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.

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.