By Joseph Friedman , George Karandinos, Laurie Kain Hart, Fernando Montero Castrillo, Nicholas Graetz, and Philippe Bourgois

Background. The United States is experiencing a continuing crisis of gun violence, and economically marginalized and racially segregated inner-city areas are among the most affected. To decrease this violence, public health interventions must engage with the complex social factors and structural drivers—especially with regard to the clandestine sale of narcotics—that have turned the neighborhood streets of specific vulnerable subgroups into concrete killing fields. Here we present a mixed-methods ethnographic and epidemiological assessment of narcotics-driven firearm violence in Philadelphia’s impoverished, majority Puerto Rican neighborhoods….Findings. Even controlling for poverty levels, impoverished majority-Puerto Rican areas in Philadelphia are exposed to significantly higher levels of gun violence than majority-white or black neighborhoods. Our mixed methods data suggest that this reflects the unique social position of these neighborhoods as a racial meeting ground in deeply segregated Philadelphia, which has converted them into a retail endpoint for the sale of astronomical levels of narcotics.

PLOS One:  November 21, 2019

By Miriam Cavazos Hernandez and Balasurya Sivakumar

We examine the effect of natural resource shocks on violence by drug cartels at the municipality level in rural Mexico from 2003 to 2017. For this, we use an Instrumental Variable setup by instrumenting our main explanatory variable vegetation density with rainfall. Vegetation density is an indicator for natural resource shocks and reflects the “greenness” in a particular area which is considered as an indicator of land productivity. Our main finding is that negative shocks in vegetation density increase homicides. This negative shock could imply crop failures resulting in bad economic outcomes for people in rural areas thereby pushing people to engage with violent drug cartels. Additionally, in order to confirm the main results we explore possible effects that natural resource shocks have on drug cartel presence, seizure of illegal drugs and other drug-related criminal activities. These results further confirm the negative relationship between natural resource shocks and violence by drug cartels. Our findings highlight the dynamics in the operation of the drug cartels and are relevant for understanding the determinants of conflict in rural Mexico.   

Lund, Sweden: Lund University, 2022. 48p.

By Carolina Sampó · Valeska Troncoso

  This article presents the results of an exploratory study aimed to analyze the contexts in which the use of Non-Traditional ports of cocaine departure and counterintuitive routes is prioritized, based on the experience of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Moreover, we show that criminal organizations prioritize the Ports of Buenos Aires, San Antonio and Montevideo, and the counter-intuitive routes that lead to them, because they are spaces that generate incentives linked to the porosity of borders, the lack of control at the ports, and the possibility of exploiting the country’s lack of reputation for drug exportation to re-export cocaine undetected. This study constitutes a precedent for future research on the role of South American Southern Cone ports in cocaine trafficking. We can identify at least four emerging lines of research: 1. Cocaine trafficking from landlocked countries; 2. The role of the waterway Paraná-Paraguay; 3. The link between Non-Traditional ports of cocaine departure and new markets; and 4. Other Non-Traditional Ports of cocaine departure, which are not containerized.

Trends in Organized Crime, 2022. 

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 Christopher Blattman, et al.

Urban armed groups, especially criminal gangs, are a growing threat to peace and economic growth in cities across the world. These groups often exert state-like powers, enforcing contracts, policing, and taxing businesses in the areas they informally govern. The conventional wisdom suggests that criminal organizations provide governance when states do not, and that increasing state services could crowd gangs out.  In partnership with the City of Medellín, researchers randomly introduced a program that intensified government outreach to gang-controlled neighborhoods. The study found no evidence that the city’s intervention reduced gang rule.

Washington, DC: Innovations for Poverty Action, 2019. 6p.

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 Paolo Campana  & Federico Varese

In this paper, we explore the determinants of co-membership in organised crime groups in a British police force. We find that co-membership of OCGs is higher among individuals who share the same ethnicity and nationality; who have committed acts of violence; and who perpetrate the vast majority of their crimes in the same area. We also find a homophily tendency in relation to age and gender, and that task specialisation within groups is driven by the type of activity. We interpret some results as conforming to the argument that recruitment from a small area and similar ethnic/national background increases cooperation and reduces the likelihood of opportunistic behaviour in a context of rather effective policing. Our findings do not conform to the suggestive image of OC members as ‘urban marauders’ and OCGs as large and powerful multinationals. OCGs tend to be small, localised and formed by people with the same background.

Global Crime  Volume 23, 2022 - Issue 1: 

By Pierfrancesco Rolla and  Patricia Justino

Organized crime affects security, development, and democracy worldwide, but not much is known about its social consequences. We study how exposure to the presence of organized crime groups shapes the social capital of Italian citizens, including political participation, civic engagement, and institutional and interpersonal trust. To address this question, we first leverage a survey of almost 800,000 respondents on social capital and exposure to organized crime conducted in Italy between 2000 and 2018. Second, we compile data on social capital and related variables between 1861 and 2020 in the Italian region of Apulia to exploit the unexpected and exogenous arrival, in the 1970s, of organized crime in the region, where no groups had been present before. We compare levels of social capital in Apulia with a synthetic control of regions which were not notably exposed to the presence of organized crime groups. Results from both exercises show that exposure to organized crime reduces political participation, institutional and interpersonal trust and has mixed effects on civic engagement. Using a mediation analysis leveraging both quantitative and qualitative evidence, we show that the negative effects of organized group presence on political participation and trust are largely explained by disinvestment in social capital by those exposed to the presence of criminal groups due to psychological factors (fear and resignation) and frustration with lack of state capacity to deal with the groups.

WIDER Working Paper 2022/106  . HELSINKI: UNU-WIDER 2022 79P.

By Christopher Dowling and Anthony Morgan

Regulatory approaches to organised crime aim to minimise exploitation of the legitimate economy by offenders. Unlike criminal justice approaches, regulatory approaches prioritise prevention over enforcement. This study explores the impact of a regulatory approach to organised crime in Queensland which restricted outlaw motorcycle gang (OMCG) members from working in certain industries. We exploit a delay in the implementation of these occupational restrictions after a wider suite of measures commenced, using interrupted time series analysis to analyse changes in organised crime related harm by OMCG members. Results suggest that the introduction of occupational restrictions was followed by a gradual reduction in organised crime related harm by OMCG members (3% to 4% per month). While the reduction is small, it supports the view that regulatory measures are a promising strategy for reducing organised crime.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 652. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2022. 16p.

By Anthony Morgan and Christopher Dowling

In this study we explore the enablers of illicit drug trafficking using law enforcement intelligence data on a sample of 587 organised crime groups. We measure the prevalence of other forms of criminal activity and their relationship with poly-drug trafficking, which refers to the trafficking of multiple drug types and is associated with increased profitability, versatility and resilience to disruption. Other forms of criminal activity— including enablers of illicit drug trafficking—were common. Half the groups (52%) were poly-drug traffickers. Groups suspected to have exploited or infiltrated the transport system (air, sea or surface) and those suspected of laundering money via the real estate market or gambling services were more likely to be trafficking multiple drug types. Groups that relied on these enabling activities were more likely to involve professional facilitators. This research highlights a number of key enablers of organised crime that may be targeted to disrupt illicit drug trafficking.

 Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 665.  Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 19p.

by  Ronald Makanga Kakumba

Mob justice is a form of extrajudicial punishment or retribution in which a person suspected of wrongdoing is typically humiliated, beaten, and in many cases killed by vigilantes or a crowd. Mob action takes place in the absence of any form of fair trial in which the accused are given a chance to defend themselves; the mob simply takes the law into its own hands. Mob justice is not only criminal but also amounts to a violation of human rights. Over the past decade, Uganda has seen a significant rise in the number of cases of mob justice. According to the Uganda Police Force’s (2013-2019) annual crime reports, 746 deaths by mob action were reported and investigated in 2019, compared to 426 in 2013, a 75% increase. “Mob kills 42 in 7 weeks,” the Daily Monitor reported in March 2019, citing police figures – an average of six lynchings a week. Homicides by mob action in Uganda occur mainly in response to thefts, robberies, killings, and reports of witchcraft. According to the 2015 Afrobarometer survey in Uganda, one in six Ugandan adults said they took part in mob justice during the preceding year or would do so if they “had the chance.” This suggests that mob justice is not just a fringe problem in Uganda but commands attention and requires collective action. Why would a substantial number of Ugandans resort to taking the law into their own hands as an alternative form of “justice”? Analysts have pointed to a number of factors that might contribute to a willingness to engage in mob justice. One is a lack of trust in the formal criminal justice system to administer fair and timely justice. A 2005 study in Uganda showed that mob actions were often motivated by widespread suspicion or misunderstanding of the justice system, especially concerning the procedure of police bail, under which suspected culprits can be temporarily released before the court process. …Statistical analyses show that a lack of trust in the police is associated with a willingness to engage in mob justice, while perceived corruption undermines trust and thus indirectly contributes to a willingness to join others in mob actions. Further, our analysis finds that being a victim of crime (physical assault), encountering problems in the court system, finding it hard to obtain police assistance, and having to pay a bribe to police or court officials are factors that make people more likely to say they would take part in mob action against suspected criminals.

  Afrobarometer Policy Paper No. 70.   Afrobarometer 2020, 17p.  

By Theodoros Rakopoulos

From Clans to Co-ops explores the social, political, and economic relations that enable the constitution of cooperatives operating on land confiscated from mafiosi in Sicily, a project that the state hails as arguably the greatest symbolic victory over the mafia in Italian history. Rakopoulos’s ethnographic focus is on access to resources, divisions of labor, ideologies of community and food, and the material changes that cooperatives bring to people’s lives in terms of kinship, work and land management. The book contributes to broader debates about cooperativism, how labor might be salvaged from market fundamentalism, and to emergent discourses about the ‘human’ economy.

New York: Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books, 2018. 240p.

By  Lorenzo Rodrigo Aldeco Leo, Jose A. Jurado, Aurora A. Ramírez-Álvarez

  This document studies the effect of the homicide rate on internal migration in Mexico. Reduced form evidence shows that net migration of skilled workers decreases into local labor markets where homicide rates increased after 2007, suggesting workers prefer destinations with lower homicide rates. This result is due to lower inflows, without effects on outflows, pointing to the existence of moving costs. To quantify the welfare cost of increasing homicides, we use workers' migration decisions and a spatial equilibrium model. Skilled workers' average willingness to pay to decrease the homicide rate by 1% is estimated at 0.58% of wages. The welfare cost is in the order of several points of GDP per year, depending on the assumptions. Workers who do not migrate bear the largest share of the overall welfare cost

Working Paper, 2022: 11 Mexico City: Banco de México 2022. 53p.  

By Cecilia Farfán-Méndez , Romain Le Cour Grandmaison , Nathaniel Morris

Despite the well-documented human costs of the war on drugs, and the growing evidence of the environmental impacts of illicit economies, the militarized repression of the illicit drug trade remains a central hemispheric security and cooperation strategy in Northern and Central American countries. Through a multi-disciplinary dialogue that combines history, sociology, anthropology, economics, and political science, this Special Issue critically interrogates why despite these failures the war on drug endures. Together, the contributors challenge explanations focused on state absence, weakening of the state, and ungoverned spaces and instead propose a research agenda that sheds light on the long-lasting, structural effects of the capitalistic integration of the region within the economy of illicit drugs. In particular, the Special Issue contributes to three existing and interconnected debates: First: the role of drug economies and illicitness on state formation, social inequalities, and development in Mexico and Central America. Second: the impact of illicit economies on local populations, and the connections between the licit and the illicit, margins and centers, and political orders and violence. Third: the variety of stakeholders that benefit from the war on drugs and that link the United States, Mexico, and Central America in licit and illicit fashions.

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development 4(2):102-112, 2022

By Charles Fain Lehman

While most Americans have focused on the Covid-19 pandemic, the nation’s other great epidemic has continued to burn. Drug overdoses now claim the lives of over 100,000 Americans every year, a rate that appears likely to continue or grow for the foreseeable future. While the crisis once was concentrated predominantly in rural, white communities, the introduction of novel synthetic opioids, particularly fentanyl, into the illicit drug supply has spread overdoses across urbanizations. Today, small-town and big-city leaders alike desperately need tools to fight back against the drug crisis. It can often seem as though drug policy is outside the ambit of local leaders, who lack the capacity to go after international traffickers or spend trillions of dollars on care. But local government, as the closest entity to the front lines of the crisis, plays a vital role in addressing it. This paper, therefore, explores options for local policymakers to respond to the drug crisis. In particular, it considers six frequently discussed local-scale policies: • Naloxone access and distribution • Investing in treatment capacity • Drug court programs • Wastewater tracking • Supervised consumption sites • Drug market interventions For each policy, this paper examines the evidence, offers estimates of costs, and provides caution where necessary. The overall goal is to give local policymakers a better understanding of what tools they have to more effectively tackle the other health crisis in their communities.  

New York: The Manhattan Institute, 2022. 19p.

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 Hernan Mondani and Amir Rostami

Outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) have received increased attention from both law enforcement agencies and the research community. This study investigates the criminal collaboration patterns of two OMGs with a long history of hostilities. We use government data on individuals registered as belonging to Hells Angels MC, Bandidos MC and individuals with multiple OMG memberships, and suspicion data from 2011 to 2016 to build co-offending networks. Our results show that members of multiple OMGs tend to have higher centrality and clustering. These members also have the highest levels of suspicions per capita, and most of the co-offending is related to nexus links involving multiple membership individuals. They can be described as ‘criminal nomads’, collaborating with individuals from different organisations. Our results suggest that core members tend to engage in white-collar crime to a greater extent than those on the periphery, which tend to engage more in violence and drug crime.

GLOBAL CRIME                                               2022, VOL. 23, NO. 2, 193–215