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Youth involvement in criminal gangs is rife in a particular area of Cape Town, the capital city of Western Cape, South Africa, known as the Cape Flats. But the Cape Flats is not unique and the youth's susceptibility to join these gangs cuts across cultures and societies. Wherever there is marginalisation and disadvantage, social issues emerge that are difficult to combat because of systemic and structural barriers. Community workers and those who live in these areas are often at their wits end trying to combat the allure that gang membership holds for their teenage children. This article reports on a study that was part of a larger research study conducted between 2016-2018 by social work students at a university situated in the area. The article reflects the findings of the 2018 study that focused on the perceptions and experiences of those who work or provide services in the area. The aim of the study was to explore the participants' experiences of gang violence during service provision and their opinions about ways to address their concerns. A qualitative approach, utilising an intervention mapping design was used. Individual interviews were conducted with 325 service providers on the Cape Flats. Two main themes emerged from thematic data analysis, namely, impact on service providers and service delivery, and suggested interventions and solutions. The implications of the findings are that the increasing violence has severe consequences on service provision in communities and is disruptive and traumatising to everybody involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of the 165,000 or so convicts transported from across the British Empire to Australia between 1788 and 1868, approximately 9,000 men entered the gates of the Port Arthur penal station in Van Diemen's Land. Over its lifetime (1830–1877) Port Arthur was reputed to be one of Australia's harshest places of incarceration. During its final years as a penal station (1856–1877), due to its aging and declining population, it earned a reputation for housing the old, decrepit, and useless dregs of the convict system. Despite the growing body of literature on Port Arthur's convict workers, there has been little discussion on the management of labour gangs after 1856. This article examines a cohort of 198 variously aged and skilled Port Arthur convicts discovered in six labour gang ledgers and places them within the broad landscape of the settlement's industrial activities. Through the examination of the Convict Department records, I will argue that despite its aging population Port Arthur was an efficient and productive place of industry. Moreover, I will show that many of these men were skilled and able-bodied workers and not just the aged and ailing remnants of the convict system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis study examines how the public views gangs, surveying 1,000 US adults using a vignette of a teenage collective. Through a factorial design, elements crucial to gang definition debates were randomly manipulated: the name of the group, its racial composition, behavior severity, and organizational structure. Findings reveal that a name associated with known gangs significantly impacts perception, making it more likely for a group to be identified as a gang. The collective’s activity and organizational structure also swayed perceptions, with violent and structured groups more readily classified as gangs. Surprisingly, the group’s racial makeup did not markedly alter perceptions, although joint effects show it did affect the interpretation of other factors. These insights suggest a need to reassess how research shapes our understanding of gangs and, in turn, how public concerns inform policymakers; highlighting the nuances in public opinion that could factor into legal responsibility and guide future legislative decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth gang membership is a significant public health concern linked to violent victimization. However, not all victimized youth join gangs, highlighting the need to study mitigating factors. Ethnic and racial identity (ERI) is a potential factor, but research has shown mixed results. This study used longitudinal self-report data from the Pathways to Desistance project to examine ERI's two facets – exploration and affirmation. Findings revealed that victimization increased both ERI aspects, but they had opposite effects on gang-joining. Higher affirmation reduced gang-joining odds and higher exploration increased them. These results highlight the importance of promoting ERI affirmation in gang involvement prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a breadth of U.S. scholarship on gangs/gang violence exists, there is currently scant research about the psychological/indoctrination processes used to transform civilians into gang members, especially from a Canadian perspective. To address this gap in the literature this article draws on the military scholarship relating to intense indoctrination to (a) inform our understanding of how youth are psychologically transformed/indoctrinated into a street/gang life, (b) the psychological/traumatic impact of such indoctrination, and (c) the role street indoctrination plays in young people's capacity to survive a gang life. This article draws on autoethnography to enable the author, a former gang/justice-involved person, to provide an up-close, reflexive, and intimate perspective into "street indoctrination." Such a perspective is often missing from the extant gang scholarship as few formerly gang-involved persons are able to speak about their experiences from the privileged space of academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-2000s, extortion has impacted social and economic development in El Salvador significantly. Against the grain of the extant literature, which predominantly takes for granted that extorted businesses are passive victims, we leverage business surveys and 103 interviews, primarily with 54 micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in the San Salvador metropolitan area, El Salvador, to explore (a) the impact of extortion and (b) how businesses operate in the face of extortion. We conducted some interviews before and others during the state of exception in force since March 2022, garnering unique insight into both impacts and business strategies. By way of statistical analyses, we elucidate the differential impact of extortion on Salvadoran MSEs, showing that the very smallest businesses suffer a disproportionately heavy burden. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork, we find that MSEs (a) act strategically in the face of extortion, (b) adopt a diversity of strategies to manage extortion on a continuum from avoidance to adaptation, negotiation, and resistance, and (c) have different ranges of strategies available to them, largely varying according to the businesses' mix of tangible and intangible resources, which MSEs leverage to manage extortion and ameliorate its impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the security policies and governance of President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. It acknowledges that Bukele has consolidated power through his "war on gangs" and repressive tactics, which has led to concerns about democratic erosion. The article discusses Bukele's approach to combating crime, including his controversial "Territorial Control Plan" and the construction of a large prison complex. It also highlights the economic challenges faced by El Salvador under Bukele's administration and questions the long-term effectiveness of his policies. The article concludes by raising concerns about the future of democracy in the country. [Extracted from the article]

This study examined how youth morally deliberate about conditions of gang violence shaping their communities. Participants (N = 80; 10–11 and 14–15 years; 50% female) exposed to gangs (maras) in Honduras and not exposed to maras in Nicaragua evaluated hypothetical situations of physical harm in contexts of chronic gang violence. Results indicated that mara‐exposed youth were more likely to endorse harming a rival gang member in some contexts, but not others. Moreover, in some contexts, males were more likely to endorse harming others as necessary. Few age differences emerged, suggesting comparability among children and adolescents. Discussion focuses on how children and adolescents coordinate different moral and social concepts and concerns pertaining to acts of physical harm in situations involving gangs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spurred by the success of public health violence interventions, and accelerated by policy pressure to reduce violence without exacerbating overpolicing and mass incarceration, streetwork programs—those that provide anti‐violence services by neighborhood‐based workers who perform their work beyond the walls of parochial institutions—have positioned themselves as the most important non–law‐enforcement violence prevention option available to urban policy makers. Yet despite their importance, the state of the field seems difficult to interpret for academics and practitioners alike. In this article, we make several contributions that bring forth new findings and deliver new perspectives on streetwork as a violence reduction strategy. First, we offer an extended analytic review of the streetwork evaluation literature that connects the study of contemporary public health violence interventions to a preceding tradition of criminologically inspired streetwork studies. Second, we present the results of an impact evaluation of StreetSafe Boston (SSB)—a multiyear streetwork intervention that served 20 Boston gangs. We find that the SSB intervention had no detectable effect on violence among the gangs that it served. We conclude by offering a framework for understanding a field at multiple crossroads: past and present, proclaimed successes and failures, help and harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a book review of "Blood Entanglements: Evangelicals and Gangs in El Salvador" by Stephen Offutt. The book explores the interactions between gangs and evangelicals in lower-class El Salvador, highlighting their shared vulnerabilities and afflictions. It challenges the perception that these groups are polar opposites and argues that they share a common social reality. The book also discusses the structural similarities between gangs and evangelical groups and examines the entanglement between them. It concludes with policy recommendations for churches and Christian organizations. The review acknowledges the ethical and theological dilemmas raised by the entanglement thesis and raises questions about the role of Christians in working with gang members. It also considers the impact of President Nayib Bukele's crackdown on gangs in El Salvador and suggests that the book's findings may be more applicable to other countries in Central America. Overall, the review praises the book for its valuable contribution to understanding the interactions between gangs and evangelicals and its thought-provoking exploration of entanglements in our own lives. [Extracted from the article]