By The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

In Haiti, 5 915 people were killed in 2025 (compared to 5 601 in 2024). The national homicide rate got to 49.8 per 100 000 people, and Port-au-Prince, which is home to about a quarter of the population, reached nearly 140 per 100 000 people, ranking it among the most violent cities in the world.

Gangs continued to expand their influence in Haiti, both through territorial control and by consolidating their role as political brokers. This latter dimension remains largely absent from national and international crisis response strategies.By failing to account for the political economy of violence, particularly the importance of addressing politico-criminal relationships, current policies risk perpetuating rather than loosening the links between armed groups and the political system, especially if the 2026 elections proceed without a more comprehensive response adapted to the complexity of the crisis.Haiti’s gangs are neither insurgents nor revolutionaries; they are embedded within circuits of political and economic power. The crisis is sustained by illicit financial flows, arms and drug trafficking, and patronage networks that protect and instrumentalize armed groups.Arrests and targeted operations may weaken certain groups, but as long as the structures that sustain criminal governance remain intact, the system will reconstitute itself. Without measures to dismantle the networks intertwining political competition and criminal governance, electoral processes risk reinforcing rather than transforming the system they are intended to renew.Haiti requires a strategy to combat organized crime that integrates public security, justice and community reconstruction. Any approach focused exclusively on force will fail if it does not address the political and economic foundations that allow violence to persist.To be effective, the Gang Suppression Force (GSF) must be paired with judicial tools capable of targeting gang support networks, particularly financial ones, and not only armed actors. This includes pursuing criminal leaders as well as their political and financial sponsors. Only by addressing the broader ecosystem of collusion can Haiti move away from a political order that is shaped by entrenched politico-criminal relationships.A long-term crisis resolution strategy must integrate justice, economic policy, security and political reform. The central question is not whether to negotiate with criminal groups, but how to articulate justice, demobilization and reintegration in a way that prevents the reproduction of violence.

By Alice Baxter

The government has announced that it is establishing a statutory public inquiry into grooming gangs. The inquiry begins work on 13 April 2026. Why have there been calls for an inquiry? By the early 2010s, multiple child sexual abuse scandals had prompted public concern about the state response to organised and systematic child sexual abuse. These included revelations about media personalities such as Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris as well as about organised child sexual abuse in towns such as Rotherham, Oldham and Rochdale. In 2014 Theresa May, then Home Secretary, established a non-statutory inquiry panel into the issue. The inquiry panel was replaced by a statutory public inquiry (the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, or IICSA) in 2015, after the Home Secretary told the House of Commons that the panel had lost the trust of victims and survivors. IICSA took seven years to complete, making 20 recommendations in its final report in 2022. In July 2024, Oldham Council wrote to the Home Secretary requesting a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in the local area. In October 2024, the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, refused Oldham Council’s request (PDF). The minister wrote that it should be for Oldham Council itself to decide to commission a local inquiry, rather than for the government to intervene. This decision became the focus of considerable parliamentary and press attention in January 2025, in part driven by comments made by the US tech CEO Elon Musk on social media. Also in January 2025, the then Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, told the House of Commons that none of IICSA’s recommendations had been implemented. The government asked Baroness Casey of Blackstock to run a “rapid audit” on gang-based exploitation and report to the government on what further work was needed. Baroness Casey reported in June 2025, recommending that the government establish both a national police operation and a national inquiry

By The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

 Years of escalating gang violence in the Western Cape has sustained the worrying upward trend of the past five years. This issue of the Western Cape Gang Monitor summarizes the factors that have driven gang dynamics in 2025 and sets out a plan to tackle the challenge in the short term. 

 As we move into 2026, this plan can help form a basis for decisive action against escalating gang violence – and support for the individuals and communities it endangers and harms.

In this issue:

• Gang dynamics: 10 trends.

• What generates clusters of violence?

• Know your enemy: the ever-shifting challenge.

• A 12-point plan for the rapid mitigation of gang violence.

This is the seventh issue of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime’s (GI-TOC) Western Cape Gang Monitor, an output of our South Africa Organized Crime Observatory. This series of bulletins tracks developments in Western Cape gang dynamics each quarter, to provide a concise synthesis of relevant trends to inform policymakers and civil society. This is a year-in-review issue, combining analysis published by the GI-TOC throughout the year with new research. The monitor draws on information provided by field researchers working in gang-affected communities of the Western Cape. This includes interviews with current and former gang members, civil society and members of the criminal justice system.

By Sou Lee and John Leverso 

Positionality is an important consideration when carrying out research. An effective tool for understanding this process is reflexivity—a continual dialogue that explores the interplay between our identities and how data is collected, analyzed, and interpreted. These reflexive accounts have been used in various disciplines, including criminal justice and criminology. In advancing this important practice, we offer insight into our experiences studying a hard-to-reach population: gangs. Specifically, we document how our insider and outsider identities, as well as the space between facilitated access, were used strategically and informed our interpretations of data. We conclude by encouraging reflexivity within criminology broadly and specifically among scholars who study hard-to-reach populations like street gangs.

Qualitative Criminology (QC): Vol. 13: No. 2, Article 4. 2024 

By Peter Honnef

On paper, gang databases look efficient and innocuous, providing law enforcement agencies with a shortcut to identify people suspected of having a connection to gang violence. But these local databases often contain inaccurate information that, when shared widely across agencies, can have life-altering consequences. The Center for Policing Equity’s (CPE) new white paper, Gang Databases and Immigration Enforcement, explores the disproportionate impact gang databases have on marginalized communities and the increased harm from immigration enforcement. By Peter Honnef

On paper, gang databases look efficient and innocuous, providing law enforcement agencies with a shortcut to identify people suspected of having a connection to gang violence. But these local databases often contain inaccurate information that, when shared widely across agencies, can have life-altering consequences. The Center for Policing Equity’s (CPE) new white paper, Gang Databases and Immigration Enforcement, explores the disproportionate impact gang databases have on marginalized communities and the increased harm from immigration enforcement. 

Center for Policing Equity, 2026. 11p.