By Christopher Blattman, Benjamin Lessing, and Santiago Tobón

Organised crime poses one of the greatest threats to national security and development in the 21st century. Despite this, most policy, data collection, and scholarly research focuses on individuals and disorganised violence. Our work addresses several critical gaps in knowledge:

• What are the incentives for gangs to engage in violence and socially costly behaviour?

• Which are the trade-offs that practitioners face when deciding how to engage with organised violence?

• What type of information do relevant decision-makers need to inform their policies?

• Which are the most relevant tools for tracking down gang behaviour and use of violence?

We address these questions in the context of Medellín, Colombia’s second largest and most important city. Over the past six years, our work has covered a broad methodological spectrum, including:

• qualitative data collection through interviews with dozens of criminals and criminal justice experts;

• quantitative data collection from thousands of citizens in surveys representative at highly localised levels;

• active collaboration with local relevant stakeholders such as the city administration and the local police department;

• quasi-experimental evaluations of long-running policies dating back to the 1980s; and

• experimental evaluations of marginal improvements in state presence in violent and gang controlled areas.

Our preliminary findings point to terrible trade-offs, where authorities face plausibly impossible questions when balancing short-term gains in violence reduction and sacrifices in state legitimacy, with long-term uncertainty concerning both violence and state legitimacy. We highlight preliminary recommendations for guiding policy decisions.

Birmingham, UK: The Serious Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE) 2022. 9p.

By Nicholas Barnes

How Do Organized criminal groups (OCGs) respond to military interventions intended to weaken and subdue them? In many cases, such crackdowns have proven counterproductive as OCGs militarize, engage in violence, and confront state forces directly. Existing studies have pointed to several explanations: inter-criminal competition, unconditional militarized approaches, and existing criminal governance arrangements. Much of this work, however, has focused on national, regional, or even municipal level variation and explanations. This article takes a micro-comparative approach based on 18 months of ethnographic research in a group of Rio de Janeiro favelas (impoverished and informal neighborhoods) divided between three drug trafficking gangs and occupied by the Brazilian military from 2014 to 2015. It argues that an active territorial threat from a rival is the primary mechanism leading OCGs to respond violently to military intervention. It also demonstrates that geographic patterns of recruitment play an important role in where OCG rivalries turn violent during intervention.

Comparative Political Studies 2022, Vol. 55(5) 789–831

By Teun van Ruitenburg, Sjoukje van Deuren & Robby Roks

The impact of organized crime measures remains largely unknown. Moreover, for practical and ethical reasons, the perspectives of the individuals who are subjected to organized crime policies are often not included in research. Based on semi-structured interviews with 24 current members of the Dutch Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC), this study fills this knowledge gap by examining how HAMC members reacted to the multi-agency approach to outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs) in the Netherlands. The results of this study illustrate that the reactions of HAMC members can be divided into four categories: (1) conforming, (2) adapting, (3) resisting, and (4) continuing. The analysis furthermore shows that a variety of different reactions to the OMCG approach coexist within the same club, charter, and even within the same individual member. These findings indicate that crime policies can spark different, sometimes contradicting reactions, within a group that from the outside appears to be a uniform and top-down coordinated organization. Future evaluation studies should take the multifaceted nature of reactions to crime policies into consideration.

Eur J Crim Policy Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-023-09566-6

By International Crisis Group

What’s new? Mexico’s criminal groups use social media to garner popular support, denigrate rivals, glorify narco-culture and coordinate violence. Social media is also crucial for providing timely information about flare-ups of violence, particularly since journalists face major threats to their safety, which heavily circumscribes their ability to report from many crime-affected municipalities.

Why does it matter? These criminal groups are recruiting and spreading disinformation online, making them stronger and creating a glut of unverified information that puts civilians at greater risk. Platforms have struggled to respond appropriately.

What should be done? Platforms should boost resources for online monitoring, especially when violence is spiking. Given social media’s importance in disseminating information, platforms should modify their algorithms to demote posts supporting criminal groups and work with civil society to identify trusted accounts, including anonymous ones. Mexico’s government should also invest in protecting journalists.

Brussels: Crisis Group, 2024

By Teun van Ruitenburg

This book is about the concerns and unremitting attempts of Dutch state authorities to control and raise barriers against outlaw motorcycle gangs.It discusses why and how Dutch mayors go to great lengths to prevent the settlement of outlaw motorcycle gangs in clubhouses and bars in their cities; how private actors are urged to prevent members from wearing their vests during events; how state authorities look for ways to divert members away from civil service and private security companies; how the Dutch National Police attempt to frustrate the internal cohesiveness of outlaw motorcycle gangs through criminal investigations; and why the Dutch courts recently banned a number of clubs at the request of the Public Prosecution Service. In the attempt to describe, understand and explain this approach, this thesis builds on the work of several scholars who all in their own way characterized contemporary society by the efforts to prevent crime in the earliest stages possible,which attempts are inherently coupled with a focus on the ‘future’, ‘threats’, ‘dangers’, ‘indicators’, ‘barriers’ and ‘risks’. Today, there is indeed hardly an escape from crime control initiatives that are centred around risk prevention. Following up on the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), national governments are bound to take on a risk-based approach and to map the indicators and risk to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing. To do so, legal entities are monitored for suspicious patterns on the basis of predetermined risk profiles, which also includes a thorough background check of the director(s) of the company and his or her family members. The municipality of Amsterdam together with authorities such as the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) recently came up with what was called a ‘new barrier’ in the fight against criminal money in the hotel and catering industry. The municipality started to decline permits for restaurants and pubs in cases where the applicant was not able to prove a legal origin of his investment money. To give a different example, whether or not a mentally disordered detainee is allowed to go on parole also depends on the outcome of a recidivism risk assessment. Increasingly, researchers are powering this risk-based approach by researching and validating the potential indicators for organized crime, which is intended to help law enforcement agencies in preventing crime more effectively. Departing from this context, this study aims to understand the attempts of the Dutch government to control the risk(s) of outlaw motorcycle gangs. What is unique to this empirical study, however, is that aside from today’s approach to outlaw motorcycle gangs, it also digs into the Dutch approach to outlaw motorcycle gangs in the past, and subsequently how this past connects with the present. By conducting a social constructivist analysis through time, we will learn that the approach to outlaw motorcycle gangs has made a 180-degree turn, which in general terms involved a shift from inclusion in the 1970sto exclusion in present times. I will show that this development was indeed influenced by the continuous pursuit to free society from crime or risks by raising technical, cost-effective, and preventive barriers. However, my key argument is to suggest that the risk thesis only serves one part of the explanation. Today’s efforts to raise preventive barriers against outlaw motorcycle gangs must not be solely explained by the urge to prevent crime, but also as a way to mark the moral boundaries of society. Therefore, the barriers raised, as I suggest herein, are best described as ‘moral barriers’. This conclusion is fuelled by the finding that ‘the’ outlaw motorcycle gang is not only understood by law enforcement agencies as a risk factor for future criminal activities. Also the mere existence of the phenomenon in the present is deemed to have an undermining effect on the norms, rules, laws, and authorities of the democratic state. By providing this in-depth view of the Dutch approach to outlaw motorcycle gangs, I hope to spark the attention of any student eager to learn more about crime control in general, of the researcher involved in researching (the approach to) outlaw motorcycle gangs, and the law enforcement official directly involved in fighting the crimes committed by members of outlaw motorcycle gangs. In doing so, I above all hope to shed a new light on a much discussed and very interesting topic.

The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, 2020. 426p.

By Robert A. Roks & James A. Densley

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and a content analysis of secondary sources, the current study presents an in-depth case study of gang evolution. We chart the history and development of the Dutch Crips, from playgroup origins in the 1980s to criminal endeavors in the 1990s, to its rebirth as an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang in the 2000s. At each evolutionary stage, we examine the identity of the group, its organization, the nature of its criminal activities, and branding. We highlight how, over 30 years, the Crips constantly reinvented themselves to meet their members’ age-defined needs and to attract future generations to the group.

April 2020 Deviant Behavior 41(4):525–542

by Christopher Hernandez-Roy and Rubi Bledsoe

Drug trafficking, especially cocaine trafficking, from source countries in South America to Europe has produced alarming and lasting effects on both sides of the Atlantic. While various trafficking routes to Europe exist, transshipment through the Caribbean, including through the European territories in the region, is of growing concern. In Europe, the expanding cocaine market has brought a rise in homicides, kidnappings, and intimidation. In the city of Antwerp, for example, there were around 200 drug-related violent incidents in the past five years as competing gangs fought over control of territory. In the Caribbean, drug trafficking by organized crime has been associated with record homicide levels, corruption, democratic backsliding, and money laundering, among other pernicious effects. It has also prompted wars between gangs over the control of criminal economies, expanded illegal firearms trafficking, and exacerbated human trafficking both within the region and beyond. Shedding light on the complexity of the issue—while providing policy recommendations for increased cooperation between the United States, Europe, and Caribbean countries—is necessary as both continents seek regional and extra-regional security.

Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS),, 2023. 11p

By Marcena Hunter

Exploitation and criminal capture of the ASGM sector is multifaceted and complex.

The development potential of the African artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) sector is undermined by criminal consortia across the continent who exploit it for economic and political ends at the expense of vulnerable populations. Yet, much of the discourse around ASGM in Africa has not directly addressed criminality, instead being framed within development or conflict frameworks. In an effort to fill this gap, this report seeks to unpack how criminal consortia manipulate ASGM and associated gold flows to secure illicit rents and capture the sector. The findings highlight the need for nuance, especially regarding the role of informal and traditional actors in the sector. Through a more holistic understanding of the challenge, policymakers will better be able to identify and combat criminal consortia in ASGM.

ENACT - Africa, 2019. 44p.

By  Steven Dudley, Parker Asmann and Victoria Dittmar 

In 2019, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).1 What would become known as “remain in Mexico” was the latest in a decades-long effort by successive Republican and Democrat administrations to curb migration by making it increasingly difficult for migrants to enter and stay in the United States. However, the policies have had numerous unintended consequences, including bolstering criminal organizations along the US-Mexico border. Whereas the smuggling of drugs and weapons used to dominate the cross-border contraband trade, human smuggling has morphed into one of the most lucrative industries for crime groups. It also has made it increasingly dangerous for migrants who face more risks en route and along the US border. This report aims to highlight the role US policy has played in this transformation, which continues to evolve today. Specifically, it analyzes the ways in which Mexican organized crime groups have become involved in human smuggling as risks rose, prices surged, and migrants began to move through less-traveled corridors. The goal is to inform policymakers who are looking to address irregular migration and combat Mexico’s criminal organizations. ….  

Washington DC: Insight Crime, 2023. 22p.

 By Anastasia Austin and Douwe den Held 

The Dominican Republic prides itself on its openness to the world. As one of the first countries to open up during the COVID-19 pandemic, it seeks to be ever welcoming to tourism and business. But criminals may feel welcome as well. In this three-part series, InSight Crime dives into the infrastructure, the trafficking networks, and the corruption facilitating organized crime in the Dominican Republic.

Washington, DC, Insight Crime, 2022. 26p

By Jesse Bruhn 

I study criminal street gangs using new data that describes the geospatial distribution of gang territory in Chicago and its evolution over a 15-year period. Using an event study design, I show that city blocks entered by gangs experience sharp increases in the number of reported batteries (6%), narcotics violations (18.5%), weapons violations (9.8%), incidents of prostitution (51.9%), and criminal trespassing (19.6%). I also find a sharp reduction in the number of reported robberies (-8%). The findings cannot be explained by pre-existing trends in crime, changes in police surveillance, crime displacement, exposure to public housing demolitions, reporting effects, or demographic trends. Taken together, the evidence suggests that gangs cause small increases in violence in highly localized areas as a result of conflict over illegal markets. I also find evidence that gangs cause reductions in median property values (-$8,436.9) and household income (-$1,866.8). Motivated by these findings, I explore the relationship between the industrial organization of the black market and the supply of criminal activity. I find that gangs that are more internally fractured or operate in more competitive environments tend to generate more crime. This finding is inconsistent with simple, market-based models of criminal behavior, suggesting an important role for behavioral factors and social interactions in the production of gang violence

Bravo Working Paper # 2021-004 . Brown University Orlando Bravo Center for Economic Research, 2021. 71p.

By Jose Antonio Sanchez , Scott H. Decker and David C. Pyrooz

Gang research has spanned nearly a century. In that time, we have learned that gang membership increases the chances of involvement in homicide as a victim or offender. The violence that embroils gang life, both instrumental and symbolic, often has consequences. In this paper we review the gang homicide literature covering topics such as definitional issues, available data, correlates and characteristics, and theoretical explanations. The review examines individual, group, and structural contexts for gang homicide. We conclude with a discussion of future needs in theory, data, and methods, to improve our understanding of gang homicide.

Homicide StudiesVolume 26, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 68-90

By Adrian Bergmann

Gangs impact everyday life and politics across much of the world, yet the literature on gang disengagement—the process whereby people move on from the gang life—is mostly limited to the United States and Europe. In El Salvador, following 30 years of gang wars and a 20-year war on gangs, gang members face severe restrictions from both their gangs and wider society to disengage. Ultimately, this undermines the prospects not only for gang members to remake their lives, but for sustaining reductions in armed violence and addressing a broader set of pressing social issues. Theoretically, I propose a nested, multilevel analysis of gang disengagement, attentive to the interactions between individual, gang-organizational, and social conditions that enable and constrain processes of gang disengagement. Empirically, I employ this framework to scrutinize the evolution of gangs and gang disengagement in El Salvador, and the political solutions necessary for large-scale disengagement moving forward. 

Critical Criminology 2022.

By InSight Crime

In the suffocating heat of summer in El Salvador, José Elvis Herrera Reinoso, alias “Elvis,” is gathered with the family of an elderly woman inside her small home. The woman, who suffers from diabetes, had been close to death just a few days beforehand, but made a seemingly inexplicable recovery. With just a few simple tools, including a Bible and loudspeaker, Elvis guides the family members in a religious celebration of this “miracle.” His well-practiced preaching and passionate reading from the holy book tell anyone listening that he is a dedicated pastor. And the tattoos that cover his face let them know he was a member of the Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS13), one of the most feared gangs in the world.   

Washington, DC: InSight Crime, 2022. 23p.

By Joana Monteiro, duardo Fagundes , Mariana Carvalho , Ramon Gomes

Some criminal groups are able to avoid confrontation and diversify their economic activities while others are constantly contested by rival groups and the state. To understand why, we propose a model to investigate criminal groups’ incentives to invest in military capacity and the state’s response to arming. Typically it is difficult to map criminal groups’ presence and document their economic activities. We build a novel panel dataset to map presence and characterize the economic activities of criminal groups in Rio de Janeiro, where drug factions and militia groups have controlled territories for at least three decades. We provide evidence that both groups are multi-product enterprises that explore a wide range of licit and illicit goods and services. We empirically test the predictions of our model. Our findings suggest that more groups in the territory increase conflict and state repression and reduce economic diversification. In addition, we argue that the ability to collaborate with the state is crucial for groups to exploit more markets. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that uses systematic data to show how criminal groups in Rio de Janeiro evolve over time and diversify their economic activities. 

Encontro da Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - Gran Mareiro Hotel | Fortaleza - CE, n: 44º . 2023. 2022. 48p.

By Jonathan D. Rosen and  Hanna Samir Kassab 

  According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Americas is the most violent region in the world. The Americas has a homicide rate of 16.3 per 100,000 people, while Africa had a homicide rate of 12.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. Europe, Oceania, and Asia had much lower homicide rates with three percent, three percent, and 2.9 percent, respectively (see Fig.  1.1).1 The Americas is also home to the most violent country in the world. In 2015, El Salvador surpassed Honduras as the most violent non-waring nation. Violence has exceeded the days of the country’s civil war, which lasted for more than a decade. In fact, experts note that at one point in 2015 El Salvador had one murder per hour. Jonathan Watts writes, “Last Sunday was, briefly, the bloodiest day yet with 40 murders. But the record was beaten on Monday with 42 deaths, and surpassed again on Tuesday with 43. Even Iraq—with its civil war, suicide bombings, mortar attacks and US drone strikes—could not match such a lethal start to the week.”2 In January 2017, the country saw a rare phenomenon occur: one day without a murder.3 Much of the violence in El Salvador has been a result of gang-related activities as well as the consequences of the government’s tough on crime strategies.4 El Salvador’s neighbors, Guatemala and Honduras, have also seen high levels of gang-related violence.5 Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández argued that 80 percent of the homicides that occur in this country are related to organized crime.  

New York:London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 165p.

By Christopher Blattman, et al.  

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, scholars and journalists have spread anecdotes of gangs and criminal organizations coming to the aid of citizens, governing in place of the state. They report gang activities that range from enforcing lockdowns to providing goods and services to the poor and hungry. This is especially true in Latin America where thousands of gangs exert authority over civilians in large swaths of territory. Some argue that organized crime is stepping in where states have failed, seizing the chance to consolidate its position. But just how widespread is the kind of gang involvement that captures headlines? Are these anecdotes typical of how gangs are responding to COVID-19? Only systematic data can answer these questions and help assess whether the pandemic will ultimately strengthen organized crime’s grip on Latin American cities. We have spent four years studying criminal groups in Medellín, Colombia, a city with one of the highest concentrations of organized criminals in the world. If gangs respond to COVID-19 anywhere, it should be Medellín. Almost every low- and middle-income neighborhood in the city has a local gang that resolves disputes, polices the community, and often taxes businesses. As soon as the pandemic broke out, anecdotes about gang responses surfaced in Medellin. We set out to collect systematic data on gang and state governance before and during the pandemic. Despite the headlines, gang involvement in pandemic response is exceptional and mostly idiosyncratic. Surveying every low- and middle-income neighborhood in…..

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  Medellin, we find: ● Most welfare support to civilians came from state authorities rather than the gangs. ● Overall, state authorities played by far the largest role in enforcing quarantine rules. ● A small number of gangs, however, were highly involved in providing welfare and enforcing quarantine rules in their territories. ● These rare gang pandemic responses were relatively idiosyncratic. Whereas normal pre-pandemic gang rule is associated with a range of neighborhood characteristics, pandemic gang rule is not. Moreover, gang enforcement of pandemic lockdown or provision of services is almost uncorrelated with pre-pandemic levels of gang rule. We speculate that personal choices of the gangs and their leaders may have dominated in the first weeks of  COVID-19.

Chicago: Innovations for Poverty Action – The University of Chicago – Universidad EAFIT, 2020. 19p.

By Gema Santamaria

This report analyzes the objectives, structures and impact of armed non-state actors in Mexico, focusing on drug-trafficking organizations, street gangs and self-defense forces. The author also examines the pitfalls and lessons learned from the country's past and present strategies to deal with these actors. Finally, she provides an alternative approach to tackling these groups, which suggests the Mexican state should 1) recognize the hybrid character of these groups and prioritize the fight against corruption; 2) focus on protecting affected communities and not on dismantling criminal organizations; 3) work at the local level and focus on the most affected areas; 4) prevent the forced recruitment of youth and immigrants by organized crime; and 5) promote a culture of legality in state institutions and communities.

Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF), 2014. 9p.

Francesco Calderoni,Tommaso Comunale,Gian Maria Campedelli,Martina Marchesi,Deborah Manzi and Niccolò Frualdo

There is relatively strong evidence that being male and having committed prior criminal activity and violence are associated with future organised crime recruitment. There is weak evidence that prior sanctions, social relations with organised crime-involved subjects and a troubled family environment are associated with recruitment. This systematic review examines what individual-level risk factors are associated with recruitment into organised crime. Despite the increase of policies addressing organised crime activities, little is known about recruitment. Existing knowledge is fragmented and comprises different types of organised criminal groups.Recruitment refers to the different processes leading individuals to stable involvement in organised criminal groups, including mafia, drug trafficking organisations, adult gangs and outlawed motorcycle gangs. This systematic review excludes youth (street) gangs, prison gangs and terrorist groups.

Oslo, Norway: Campbell Collaborative, 2022. 68p.