Abstract
In 2008, the Ecuadorian Government launched a policy to increase public safety as part of its “Citizens’ Revolution” (La Revolución Ciudadana). An innovative aspect of this policy was the legalization of the country’s largest street gangs. During the years 2016–2017, we conducted ethnographic research with these groups focusing on the impact of legalization as a form of social inclusion. We were guided by two research questions: (1) What changed between these groups and society? and (2) What changed within these groups? We completed field observations and sixty qualitative interviews with group members, as well as multiple formal and informal interviews with government advisors, police leaders and state actors related to the initiative. Our data show that the commitment to social citizenship had a major impact on gang-related violence and was a factor in reducing the nation’s homicide rate. The study provides an example of social control where the state is committed to polices of social inclusion while rejecting the dominant model of gang repression and social exclusion practiced throughout the Americas.
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Notes
While few Western nations have taken note of the success of Ecuador’s public security model, a range of nations in the Global South have started to pay attention, including one of South Korea’s major university programs in public policy.
This is not to say that Ecuador did not experience a rise in its prison population. In fact, its prison population grew from approximately 11,000 in 2010 to 25,000 in 2014 and continued on an upward trend with a rate of roughly 160 per 100,000. This somewhat contradictory penal policy of the administration of Rafael Correa (2007–2017), however, was due largely to the government’s harsh drug policies and efforts to combat organized crime, rather than the anti-gang, anti-delinquency policies adopted as part of neighboring countries’ neoliberal agendas, such as those in Colombia and Peru, where the rate of imprisonment was around 260 per 100,000.
We argue that the Ecuadorian case study of gang violence reduction is noteworthy in its success, albeit one that is difficult to replicate in other contexts in its entirety. While there are many lessons to draw from the only country to invest seriously in an alternative to mano dura, we are understandably cautious about generalizing about its replicability. We are aware that there are many different kinds of criminal ecosystems in the region, where gangs and gang violence take on different forms and levels of intensity, depending on the context. As we argue, the difficulty in replicating this experience has more to do with the political will to resist hegemonic policies of repression to defend the social order than with the gang phenomenon per se.
The entire statement from Correa (quoted El Diario 2007) is as follows: “The Latin Kings remind me a lot of Boy Scouts. With their principles, their laws and their brotherhood. They have those principles of honorability… Once recognized as a corporation, this group could obtain credit to enable them to become businesses.” In addition, Correa invited other similar groups to formalize their integration into mainstream society and affirmed that they could count on the government’s support: “The country needs them and if the Latin Kings want to change into a corporation and integrate back into society, they will have the full backing of the government. Enough violence.”
Brotherton and Barrios (2004: 23) define a street organization as: “A group formed largely by youth and adults of a marginalized social class which aims to provide its members with a resistant identity, an opportunity to be individually and collectively empowered, a voice to speak back to and challenge the dominant culture, a refuge from the stresses and strains of barrio or ghetto life and a spiritual enclave within which its own sacred rituals can be generated and practiced.”
The issue of integration is obviously very complex and not at all a straightforward policy of changing the racialized nature of the opportunity structure within a capitalist political economy. It is important to draw the distinction between street gangs, which might have some entrepreneurial characteristic, and organized crime, which necessarily does, to understand better the pitfalls of working with the latter (see Cockayne 2017).
The STAE and La Asociación Latin Kings are two separate groups. The STAE legalized first while the latter group legalized afterward. La Asociación Latin King was originally formed as a break-off group that did not agree with legalization, but later saw the benefits of the process and formed its own legal entity.
“The universal” is a meeting held once a year in either Guayaquil or Quito. The day starts with long meetings and speeches; sacred beads are also given-out to deserving members. In the morning, agendas are created for the year and decisions are made, but there is also time for leisure. This was the ideal occasion to see hundreds of gang members in the same place, conduct interviews and observe shared behaviors.
“Backstage interactions” refers to group-related planning meetings and informal discussions and consultations between group members, the two authors, and members of the government and/or university faculty.
The exchange of favors for votes is a form of clientelism, but the exchange of favors (in this case, lowered homicide rates in return for formal recognition and social investment) that results in the lowering of violence over the long term is better understood as a form of transformational patronage (see Auyero 2008).
See “Agenda de igualdad para la Juventud—2012–2013” (Ministerio de Incusión Económico y Social 2012). Other important state efforts to reach out to youth are included in “Agenda Nacional para la Iguadad Intergeneracional” (Consejo Nacional para la Igualdad Intergeneracional 2014) and the “Agendas Nacional de Igualdad” (Secretaría Nacional de Planificación y Desarrollo 2014).
Paz Urbana comprised a series of important events organized in 2007, 2008 and 2011 that brought members of all the street groups together to perform or attend various hip hop-related cultural activities in Quito. Members of the STAE were leaders in the initiative working with various government ministries.
The concept of “aging-in” or “maturing-in” works, in large part, because the gang, especially the Latin Kings, operates as a gerontocracy. Not only are older members revered by younger members but the older members are in a position to change, enforce and uphold the cultural norms of the gang. This has avoided clashes with younger members who might resent a lack of power within the gang. The respect for veterans and tight hierarchy of the gang have made dissent from younger members, for now, unlikely.
One member of the Ñetas has been elected to the Asamblea and other members of the Masters of the Street have run for local offices in recent elections.
FLACSO is a university in Quito and stands for Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales Sede Ecuador.
The word gang (“pandilla” in Ecuadorian Spanish) is still sometimes used, but only to refer to the group’s beginnings.
Of course, the very notion of “gang-related” is problematic if we retain a social constructionist approach to crime. This is made apparent when we consider that universal definitions of the gang do not exist, especially among police departments, who are often the main determinants of a homicide’s classification as “gang-related.”
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Acknowledgments
Funding for this study was provided by: PSC-CUNY, Enhanced Research Grant, Office for the Advancement of Research, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (City University of New York); Inter-American Development Bank; and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. The authors wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments and the cooperation and guidance of: Alejandra Delgado, Fabricio Diaz, Antonio Fernandez, Mauricio García Mejía, Luis Varese, and Manuel Zuñiga.
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Brotherton, D.C., Gude, R. Social Control and the Gang: Lessons from the Legalization of Street Gangs in Ecuador. Crit Crim 29, 931–955 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-020-09505-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-020-09505-5