantism, and support for extralegal violence. The use of violence by OCGs in electoral contexts has also received particular attention in the literature, since they often target candidates or intimidate voters, affecting political preferences and patterns of political participation. Finally, a series of studies has rigorously investigated the impact of organized criminal violence on a number of outcomes, including political attitudes and behavior, trust in institutions, and health and education, among others.

By Omar García-Ponce

The study of criminal violence has received increasing attention in political science over the past 15 years, as organized criminal groups have grown and diversified worldwide, unleashing unprecedented waves of violence. This article presents a critical assessment of the current state of political science scholarship on criminal violence. It discusses the sources and dynamics of organized criminal violence, emphasizing the reconceptualization of state–criminal group relationships in the literature, shifts in illegal markets, and the political incentives fueling criminal wars. It also examines how states and societies respond to criminal violence. State responses include punitive approaches, institutional reform, and community-based interventions, while societal responses can be examined through the lenses of exit (e.g., migration, disengagement), voice (e.g., political participation, collective resistance), and loyalty (i.e., compliance with state authorities or criminal groups). The article also addresses conceptual and methodological challenges, policy implications, and ethical considerations inherent in this field of study and identifies promising pathways for future research.

By Jan Slobodník

This study examines the militarised approach of the Mexican government in its struggle against organised crime between 2001 and 2016, focusing on the deployment of the armed forces and the implementation of the so-called kingpin strategy. It argues that the removal of cartel leaders, rather than weakening criminal networks, produced fragmentation, diversification, and militarisation within Mexico’s underworld—a process defined here as zetafication. The thesis uses the rise and evolution of Los Zetas as a case study to analyse how a criminal organisation born from army deserters introduced military tactics, hierarchical discipline, and extreme violence into organised crime, transforming the conflict’s character and the state’s response. Drawing on government reports, interviews with Mexican military officers and civilians, and contemporary scholarship, the study situates this phenomenon within Mexico’s political, legal, and socio-economic context, including the influence of U.S. security policy. It concludes that the use of the military as a policing tool produces short-term tactical gains but undermines long-term state stability, erodes public trust, and perpetuates cycles of violence.

By Daniel Brombacher, Ruggero Scaturro and Sarah Fares

 Africa-linked organised crime is a growing threat for Europe. The phenomenon embraces a broad array of organised crime groups, criminal networks and criminal markets. Debate on the topic is highly polarised and marked by knowledge gaps. This paper seeks to shed light on the challenge, drawing on field research and case studies from Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Key points • Africa-linked organised crime is deeply intertwined with the social and economic marginalisation of African immigrant communities within Europe. • Africa-based organised crime groups in Europe show high levels of adaptability to local conditions, resulting in different criminal patterns across countries. • Nigerian organised crime groups maintain hierarchical, financial and operational links to Nigeria, often using legal covers in Europe. • African diaspora networks in Europe maintain few ties to North Africa, are heavily involved in retail and wholesale drug markets and maintain operational flexibility. • Effective countermeasures require improved evidence gathering, intelligence sharing and targeted disruption of financial flows.

By Diorella Islas

This thesis seeks to develop a better understanding of the transnational behaviour of drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) by documenting the role that Mexican DTOs had in the cocaine trafficking to Europe after 2008. This was the year when the Italian authorities announced their discoveries that there were business interaction between the Mexican DTOs and the Italian mafia groups. At the same time the Italian authorities were announcing their findings, my literature review showed a lack of analysis and documentation regarding the transnationalization of Mexican DTOs to Europe. While most of the literature focuses on the explanation of the cartels inside Mexico, my research question focused on clarifying whether or not the Mexican DTOs are expanding their cocaine trafficking activities to Europe. At this point I considered the reports of the Italian authorities that affirm that the Mexican DTOs are relevant drug trafficking intermediaries in the cocaine trafficking routes to Europe. To answer my research question, and to systematically describe the evolution of DTOs, a qualitative methods approach was deployed (Mohajan, 2018) with a case study design adapted from Yin (2003). My analysis was carried out through the use of multiple triangulation techniques that helped me to collect and study different types of data to understand the subject. I collected empirical information through 28 interviews with security personnel with experience in countering Mexican DTOs or in the cocaine routes to Europe. The information gathered from the security personnel, complemented by official reports and open source information, was useful to answer my research question and test my hypothesis. The analysis showed that despite Italian authorities’ claims and perceptions, the power of the Mexican cartels is very limited when talking about their presence and links in Europe, and resulted in four key findings. Firstly, that the perception of the Mexican DTOs as having trans-Atlantic powers is erroneous, because the evidence showed that there is no transatlantic expansion. Secondly, the analysis uncovered the internal, national and international variables that were observed to alter the evolution and behaviour of the Mexican DTOs. At the internal level, the variables included the loss of leadership and the grievances between groups. At the national level the identified variables were the democratic transitions, corruption and impunity networks. And at the international level the variables were the international drug demand, the changes in the international illicit world, the situation of governance and corruption in foreign countries and the geography of theregion where the illicit business are taking place. The third finding was that the transatlantic cocaine trafficking routes are not controlled by an specific actor, but they are horizontal structures that are highly adaptative. The final key finding refers to a methodological observation which I describe as the “paradox of referencing”; when many sources reference something that was true in the past –like the links between Mexican DTOs and Italian mafia discovered in 2008– they help to perpetuate the present perception of a past phenomenon.

By Carina Bruwer 

The Atlantic Ocean is a vital conduit for vessels transporting and sourcing licit and illicit commodities. Much of the focus on maritime crime has been on the North Atlantic and the Gulf of Guinea, with fragmented attention paid to illicit activities further south in the Atlantic bordering Angola, Namibia and South Africa. This paper maps transnational organised crimes facilitated by vessels, with the aim of identifying challenges and opportunities in safeguarding southwestern Africa’s coast. Key points • Various vessels transport and source illicit commodities in Africa’s South Atlantic. • The Red Sea conflict has increased vessel traffic around Southern Africa’s coast, bringing both opportunities and risks to trade. • Cocaine remains the primary drug entering Africa via the South Atlantic, but synthetic drug and precursor trafficking is increasing. • Flags of convenience facilitate illegal fishing on the Angola/Namibian border. • Limited resources constrain counter-efforts. • Mapping Africa’s South Atlantic illicit markets provides an evidence base for stakeholders working to counter them.

By: Nasreen Solomons and Harsha Gihwala

Summary - The victim–offender spectrum of human trafficking is characterised by blurred lines and complex circumstances. Recognising varying degrees of voluntariness in individual cases of women along this spectrum would allow legislators and the justice system to understand the complicated contexts in which women intersect with trafficking, where culpability is not always clear-cut. States have a responsibility to develop legislation, policy and strategies that reflect this nuance and enable more effective interventions for those who fall anywhere on this spectrum.

By José Gustavo Arocha

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: 

1 Tren de Aragua (TdA) has morphed from a prison gang into a paramilitary instrument of the Maduro regime, now active in at least eleven Latin American countries [1] and twenty-three U.S. states, [2] according to the U.S. House Oversight Committee (2025).

2 Strategic Alignment. TdA’s deliberate expansion complements Venezuela’s Guerra de Todo el Pueblo asymmetric-warfare doctrine, [3] erasing boundaries between statecraft and organized crime.

3 Elastic Network. The gang’s “insurgent archipelago” [4] of semiautonomous cells, linked through encrypted channels, makes it exceptionally resilient; when joint Peruvian-U.S. raids freed more than eighty trafficking victims in January 2025, [5] replacement cells reemerged within days. [6]

4 Weaponized Migration. By monetizing migrant flows, selling “all risk” travel packages that often devolve into debt bondage, [7] TdA offloads costs onto regional adversaries; more than 520,000 migrants transited through the Darién Gap in 2023. [8]

5 Persistent Threat. Despite terrorism designations by the United States, Argentina, Ecuador, and Trinidad and Tobago—and nearly 3,500 U.S. arrests as of August 2025, [9] TdA’s franchise model is regenerating faster than law enforcement can dismantle it.

By Oluwole Ojewale and Raoul Sumo Tayo

Informal money transfer systems in the LCB facilitate trade but lack regulation, enabling terrorist financing and illicit flows despite emerging digital integration opportunities. Power for sale: the organised crime infiltration of elections in Africa.

By The International Crisis Group

Born of Port-au-Prince’s most powerful gangs, Viv Ansanm has raised the criminal threat overhanging Haiti’s state and civilians to alarming heights. The gang coalition announced itself to the world by besieging the Haitian capital in early 2024, triggering former Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s resignation. After consolidating its hold on much of the city, Viv Ansanm has expanded into neighbouring departments, tightened its grip on the main roads connecting Port-au-Prince to the rest of the country and mounted attacks on the airport, essentially cutting Haiti off. Gangs’ violent offensives have killed over 16,000 people since 2022. But a rising death toll and diversifying criminal portfolio, now including extortion, piracy and drug trafficking, have not stopped gangs from claiming to represent the country’s downtrodden, especially on social media. UN approval of a new foreign force to combat the gangs could shift the balance of power. But it is vital that plans are in place not just to overpower the gangs but also to persuade them to demobilise. Haitian business and political elites have relied on paramilitary forces to protect their interests since the 1950s dictatorship of Francois Duvalier, or “Papa Doc”. But in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, gangs have mutated, evolving from tools in the hands of the most powerful to overlords of Haiti. Two main gang groupings – the G-9, whose most public figure was Jimmy Chérizier, alias Barbecue, and the Gpèp, under Gabriel Jean Pierre, known as “Ti Gabriel” – fought for supremacy after Moïse’s murder. Even as the two faced off, gang leaders discussed whether to strike agreements to scale down the death toll among their members and spare resources. Mediators managed to craft several pacts among local groups to divvy up coveted turf. Late in 2023, reports emerged that the country’s two main gang coalitions had merged into one platform; their first joint offensive began months later. Alongside its violent expansion, Viv Ansanm has sought to transform its public profile from that of a predatory criminal force into that of an ideological crusader. Crime bosses say their mission is to protect the poorest Haitians from rapacious elites and colonial powers that historically have oppressed this black Caribbean nation. Chérizier and other gang leaders have even announced the creation of a new political party, albeit without taking the steps needed to register it formally.While continuing to enrich themselves at the expense of Haitians rich and poor, their message has nevertheless become more overtly political: they appear intent on guaranteeing that their allies are part of the next administration, which should be formed by 7 February 2026 to replace the current transitional government. The concrete result they aspire to is a general amnesty for leaders and members. Haiti and its foreign partners are looking to beef up their ability to respond to the gangs with force. The UN Security Council has approved a new security operation, dubbed the Gang Suppression Force, to replace the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission, which started up in 2024 but has never had the personnel or resources needed to check the gangs. The new force aims to incorporate 5,500 military personnel and expects to draw on reliable funding. Its mandate appears to give it more operational independence and the leeway to adopt more aggressive tactics. But until the force’s deployment, which is expected to commence around April 2026, Haiti’s authorities will have to turn to other methods. A task force, led by Haiti’s prime minister and powered by U.S. private military companies, has already used drones to hit gang members in their urban strongholds, killing over 200 people. Foreign partners are also providing training to the newly reconstituted army. Meanwhile, citizens exhausted by the threat to their neighbourhoods have established self-defence groups, provoking a brutal riposte from the gangs. A well-resourced, properly informed and expertly commanded Gang Suppression Force could help change the balance of force on the ground and push the gangs onto the back foot. Port-au-Prince and its foreign counterparts, however, must take care to mitigate the dangers of civilian casualties and violations of human rights, ensuring that robust accountability systems are in place. Once the force is up and running, the Haitian government should also overcome the coordination failures4 that have plagued previous security campaigns. In particular, the government should appoint members to the National Security Council and ask them to design a strategy that lays out each institution’s role in fighting the gangs. Even so, it remains unlikely that force alone will entirely extricate gangs from the communities they control or sever the nexus with politics that has bedevilled Haiti for over half a century. Though informal negotiations with gangs take place on a regular basis – to gain access to people in need of humanitarian aid or to keep businesses open – many Haitians oppose the idea of formal dialogue with the perpetrators of crimes they consider unforgivable. Government officials have correctly said the Haitian state cannot engage in talks from a position of weakness. But if the new multinational force and revamped Haitian security forces allow the authorities to gain the upper hand and broadcast their armed superiority, state officials should look to use dialogue as a means of convincing the gangs to cut their losses, reduce violence against civilians and, eventually, demobilise.  

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2025. 69p.

By Pamela Ruiz

The Mara Salvatrucha 13 (mara) and Barrio 18 (pandilla) gangs have become a major concern for the governments of the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) and the United States. In recent years, government officials have attributed violence and the exodus of Central Americans to the developing capacities of gangs. The Mara Salvatrucha 13(MS-13) and Barrio 18 have been identified to strategically implement violence and extortion rackets which have led to transformations in their organizational structures and increased participation in drug trafficking. Furthermore, officials insinuate that gangs have developed capacities to confront security forces that enter gang territory with an increase in confrontations. This has resulted with Northern Triangle governments reclassifying gangs as organized crime and/or terrorist organizations; but, do these gangs meet the requirements to be classified as such? The overall purpose of this study is to examine the evolution of MS-13 and Barrio 18 in the Northern Triangle of Central America using mixed methods. Crime pattern theory provided the framework to understand the crime opportunity structures to explain the concentration of violence (homicides, extortion, and confrontations). Organized crime and gang concepts were used to evaluate gangs’ evolution with regards to their use of violence, extortion rackets,transformations in organizational structures, and roles in drug trafficking with a focus on their alliances with Los Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel (Mexican DTOs). Phase I of this study used official quantitative data to map the spatial concentration of homicides, extortions, and confrontations (gang-related crimes) at the municipality level for each country from 2007-2017. Phase II gathered qualitative data through purposive, semi-structured interviews with subject matter experts (academics, law enforcement, and NGO personnel) to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the concentration of violence and whether gangs had evolved to organized crime organizations. Triangulation of the study data provided a more concise display of where these crimes concentrate and contributing factors to the gangs’ evolution. This study concludes illicit political economic networks between corrupt officials, narcotrafficking groups, and gangs contribute to violence and impunity in the Northern Triangle of Central America. The concentration of homicides in border municipalities was often associated with drug trafficking, homicides in urban areas were often associated with gangs, and homicides in rural areas were attributed to vengeance murders. Extortion concentrated in urban centers and was described as a crime of opportunity with various “imitators” involved. Confrontations between law enforcement personnel and gangs have led to formal accusations of extrajudicial executions. Moreover, the politicization of gangs has limited attention to address criminal activities and violence that are not associated with gangs. Therefore, this study’s findings indicate violence in the Northern Triangle of Central America can be attributed tointer-and-intra gang violence, 2) inter-and-intra narcotrafficking violence, 3) state violence and 4) non-gang related violence. Lastly, it is unquestionable MS-13 and Barrio 18 have evolved, while it is premature to classify these gangs as an organized crime group; this study puts forth categorizing gangs as “organized delinquency” to best describe their capacities.

New York: City University of New York, 2019. 193p.

By Sou Lee 

The purpose of this study is to gain a holistic understanding of the Asian gang phenomenon through the application of a meta-synthesis, which is seldom utilized within the criminal justice and criminology discipline. Noblit and Hare’s (1988) seven step guidelines for synthesizing qualitative research informed this methodology. Through this process, 15 studies were selected for synthesis. The synthesis of these studies not only identified prevalent themes across the sample, but also provided the basis for creating overarching metaphors that captured the collective experience of Asian gang members. Through the interpretive ordering of these metaphors, a line of synthesis argument was developed in which three major inferences about the Asian gang experience were made. First, regardless of ethnic and geographic differences, the experiences of Asian gangs and their members are similar. Second, although extant literature has applied different theories to explain gang membership for individual ethnic gangs (e.g. Chinese, Vietnamese), this synthesis revealed that the dominant theory for explaining the onset and persistence of Asian gangs is Vigil’s (1988) multiple marginality theory. Finally, in comparison to the broader literature, Asian gangs are more similar than they are different to non-Asian gangs because of their overlap in values.

Thesis, 2016. 127p.

By D.J. Summers

in the past five years, Colorado’s largest cities have had very different experiences of crime.

Colorado’s violent and property crime rates rose sharply in the early 2020s, prompting varying responses from leaders at state and local levels. Some have been more successful than others, according to the most recently available Colorado Bureau of Investigation data.

CSI analyzed the violent and property crime trends of Colorado’s ten largest cities: Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, Fort Collins, Lakewood, Thornton, Arvada, Westminster, Pueblo, and Centennial. These ten cities represent just under half the state’s total population, with a combined population of roughly 2.3 million residents. CSI analyzed the average violent and property crime rates per 100,000 people through the first two quarters of each year between 2016 and 2025. Pueblo’s police data is not current and could not be included in the analysis.

Property and violent crime cost the state $27 billion in economic losses in 2022 between the tangible and intangible effects of reported and unreported crime. It is imperative that public leaders continually examine and understand which policies best address crime rates.

Key Findings

Denver’s violent crime rate is the highest among Colorado’s largest cities, with 235 violent crimes per 100,000 people.

 Aurora’s is second highest, with 203 violent crimes per 100,000 people.

Aurora’s violent crime has remained beneath Denver’s for three years, breaking the trend of the late 2010s and early 2020s in which Aurora’s rates were higher.

Only Colorado Springs saw an increase in the violent crime rate between 2022 and 2025.

Among the largest cities, Aurora saw the sharpest decrease in violent crime rate.

Aurora saw the second highest decrease in violent crime rate, with a 36% decrease.

Denver has the highest property crime rate of Colorado’s largest cities, with 1,122 property crimes per 100,000 people.

Lakewood has the second highest rate, with 1,099 per 100,000 people.

Aurora and Centennial had the sharpest decreases in property crime rate since 2021, at 56%, 49%, and 44%, respectively.