By José Miguel Cruz, Jonathan D. Rosen, Luis Enrique Amaya and Yulia Vorobyeva

Can a member of a Salvadoran youth gang, locally known as “maras,” leave the gang and start a new life away from crime and violence? To answer this question, the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center and the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University, with the support of the Fundación Nacional para el Desarrollo (FUNDE), conducted a study with Salvadoran gang members and former gang members across the country. The study, which is based on a survey with a combination of a convenience and purposive sample of 1,196 respondents with record of gang membership and 32 in-depth interviews, reveals that desistance from the gang is possible in El Salvador but, in the short-term, it depends on two factors. First, it depends on the individual and active commitment of gang members to abandon gang life and stop partaking in violent activities. Second, it depends on the tacit or explicit consent of the leaders of the gang organization. Hence, in El Salvador, gang desistance—which, according to some authors, is the declining probability of gang membership—involves the acquiescence of the group. The study builds on previous academic scholarship on gangs in El Salvador and Central America as well as on the general criminological literature on youth gangs. The results indicate that youth gangs remain a predominantly male phenomenon and that the average age of joining the gang does not seem to have changed significantly in comparison with data from 10 years ago. Nearly 40% of the subjects interviewed for this study are active members of the gang, while the rest are in different stages of calming down and leaving the gang.

Miami: Florida International University, 2017. 75p.

By Clare Ribando Seelke

The Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and its main rival, the “18th Street” gang, continue to undermine citizen security and subvert government authority in parts of Central America. Gang-related violence has been particularly acute in El Salvador, Honduras, and urban areas in Guatemala, contributing to some of the highest homicide rates in the world. Congress has maintained an interest in the effects of gang-related crime and violence on governance, citizen security, and investment in Central America. Congress has examined the role that gang-related violence has played in fueling mixed migration flows, which have included asylum seekers, by families and unaccompanied alien children (UAC) to the United States. Since FY2008, Congress has appropriated funding for anti-gang efforts in Central America. Central American governments have struggled to address the gang problem. From 2012 to 2014, the government of El Salvador facilitated a historic—and risky—truce involving the country’s largest gangs. The truce contributed to a temporary reduction in homicides but strengthened the gangs. Since taking office in June 2014, President Salvador Sanchez Cerén has adopted repression-oriented anti-gang policies similar those implemented in the mid-2000s, including relying on the military to support anti-gang efforts. El Salvador’s attorney general is investigating allegations of extrajudicial killings committed by police engaged in anti-gang efforts. Successive Honduran governments have generally relied on suppression-oriented policies toward the gangs as well, with some funding provided in recent years to support community-level prevention programs. The Guatemalan government has generally relied on periodic law-enforcement operations to round up suspected gang members. U.S. agencies have engaged with Central American governments on gang issues for more than a decade. In July 2007, an interagency committee announced the U.S. Strategy to Combat Criminal Gangs from Central America and Mexico, which emphasized diplomacy, repatriation, law enforcement, capacity enhancement, and prevention. Between FY2008 and FY2013, Congress appropriated roughly $38 million in International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) funds through a special line item for anti-gang efforts in Central America. Since FY2013, approximately $10 million in Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) funding has been assigned to continue those anti-gang initiatives. Significant additional support has been provided through CARSI for violence-prevention efforts in communities affected by gang violence, as well as for vetted police units working on transnational gang cases with U.S. law enforcement. Recently, U.S. and Salvadoran officials have also targeted the financing of MS13, which the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated as a Transnational Criminal Organization subject to U.S. sanctions in October 2012, pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13581. This report describes the gang problem in Central America, discusses country approaches to deal with the gangs, and analyzes U.S. policy with respect to gangs in Central America. Congressional oversight may focus on the efficacy of anti-gang efforts in Central America; the interaction between U.S. domestic and international anti-gang policies, and the potential impact of U.S. sanctions on law-enforcement efforts.

Washington, DC: U.S. Congressional Research Service, 2016. 23p.

By Daniel Gunnell, Joseph Hillier and Laura Blakeborough

As part of the Home Office’s Ending Gang and Youth Violence programme a commitment was made to help police forces better understand their local gang issues (HM Government, 20131 ). This research aims to meet this commitment by testing the use of social network analysis using police intelligence data, as a tool to more systematically understand gangs and to help direct law enforcement activities. As such, the report serves as one example of how social network analysis can be used, but the approach could also be applied to other types of crime and disorder to explore the networks of people involved (such as those connected to acquisitive crime or sexual abuse). The research was undertaken in partnership with Great Manchester Police and addresses two research questions: 1. What can social network analysis tell us about gangs? 2. How useful are the social network analysis outputs for the police? For this, five individuals living in Manchester and identified as having gang links were chosen as the starting point for the network analysis. Further details about how to conduct social network analysis can be found in the ‘How to guide’ 2 published as an annex to this report.

London: Home Office, 2016. 34p.

By Celinda Franco

Two predominantly Latino gangs, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street gang (M-18), have raised concern among policy makers for several reasons: (1) membership in these gangs has spread from the Los Angeles area to other communities across the United States; (2) these gangs are becoming “transnational,” primarily because MS-13 and M-18 cliques are being established in Central America and Mexico; (3) evidence suggests that these gangs are engaged in criminal enterprises normally associated with better organized and more sophisticated crime syndicates; and (4) MS-13 and M-18 gang members may be involved in smuggling operations and, by extension, could potentially use their skills and criminal networks to smuggle terrorists into the United States. To date, however, no evidence exists establishing a link between MS-13 and M-18 members and terrorists. Nevertheless, some observers maintain that these two gangs may develop the capacity to become organized criminal enterprises capable of coordinating illegal activities across national borders. Yet, others find them to be no more criminally organized or sophisticated than other street gangs. At issue for Congress is whether the MS-13 and M-18 gangs constitute an emerging transnational criminal threat. The federal response to the MS-13 and M-18 gang problem has largely involved the enforcement of criminal and immigration laws, including the deportation of alien gang members. More recently, federal efforts have focused on prosecuting gang members under the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute. Deported alien gang members have established MS-13 and M-18 gang cliques in their home countries, and some experts suggest that U.S. deportation policies have effectively transported U.S.-styled gang culture to parts of Central America and Mexico. Moreover, evidence shows that deported alien MS-13 and M-18 gang members have established a “revolving door” migratory pattern of repeat illegal reentry into the United States, raising concerns that these “migratory” alien gang members may become involved in narco-trafficking, smuggling, and other criminal activities along the U.S.-Mexico border. Legislation has been introduced in the 110th Congress (and one such proposal has been passed by the Senate) that would strengthen the enforcement of immigration law directed at alien gang members and provide additional tools to federal prosecutors to pursue members of violent gangs. Such legislation includes H.R. 880, H.R. 1582, H.R. 1645, H.R. 2954, H.R. 3150, H.R. 3156, H.R. 3547, S. 330, S. 456, S. 990, S. 1348, and S. 1860.

Washington, DC: U.S. Congressional Research Service, 2007. 24p.

By Ryan J. Roberts

Despite the significant contributions from location-based gang studies, the network structure of gangs beyond localized settings remains a neglected but important area of research to better understand the national security implications of gang interconnectivity. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the network structure of gangs at the macro- and micro-level using social network analysis. At the macro-level, some gangs have formed national alliances in perpetuity with their goals and objectives. In order to study gangs at the macro-level, this research uses open-source data to construct an adjacency matrix of gang alliances and rivalries to map the relationships between gangs and analyze their network centrality across multiple metrics. The results suggest that native gangs are highly influential when compared to immigrant gangs. Some immigrant gangs, however, derive influence by “bridging” the gap between rival gangs. Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (MDTOs) play a similar role and feature prominently in the gang network. Moreover, removing MDTOs changes the network structure in favor of ideologically-motivated gangs over profit-oriented gangs. Critics deride macro-level approaches to studying gangs for their lack of national cohesion. In response, this research includes a micro-level analysis of gang member connections by mining Twitter data to analyze the geospatial distribution of gang members and, by proxy, gangs, using an exponential random graph model (ERGM) to test location homophily and better understand the extent to which gang members are localized. The findings show a positive correlation between location and shared gang member connections which is conceptually consistent with the proximity principle. According to the proximity principle, interpersonal relationships are more likely to occur in localized geographic spaces. However, gang member connections appear to be more diffuse than is captured in current location-based gang studies. This dissertation demonstrates that macro- and micro-level gang networks exist in unbounded geographic spaces where the interconnectivity of gangs transpose local issues onto the national security consciousness which challenges law and order, weakens institutions, and negatively impacts the structural integrity of the state.

Norfolk, VA: Old Dominion University, 2021. 344p.

By InSight Crime and Center for Latin American & Latino Studies (CLALS)

Mara Salvatrucha, or MS13, is one of the world’s largest and most violent street gangs. It is also one of the least understood, making it difficult for policymakers and law enforcement to confront. A new report by InSight Crime and American University’s Center for Latin American & Latino Studies (CLALS) reveals new details about the gang’s operations and provides policy prescriptions for eradicating MS13. Entitled “MS13 in the Americas: How the World’s Most Notorious Street Gang Defies Logic, Resists Destruction,” the report is based on hundreds of interviews with, and surveys of gang members and law enforcement officials in El Salvador, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Long Island. It contains insights into the gang’s hierarchy, politics, structure, and recruitment methods.

Washington, DC: InSight Crime and Center for Latin American & Latino Studies, 2018. 90p.