Issue Brief 2016
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
] ODUMUNC 39 Economic and Social Council Curbing Gang Violence and Membership By: Jared Walker Issue Brief for the Economic and Social Council Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Curbing Gang Violence and Membership By: Jared E. Walker Old Dominion University Model United Nations Society Introduction worsening the problems of afflicted regions and cities, making people’s lives harder, and In many regions of the world, gangs are contributing to anger against the state and emerging as a leading problem of crime and support for the gangs. The problem can be much social disruption. Criminal gangs are present like the challenge of insurgent warfare, and everywhere, but pose the greatest challenges to require the same delicate response, something human security and sometimes political stability states often are very bad at. in Central America and West Africa. They also are serious problems in the Caribbean, North and South America, Southern Africa and South Asia. Gangs have a greater effect on ordinary lives, causing immediate and long-term problems. Where gang problems are worst, such as in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, homicide rates are the highest in the world, surpassing rates of violent death in countries at war like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. But gangs also have a degree of popular support. They provide their members with a strong sense Estimated membership in major gangs in of identity and can represent the needs of their three Central American counties communities. Political leaders may cultivate them as a base of political support, albeit Gangs directly cause serious social problems, sometimes violent. States that try to fight them and indirectly lead to enormous lost violently tend to lose. Gang problems often opportunities, including lost economic require careful, nuanced multinational development. With hundreds of thousands, responses, something individual states may find perhaps millions of members, gangs can be a difficult, where the UN sometimes can lead pathological response to social dislocation and more effectively. lack of opportunity. They can serve important social purposes, often giving their members a Because of their power over immediate social sense of personal and social identity, safety from affairs—day to day life—can be very strong, other gangs and the economic opportunities of gangs are widely seen as a greater security illegal enterprise. problem than traditional threats to state security. The danger of foreign attack or rebel uprising They also cause great destruction to the lives of usually is small and remote, but the effects of people they touch, and block economic gangs can be immediate and unavoidable. States development for the individuals, neighborhoods, often are unsure how to respond. The regions and societies they afflict. instruments that are easiest to use, especially the Gangs include youth gangs, composed mostly of military patrolling and heavy policing, may be younger members, especially boys, who have ineffective against gangs, who are dexterous not reached the legal age of consent or majority. enough to avoid such crude responses. State Other gangs include large numbers of older actions may even be counterproductive, Copyright © Old Dominion University Model United Nations Society. All rights reserved. Issue Brief for the for the Economic and Social Council Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice members. Both types of gangs are a form of organized crime. Gangs cause direct suffering from violence and intimidation, including Reducing gangs and the impact of lives requires homicides, non-lethal violence, crime international collaboration. Through against property and trafficking in globalization, illicit trade and migration, gangs illegal drugs and human trafficking have become a multi-national phenomenon. (especially women and girls enslaved They often rely on family, neighborhood and for prostitution). They rely on extortion, ethnic relationships to build cross-country demanding money from residents and connections, gaining opportunities for business for protection (against rival enrichment, and spreading their pathologies. gangs but also from their own threats to While most states prefer to respond to gang local residents). problems alone, using their own resources, sovereign action may be ineffective or even Gangs undermine human potential. counterproductive, making gang problems When children and teenagers join gangs worse, or pushing them to other countries. their chance of social and economic advancement declines. Most gang members are poor, with little hope of rising above it. With imprisonment they become further marginalized. Physical marks of gang membership, such as extensive tattoos, condemn them to lives outside the mainstream of society. Gangs harm everyone by blocking economic development. Banks and business are unwilling to invest in areas where gangs will tax or destroy their investments. Gang members in El Salvador Gangs undermining order. Where gangs Basic problems of gangs rise, governments recede. Gangs become the effective rulers of their Gangs are extremely diverse, organized in many regions or territories. Because they are different ways. What unites them is a tendency permanent residents, they have to engage in organized crime and require major advantages over state agencies, which social commitments among their members. tend to be intermittently there. Gang Unlike other organized crime, their members do authority replaces state authority. Local not gather exclusively for criminal projects. residents, whether they want to or not, Instead they are part of daily life, offering social must go to gang leaders to get their identity and protection to their members, but problems solved, and are often forces to also making escape difficult or impossible. become supporters or contributors to the Whether they teenage street gangs, well- gang. The region becomes isolated. organized North American gangs like the Crips Outsiders no longer will visit or invest and Bloods, Central American Maras, or long- there. The opportunities for regional established gangs like the Italian Mafia and Cosa investment and economic development Nostra, the effects are similar: become less and less likely, and 2 Issue Brief for the for the Economic and Social Council Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice residents become trapped, unable to Possibilities for UN action span a spectrum from escape. helping specific countries and addressing specific gang problems, to universal proposals Gangs encourage transnational crime, for international action by the entire world spreading through the same methods of community. The choice is up to the member globalization familiar from legitimate states as they deliberate: economics, trade and human movement. They spread between countries, Studies of the problems of gang violence effectively exporting criminal problems are the easiest possibility for and pathologies. international agreement. Although they do nothing immediately, a study by the UN Secretary-General may point to Role of the UN acceptable long-term responses to the problem. Gang violence issues pose a serious problem for the United Nations. Because the UN is its The UN can call upon all states to member states, it reflects their specific interests. protect the vulnerable, especially known Above all, states are concerned to strengthen and likely victims such as migrants and their national sovereignty. They fight gang refugees, women and girls, and all violence because it undermines their power and children. The UN can target the authority, as well as the welfare of their people. vulnerable in specific countries, as it has They are careful when turning to the UN; since in the past.1Or it can establish global international measures tend to force states to act problems to protect the vulnerable. and restrict their freedom. They do not want to replace their gang problem with a UN problem. Establish new mechanisms for But international action is essential to deal with cooperation among police and issues like transnational gang activity, prosecutors (Ministries of Home Affairs international trafficking, and support weak states or Justice) to share intelligence and struggling to cope with gang problems cooperate in prosecution transnational originating on their territories. How to balance gang crime.2 Such measures are popular these needs? in the UN because they support national sovereignty and they are relatively The usual UN solution has been targeted cheap. They work best over the short resolutions, offering assistance to the most run, but gangs are adaptive so they offer seriously afflicted countries. Attention to less promise in the long term. specific situations establishes valuable precedents for further action, targets assistance, and avoids antagonizing other states who wish to 1 "Adopting Resolution 2180 (2014), Security continue acting alone. But targeted responses Council Approves One-Year Renewal for United come at a cost. They limit the ability of Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti." UN News international community to respond effectively Center, October 14, 2014. to the transnational aspects of the problem, the http://www.un.org/press/en/2014/sc11599.doc.htm 2 "Security Council, Adopting Resolution 2195 sources of gang criminality and violence. (2014), Urges International Action to Break Links between Terrorists, Transnational Organized Crime | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases." UN News Proposals for further action