Emmanuelle Dyer-Melhado, MSc student in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies at LSE, explores the roots of gang violence in Latin America, highlighting how extreme poverty, marginalization, and social inequality drive young boys into organized crime. Drawing on James Diego Vigil’s concept of “multiple marginality”, Emmanuelle argues that gang membership is a consequence of systemic oppression and a failure of development; consequently, she calls for a deeper understanding of the complex social factors behind gang violence and appeals to our responsibility in addressing poverty, inequality, and the structural factors that sustain cycles of (gang) violence.
Street gangs, characterized by their mass violence in Latin America, are directly responsible for the all-encompassing fear, destitution, and death, of many of their compatriots. They don’t tend to be Robin Hoods that serve and protect the poor; if anything, those most affected by the epidemic of gang violence are people who – like gang members – are trapped in cycles of extreme poverty. But, who’s to blame? Are gang members naturally violent criminals who were born to terrorize their own countries and compatriots? Or is gang violence, similar to other consequences of poverty, a failure in development?
Undeniably, street gangs are violent. While the degree of violence might depend on organizational and personal characteristics, the overarching reliance on violence does not. According to the UNODC Global Study on Homicide 2023, Latin America has the highest regional homicide rate in the world, mainly attributed to the propensity of gangs and organized crime. In El Salvador, 87 people were murdered between the 25th and 27th of March 2022 alone, at the hands of its two biggest gangs. In Mexico, since 2006, 350,00 homicides have been attributed to the collaboration of drug cartels and gangs. In 2022, Honduras and El Salvador had the highest femicide rates per 100,000 women, again, majorly attributed to gang violence. However, is this violence attributable to their nature or their nurture?
Undeniably, poverty is also violent. Let’s stop pretending it’s not. Else, we risk never achieving anything substantial in the field of development. Starving to death is violent. Working 18 hours a day in a sugar cane field, while being physically and verbally exploited by the “patrones”, and earning cents – not dollars – by the hour is violent. Not having any opportunities to access education or dignified wage-labor, let alone reach a point where social mobility is a reality, is violent. Being indigenous to your land, becoming a second-class citizen because of your skin color, and being spit on by white elites as a service worker, is violent. Poverty is to humans what a cage or a zoo is for animals. After a while, you either become a rabid dog ready to maule anything in your path or you die emaciated within the walls of your oppression.
Ethnographic studies have explained this phenomenon in relation to street gangs. James Diego Vigil coined the term “multiple marginality” to analyze their formation, especially addressing why young boys – from adolescence to youth – represent the majority of gang members. Arguing that poverty is the foremost reason for their gang membership, it joins the circumstances of racism, elitism, violence, and patriarchy – among others – to create a marginal existence in which external barriers create a system of physical and psychological subjugation. As Vigil shows through his interviews with various 13–15-year-old gang members, these realities change the behavioral capacity of young boys, and normalizes, reflects, and/or directly causes the violence they are ascribed. Gang-membership then can also signify their only mechanism of survival, leading to a never-ending cycle of violence.
In this case, it’s important to humanize what we have been led to believe is inhuman, and seek to explain the phenomenon instead of inflaming the circumstances that lead to violent radicalization. Additionally, we certainly need to take accountability for our role in the creation of street gangs, whether through violent proxy wars or the consequent poverty, among others. We made Frankenstein’s monster, it is not enough to now look away and go on with our lives.
Now, is the time to ask ourselves the hard questions: What characterizes the societies we chose to build?; Who did we leave behind for our own benefit?; What are we doing to address poverty and its consequences?; And, are we willing to let more young boys become lost generations who take up arms instead of books?
The views expressed in this post are those of the author and in no way reflect those of the International Development LSE blog or the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Featured image credit: Susan Wilkinson via Unsplash.