By Luciana Vosnick

This research examines and compares how humanitarian and peacebuilding organizations approach engagement with street gangs in North and Latin America for risk management purposes. Drawing from multiple semi-structured interviews with humanitarian and peacebuilding organizations, the study demonstrates that humanitarians and peacebuilders adopt either a risk mitigation or risk prevention approach when engaging with street gangs. Such risk management strategies are informed both by the organizations’ mission and by the normative lenses they adopt when looking at gangs. The research shows that the prevention and mitigation dichotomy responds to a perception of gangs being either a static source of violence to be contained or a social entity capable of change and transformation. Such lenses contribute to creating the framework through which organizations work because they influence how these organizations perceive risk and, as a result, affect how they manage risk on the tactical level.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Division of Continuing Education, 2022. 71p.