Central american maras: From youth street gangs to transnational protection rackets

Global Crime

Volumn 11, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 379-398

  Cruz, José Miguel ^a  

^a FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Central America; Maras; Protection rackets; Street gangs; Youth violence

Indexed keywords

EID: 78649614544     PISSN: 17440572     EISSN: 17440580     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/17440572.2010.519518     Document Type: Article

References (134)

1. Irving A. Spergel, The Youth Gang Problem. A Community Approach (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990)
2. Scott H. Decker, Tim Bynum, and Deborah Weisel, 'A Tale of Two Cities: Gangs as Organized Crime Groups', Justice Quarterly 15, no. 3 (1998): 395-425.
3. Gregory P. Orvis, 'Treating Youth Gangs Like Organized Crime Groups: An Innovative Strategy for Prosecuting Youth Gangs', in Gangs: A Criminal Justice Approach, eds. J. Mitchell Miller and Jeffrey Rush (Cincinnati: Anderson, 1996).
4. Ana Arana, 'How the Street Gangs Took Central America', Foreign Affairs 84, no. 3 (2005): 98-110.
5. John Hagedorn, A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2008).
6. Hagedorn J.A World of Gangs'
7. John P. Sullivan, 'Third Generation Street Gangs: Turf, Cartels and Netwarriors', Transnational Organized Crime 3, no. 2 (1997): 95-108.
8. Nielan Barnes, 'A Comparative Analysis of Transnational Youth Gangs in Central America, Mexico and the United States' (paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, NY, August 10, 2007).
9. José Miguel Cruz, ed., Maras y pandillas en Centroamérica. Las respuestas de la sociedad civil organizada, vol. IV (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2006).
10. José Miguel Cruz and Nelson Portillo Peña, Solidaridad y violencia en las pandillas del gran San Salvador. Más allá de la vida loca (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1998).
11. ERIC et al., Maras y pandillas en Centroamérica (Managua: UCA Publicaciones, 2001)
12. IDESO, ERIC, IDIES, IUDOP, Maras y pandillas en Centroamérica. Pandillas y capital social, vol. II (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2004).
13. María Santacruz and Alberto Concha-Eastman, Barrio adentro. La solidaridad violenta de las pandillas (San Salvador: IUDOP-UCA/OPS-OMS, 2001).
14. Marcela Smutt and Lissette Miranda, El fenómeno de las pandillas en El Salvador (San Salvador: UNICEF/FLACSO Programa El Salvador, 1998).
15. This project was sponsored by the Swedish Church and CORDAID and its findings are condensed in the Maras y pandillas en Centroamérica book series published in Spanish, cited above. Research under this project was conducted in four different stages. In the first stage, ethnographic work was carried out with imprisoned gang members; the second stage consisted in the completion of surveys within the communities where gangs dwell; in the third and fourth stages, researchers conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with policy-makers, law enforcement officials, gang members, and grassroots organisations who work in gang prevention programmes.
16. This was sponsored by Save the Children Sweden, the Ford Foundation, World Vision, and Casa Alianza. The general coordinator of this project was Luke Dowdney in Rio de Janeiro, and the research in El Salvador was carried out by Marlon Carranza. More than 20 in-depth interviews with active gang members were conducted under this research project.
17. Marlon Carranza, 'Detention or Death: Where the "Pandillero" Kids of El Salvador are heading', in Neither War Nor Peace. International Comparations of Children and Youth in Organised Armed Violence, ed. Luke Dowdney (Río de Janeiro: Viveiros de Castro Editora Ltda., 2005).
18. This project was sponsored by the Ford and Kellog foundations. It was carried out by a network of research institutions in Central America, Mexico, and the United States, and coordinated by ITAM in Mexico.
19. Information about the project can be found at: http://www.wola.org/media/Gangs/executive_summary_gangs_study.pdf.
20. This article focuses on the gangs in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras and leaves out Nicaraguan gangs because the latter have not evolved to join MS-13 or Eighteenth Street Gang. Therefore, the important research conducted on Nicaraguan gangs by Dennis Rodgers and José Luis Rocha is not reviewed here.
21. Dennis Rodgers, 'Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence, and Social Order in Nicaragua, 1996-2002', Journal of Latin American Studies 38 no. 2 (2006): 267-92.
22. José Luis Rocha, Lanzando piedras, fumando piedras. Evolución de las pandillas en Nicaragua 1997-2006 (Managua: UCA Publicaciones, 2007).
23. For a comparative study between Nicaraguan gangs and northern mara.
24. José Miguel Cruz, 'Government Responses and the Dark Side of Suppression of Gangs in Central America', in The Maras and Security Challenges in Central America and the U.S., eds. Thomas C. Bruneau, Lucía Dammert, and Jeanne Giraldo (Austin: University of Texas Press, forthcoming).
25. Oliver Jutersonke, Robert Muggah, and Dennis Rodgers, 'Gangs, Urban Violence, and Security Interventions in Central America', Security Dialogue 40, no. 4-5 (2009): 373-97.
26. Malcolm W. Klein and Cheryl L. Maxson, Street Gang. Patterns and Policies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 4.
27. Martín Sánchez-Jankowski, Islands in the Street (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991).
28. Carl S. Taylor, 'Gang Imperialism', in Gangs in America, ed. C. Ronald Huff (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990).
29. Orvis 'Treating Youth Gangs Like Organized Crime Groups'.
30. Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia. The Business of Private Protection (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993)
31. Thomas C. Schelling, Choice and Consequence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).
32. Despite all the media hype, there is no consistent evidence that the maras have successfully gained a strong foothold in Mexico. In fact, the 'Transnational Youth Gangs in Central America, Mexico, and the United States' research project conducted in 2006-2007 concluded that no Central American gangs were found in the cities included in the study.
33. Barnes, 'A Comparative Analysis of Transnational Youth Gangs'.
34. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime- UNODC, Crime and Development in Central America. Caught in the Crossfire (New York: United Nations Publications, 2007).
35. USAID, Central America and Mexico Gang Assessment (Washington, DC: USAID Bureau for Latin American and Caribbean Affairs, 2006), 45.
36. Salvador Martínez, 'Vuelven a nueve los homicidios por día,' La Prensa Gráfica, July 4 2008.
37. USAID, 'Central America and Mexico Gang Assessment'.
38. Oscar Iraheta, 'El setenta por ciento de las extorsiones son cometidas por maras', El Diario de Hoy 19 August 2009.
39. Policía Nacional Civil de Guatemala, Situación de maras en Guatemala (San Salvador: OCAVI, 2007). http://www.ocavi.com/docs_files/file_424.pdf.
40. Demoscopía, Maras y pandillas. Comunidad y policía en Centroamérica. Hallazgos de un estudio integral (Guatemala: Agencia Sueca de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo, 2007).
41. Arana, 'How the Street Gangs Took Central America'; Max G. Manwaring, 'Gangs and Coups D'Streets in the New World Disorder: Protean Insurgents in Post-modern War', Global Crime 7(2006): 505-43.
42. Steven C. Boraz and Thomas C. Bruneau, 'Are the Maras Overwhelming Governments in Central America?' Military Review 86, no. 6 (2006): 36-40.
43. There is a lot of misinformation regarding the origins of the term maras to label the Central American gangs. The most common legend, usually quoted when explaining the origins of Mara Salvatrucha 13, is that mara stands for marabunta, a Spanish term that denotes a group of destructive ants that devour everything they find. According to this, Salvadoran gangs, especially MS-13, would have adopted the nickname mara to refer to their aggressive character and their destructive purposes. Although some current gang members have embraced this explanation as a way to gain notoriety in the media, the truth is that the use of the term mara is more common in Salvadoran jargon, and it was part of the Salvadoran slang long before Mara Salvatrucha emerged in the 1980s. In the Salvadoran vernacular, the term commonly refers to any group of people and is widely used as synonymous with 'folks'. When Salvadoran gangs started hanging out together in Los Angeles as a distinctive group from other Hispanic gangs, they adopted the term 'mara' in a process of semantic narrowing to underline their own cultural roots
44. José Miguel Cruz, 'Maras o pandillas juveniles: los mitos sobre su formación e integración', in El Salvador: sociología general. Realidad nacional de fin de siglo y principio de milenio, ed. Oscar Martinez-Peñate (San Salvador: Nuevo Enfoque, 1999).
45. Sandra Argueta et al., 'Diagnóstico de los grupos llamados 'maras' en San Salvador. Factores psicosociales en los jóvenes que los integran', Revista de Psicología de El Salvador 11, no. 43 (1992): 53-84.
46. Deborah Levenson, 'On Their Own: A Preliminary Study of Youth Gangs in Guatemala City' (Guatemala: AVANCSO, 1988).
47. Gabrielle Banks. 'The Tattooed Generation Salvadoran Children Bring Home American Gang Culture', Dissent 47, no. 1 (2000): 22-8.
48. Peggy Levitt, The Transnational Villagers (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001).
49. William Deane Stanley, 'Economic Migrants or Refugees from Violence? A Time Series Analysis of Salvadoran Migration to the United States', Latin American Research Review 22, no. 1 (1987): 132-54.
50. Carlos B. Cordova, The Salvadoran Americans (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005).
51. Donna De Cesare. 'The Children of War: Street Gangs in El Salvador', NACLA Report 32, no. 1 (1998): 21-30.
52. James Diego Vigil, Barrio Gangs: Street Life and Identity on Southern California (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988).
53. Herbert C. Covey, Street Gangs Throughout the World (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 2003).
54. My interview with Alex Sánchez, director of Homies Unidos (Los Angeles Chapter), Miami, FL, 18 February 2008.
55. Asociación Cristiana de Jóvenes de Honduras and Save the Children-UK (2002).
56. Misael Castro and Marlon Carranza, 'Un acercamiento a la violencia juvenil en Honduras', in Maras y pandillas en Honduras, ed. Equipo de Reflexión, Investigación y Comunicación-ERIC (Tegucigalpa: Editorial Guaymuras, 2005).
57. Cruz, 'Maras o pandillas juveniles'; Smutt and Miranda, 'El fenómeno de las pandillas en El Salvador'.
58. Juan Merino, 'Las maras en Guatemala', in Maras y pandillas en Centroamérica, vol. 1, ed. IDESO ERIC, IDIES, IUDOP (Managua: UCA Publicaciones, 2001).
59. Argueta, et al. 'Diagnóstico de los grupos llamados "maras" en San Salvador'; Smutt and Miranda, 'El fenómeno de las pandillas en El Salvador'.
60. Tracy Wilkinson. 'Returning to Reclaim a Dream - More Salvadorans are going home to a land transformed by war - and peace. They seek a quality of life they could not find in the United States' Los Angeles Times, 19 May, 1993.
61. Geoff Thale and Elsa Falkenburger, Youth Gangs in Central America. Issues on Human Rights, Effective Policing, and Prevention (Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, 2006).
62. Cruz and Portillo Peña, 'Solidaridad y violencia en las pandillas del gran San Salvador'.
63. Donna De Cesare, 'From Civil War to Gang War: The Tragedy of Edgar Bolaños', in Gangs and Society: Alternative Perspectives, eds. Louis Kontos, David Brotherton, and Luis Barrios (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).
64. Focus group with Eighteenth Street Gang members conducted by Maria Santacruz and José Miguel Cruz in San Salvador, 2000.
65. María Santacruz and José Miguel Cruz, 'Las maras en El Salvador', in Maras y pandillas en Centroamérica, vol. I, ed. IDESO ERIC, IDIES, IUDOP (Managua: UCA Publicaciones, 2001), 92. Translated by me.
66. James Diego Vigil, Barrio Gangs: Street Life and Identity on Southern California (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988).
67. Merino, 'Las maras en Guatemala', p. 176.
68. Argueta, et al. 'Diagnóstico de los grupos llamados "maras" en San Salvador'.
69. Caroline Moser and Cathy McIlwaine, Violence in a Post-Conflict Context. Urban Poor Perceptions from Guatemala, Conflict Prevention and Post-Conflict Reconstruction (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2001).
70. Castro and Carranza, 'Un acercamiento'.
71. Ibid., 101-114. Translated by me.
72. It is not entirely clear why these gangs - MS-13 and Eighteenth Street Gang - prevailed in Central America, whereas others, such as the Latin Kings or White Fence, did not. There are no systematic data about gang memberships during the first wave of returnees to Central America. One plausible reason is that most of the returnees and deported gang members coming from the Southern California were affiliated to those gangs. Since the spread of gang membership was driven more by imitation than by imposition or violence, there are reasons to believe that many local gang members adopted the identities of the most popular 'brands' among the returnees; whereas the other identities faded away as MS-13 and Eighteenth Street Gang grew stronger.
73. Santacruz and Cruz, 'Las maras en El Salvador'; Smutt and Miranda, 'El fenómeno de las pandillas en El Salvador'.
74. Cruz and Portillo Peña, 'Solidaridad y violencia en las pandillas del gran San Salvador'.
75. Asociación Cristiana de Jóvenes de Honduras and Save the Children-UK (2002).
76. Santacruz and Concha-Eastman, 'Barrio adentro. La solidaridad violenta de las pandillas'.
77. Castro and Carranza, 'Un acercamiento'; Merino, 'Las maras en Guatemala'.
78. Klein and Maxson, 'Street Gang. Patterns and Policies.
79. Cheryl L. Maxson, Gang Members on the Move (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, 1998).
80. Scott H. Decker, 'Youth Gangs and Violent Behavior', in The Cambridge Book of Violent Behavior and Aggression, eds. Daniel J. Flannery, Alexander T. Vazsonyi, and Irwin D. Waldman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
81. Spergel, 'The Youth Gang Problem. A Community Approach'.
82. The formal initiation rite consisted in an endurance test. The gang wannabe must endure a 13- second (MS-13) or an 18-second (Eighteenth Street Gang) beating by five or six members of the clique. In recent years, as gangs became more organized, the initiation rite also included a 'mission', this is, the murder of a rival gang member.
83. Cruz and Portillo, 'Solidaridad y violencia en las pandillas del gran San Salvador'; and Aguilar and Carranza.
84. The photographic works of Isabel Muñoz and the late film-maker Christian Poveda, who was allegedly murdered by Salvadoran gangs, provide an unparalleled showcase of these practices.
85. Isabel Mũoz, Las maras. Cultura de la violencia (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior, 2007).
86. Ruth Horowitz, Honor and the American Dream: Culture and Identity in a Chicano Community (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1983).
87. Hagedorn, 'A World of Gangs'.
88. Scott H. Decker and Barrik Van Winkle, Life in the Gang. Family, Friends, and Violence (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
89. Decker, et al., 'A Tale of Two Cities'.
90. Asociación Cristiana de Jóvenes de Honduras and Save the Children-UK (2002).
91. Cruz and Portillo Peña, 'Solidaridad y violencia en las pandillas del gran San Salvador'.
92. Carranza, 'Detention or Death'
93. Santacruz and Cruz, 'Las maras en El Salvador'.
94. Santacruz and Concha-Eastman, 'Barrio adentro. La solidaridad violenta de las pandillas'.
95. Rodgers, 'Living in the Shadow of Death'.
96. Carranza, 'Detention or Death'; Elin Cecilie Ranum, 'Guatemalan Youth Gangs: Caught Between Institutional Weakness and the Persistence of Illegality', in Government Responses and the Dark Side of Suppression of Gangs in Central America, eds. Thomas C. Bruneau, Lucía Dammert, and Jeanne Giraldo (Austin: University of Texas Press, forthcoming).
97. Mo Hume, 'Mano Dura: El Salvador responds to gangs', Development in Practice 17, no. 6 (2007): 739-51.
98. Thale and Falkenburger, 'Youth Gangs in Central America'.
99. Mark Ungar, 'Policing Youth in Latin America', in Youth Violence in Latin America. Gangs and Juvenile Justice in Perspective, eds. Gareth Jones and Dennis Rodgers (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
100. José Miguel Cruz and Marlon Carranza, 'Pandillas y políticas públicas. El caso de El Salvador', in Juventudes, violencia y exclusión. Desafíos para las políticas públicas, ed. Javier Moro (Guatemala: MagnaTerra Editores, S.A., 2006).
101. Ministerio de Seguridad Pública y Justicia, Reporte de las pandillas en El Salvador (San Salvador: OCAVI, 2007). http://www.ocavi.com/docs_files/file_423.pdf.
102. Ranum, 'Guatemalan Youth Gangs'.
103. Renán David Galo Meza, Situación de maras o pandillas en Honduras (Tegucigalpa: Secretaría de Seguridad de Honduras, 2007). http://www.ocavi.com/docs_files/file_425.pdf.
104. Amnesty International, Honduras: Zero Tolerance for...Impunity. Extrajudicial Executions of Children and Youths since 1998 (London: AI, 2003)
105. International Human Rights Clinic, No Place to Hide: Gang, State, and Clandestine Violence in El Salvador (Cambridge, MA: Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School, 2007).
106. Ranum, 'Guatemalan Youth Gangs'; Thale and Falkenburger, 'Youth Gangs in Central America'.
107. In 2001, both in El Salvador and Honduras, a prison policy was implemented that separated gang members by their gang identity to prevent problems with violence inside the jails. In practice, this led to the labelling of Mara Salvatrucha jails and Eighteenth jails. In Guatemala, this type of policy was implemented in 2006 after a series of prison riots.
108. George M. Camp and Camille Graham Camp, Prison Gangs. Their Extent, Nature, and Impact on Prisons (South Salem, NY: Criminal Justice Institute, 1985).
109. This interview was carried out as part of the project 'Children and Youth in Organized Armed Violence' in El Salvador. The interview was conducted by me, and the local project was led by Marlon Carranza. I am grateful to Marlon for letting me use this material for this article. The interview was held at the premises of the University of Central America in San Salvador on October 2003. The personal names have been changed to protect the identities of gang members; but the names of the prisons remain the same. 'Chalate' stands for the prison in the city of Chalatenango; whereas 'Mariona' stands for 'La Esperanza' prison in San Salvador.
110. Sullivan, 'Third Generation Street Gangs'; Decker, 'Youth Gangs and Violent Behavior'; Hagedorn, 'A World of Gangs'.
111. Cruz and Carranza, 'Pandillas y políticas'.
112. My interview with Salvadoran police sub-commissioner Hugo Ramírez, September 23, 2005.
113. Demoscopía, Maras y pandillas.
114. José Luis Sanz and César Castro, 'La 18 quiere dejar la violencia', La Prensa Gráfica (El Salvador), November 21, 2004, pp.1-7.
115. Argueta, et al. 'Diagnóstico de los grupos llamados "maras" en San Salvador'
116. Cruz and Portillo Pẽa, 'Solidaridad y violencia en las pandillas del gran San Salvador'
117. Levenson, 'On Their Own'
118. Smutt and Miranda, 'El fenómeno de las pandillas en El Salvador'.
119. Santacruz and Concha-Eastman, 'Barrio adentro. La solidaridad violenta de las pandillas'.
120. Cruz and Carranza, 'Pandillas y políticas'.
121. Demoscopía, 'Maras y pandillas'.
122. María Santacruz and Elin Ranum, Segundos en el aire: mujeres pandilleras y sus prisiones (San Salvador: IUDOP-UCA, 2010).
123. Barnes, 'A Comparative Analysis of Transnational Youth Gangs'; Gema Santamaría Balmaceda, 'Maras y pandillas: límites de su trasnacionalidad', Revista Mexicana de Política Exterior 81 (2007): 101-23.
124. The survey was conducted by the University of Central America as part of the project 'Transnational Youth Gangs in Central America, Mexico, and the United States'. I am grateful to Jeannette Aguilar for sharing the database of the survey.
125. Ranum, 'Guatemalan Youth Gangs'
126. Tomas Andino, 'Las maras en la sombra. Ensayo de actualización del fenómeno pandillero en Honduras' (San Salvador: Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas", 2005). http://interamericanos.itam.mx/maras/docs/Diagnostico_Honduras.pdf.
127. Santacruz and Ranum, 'Segundos en el aire'.
128. José Miguel Cruz, 'Factors Associated with Juvenile Gangs in Central America', in Street Gangs in Central America chap. 1, ed. José Miguel Cruz (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2007).
129. Wim Savenije, Maras y barras. Pandillas y violencia juvenil en los barrios marginales de Centroamérica (San Salvador: FLACSO, 2009).
130. This gang member was interviewed by Marlon Carranza and Misael Castro
131. Castro and Carranza, 'Un acercamiento', 160-161. Translated by me.
132. Galo Meza, 'Situación de maras o pandillas en Honduras'
133. Ministerio de Seguridad Pública y Justicia, 'Reporte de las pandillas en El Salvador'.
134. Vigil, 'Barrio Gangs