Gangs in central America

Central America: Security Challenges

Volumn , Issue , 2011, Pages 47-75

  Seelke, Clare Ribando ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84892035569     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Chapter

References (66)

1. The Central American countries include Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. This report focuses on the "northern triangle" countries of Central America where the gang problem has been most acute, which include El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. It refers to the other countries and governments in the region periodically for comparative purposes.
2. U.S. Department of Justice, National Gang Intelligence Center, National Gang Threat Assessment (NGTA) 2009, January 2009.
3. For historical information on the Mérida Initiative, see CRS Report R40135, Mérida Initiative for Mexico and Central America: Funding and Policy Issues, by Clare Ribando Seelke.
4. U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Mérida Initiative: The United States has Provided Counternarcotics and Anticrime Support, but Needs Better Performance Measures, 10-837, July 21, 2010, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10837.pdf.
5. U.N. Development Program (UNDP), Informe Sobre Desarrollo Humano Para América Central 2009-2010: Abrir Espacios a la Seguridad Ciudadana y el Desarrollo Humano, October 2009. This report also contains sections on other types of violent crime in Central America, including rape, kidnapping, assault, and domestic violence.
6. Pablo Fajnzylber, Daniel Lederman, and Norman Loayza, "Inequality and Violent Crime," Journal of Law and Economics, August 2001.
7. UNDP, October 2009.
8. Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Armas Pequeñas y Livianas: Amenaza a la Seguridad Hemisférica, 2007.
9. UNDP, October 2009.
10. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Crime and Development in Central America: Caught in the Crossfire, May 2007. See also: Stephen S. Dudley, Drug Trafficking Organizations in Central America: Transportistas, Mexican Cartels, and Maras, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Working Paper Series on U.S.- Mexico Security Cooperation, May 2010.
11. U.S. Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), Vol. 1, March 2010.
12. Ivan Briscoe, A Criminal Bargain: The State and Security in Guatemala, Fundación Para las Relaciones Internacionales y El Diálogo Exterior, September 2009.
13. This section was drawn from CRS Report RL33400, Youth Gangs: Background, Legislation, and Issues.
14. See, for example, Demoscopia S.A., Maras y Pandillas: Comunidad y Policía en Centroamérica, October 2007, as opposed to Dennis Rodgers et al., "Gangs of Central America: Causes, Costs, and Interventions," Small Arms Survey Occasional Paper 23, May 2009.
15. John P. Sullivan and Adam Eikus, "Global Cities, Global Gangs," Open Society Net, December 2, 2009.
16. For the history and evolution of these gangs, see Tom Diaz, No Boundaries: Transnational Latino Gangs and American Law Enforcement, Ann Arbor, M.I.: University of Michigan Press, 2009.
17. IRIRA expanded the categories of illegal immigrants subject to deportation and made it more difficult for immigrants to get relief from removal.
18. Ana Arana, "How the Street Gangs Took Central America," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2005.
19. Testimony of General Bantz J. Craddock, Commander, U.S. Southern Command, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 15, 2005
20. UNODC, May 2007.
21. Rodgers et al., 2009.
22. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Regional Gang Initiative: Assessments and Plan of Action, July 1, 2008.
23. Demoscopia S.A, 2007.
24. UNODC, May 2007, op-cit.
25. Testimony of Geoff Thale, Program Director of the Washington Office on Latin America, before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, June 26, 2007.
26. Washington Office on Latin America and the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Transnational Youth Gangs in Central America, Mexico and the United States, March 2007
27. UNODC, Crime and Instability: Case Studies of Transnational Threats, February 2010.
28. "Governments Unite Against Maras; Maras Against Governments," Latin American Regional Report: Caribbean & Central America, October 2010.
29. José Miguel Cruz, Rafael Fernández de Castro, and Gema Santamaría Balmaceda, "Political Transitions, Social Violence, and Gangs: Cases in Central America and Mexico," in Peace and Democratization in Latin America: A Comparative Perspective, ed. Cynthia Arnson (Washington, D.C. 2011).
30. Dudley, op-cit.
31. Testimony of David Shirk, Professor and Director of the Trans-Border Institute, before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, and Related Appropriations, March 24, 2009.
32. Sara Michel, Elizabeth Utting, and Bob Moquin, Honduras: a Risk Assessment, World Bank, February 2007.
33. Demoscopia S.A, 2007.
34. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Issue Paper: Youth Gang Organizations in El Salvador, June 2007.
35. Testimony of Lainie Reisman before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, June 26, 2007. The State Department Human Rights Reports covering Guatemala and Honduras for 2009 include references to NGO reports that vigilante torture and even killings of youths have continued to occur. NGOs in both countries have asserted that these abuses may have been perpetrated by groups that included current and former members of the security forces.
36. Demoscopia, S.A., 2007; José Miguel Cruz, "Central American Maras: From Youth Street Gangs to Transnational Protection Rackets," Global Crime, November 2010.
37. U.S. Department of State, 2009 Country Report on Human Rights Practices: El Salvador, March 11, 2010.
38. Arana, 2005.
39. José Miguel Cruz, "Responses and the Dark Side of Suppresion of Gangs in Central America," in Government The Maras and Security Challenges in Central America and the U.S., ed. Tom Bruneau, Lucia Dammert, and Jeanne Giraldo (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2011) (forthcoming).
40. Kate Joynes et al., "Central America, Mexico and the United States Formulate Shared Strategy to Fight Gang Violence," Global Insight Daily Analysis, April 9, 2008.
41. Testimony of Maureen Achieng, Chief of Mission for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Haiti before the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, July 24, 2007. Although the U.S. government is not currently funding deportee reintegration programs for adults in Central America, it is providing small amounts of funding to IOM to assist unaccompanied minors who have been returned to El Salvador and Nicaragua. CRS phone interview with State Department official, December 2, 2010.
42. Rodgers et al., May 2009.
43. Alex Renderos, "El Salvador Moves Against Criminal Gangs," Los Angeles Times, September 4, 2010. CRS interview with officials from El Salvador's National Civilian Police, December 7, 2010.
44. U.S. Department of State, INL, Regional Gang Initiative Assessments and Plan of Action, July 1, 2008.
45. "Most of 14,000 Gang Members Arrested in El Salvador Were Released," EFE News Service, December 27, 2005.
46. Some studies have described a disconnect between the Nicaraguan government's official rhetoric in support of non-repressive approaches to youth violence and the excessive use of force that some low-ranking police officials have used against youth in Nicaragua. Those studies are summarized in: Peter Peetz, "Youth Violence in Central America: Discourses and Policies," Youth Society, October 11, 2010.
47. "Centroamérica Revisa Estrategias Para Luchar Contra Pandillas," Agence France Presse, December 13, 2007.
48. Kliksberg, 2007.
49. CRS interview with officials from El Salvador's National Civilian Police, December 7, 2010.
50. USAID Gang Assessment, 2006; José Miguel Cruz, Street Gangs in Central America, San Salvador: UCA Editors, 2007.
51. See the section by Caterina Gowis Roman in Daring to Care: Community-Based Responses to Youth Gang Violence in Central America and Central American Immigrant Communities in the United States, WOLA, October 2008.
52. The Central American Integration System (SICA) is a regional organization with a Secretariat in El Salvador that is comprised by the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, and Panama. The Security Commission was created in 1995 to develop and carry out regional security efforts.
53. A copy of the strategy is available at http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rls/93586.htm.
54. USAID, "Press Release: USAID-SICA Regional Youth Alliance Offices Inaugurated," April 9, 2008.
55. SICA General Secretariat, Fifth Meeting of the Working Group for Drafting Proposals to Finance Central American Security, May 13-14, 2008.
56. Testimony by Robert Mueller, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Justice, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, September 16, 2009.
57. U.S. Department of State, "The Central American Regional Security Initiative: A Shared Partnership," press release, August 5, 2010, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/fs/2010 /145747.htm.
58. In S.Rept. 111-237, the Senate Appropriations Committee continued to refer to U.S. security assistance programs in Central America as "Mérida Initiative" programs rather than CARSI programs. The Committee included Haiti and the Dominican Republic among the countries to receive $75 million in INCLE assistance.
59. U.S. Department of State, Office of the Spokesman, "Combating Criminal Gangs from Central America and Mexico," July 18, 2007.
60. U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Combating Gangs: Federal Agencies Have Implemented a Central American Gang Strategy, but Could Strengthen Oversight and Measurement of Efforts, 10-395, April 23, 2010.
61. The International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) based in San Salvador, El Salvador is one of four regional law enforcement training academies funded by the State Department's INL Bureau. The ILEA in San Salvador offers training and technical assistance to law enforcement officials from throughout Latin America. In 2009, the ILEA conducted five anti-gang courses.
62. FBI Press Release, "United Against MS-13; Our Central American Partnerships," November 10, 2009
63. CRS phone Interview with State Department official, December 8, 2010.
64. GAO, July 21, 2010, op-cit.
65. The only military component in the Administration's proposal for Mérida was the $21 million requested in FY2009 to support Enduring Friendship, a Department of Defense program to provide naval equipment to Central American countries so that they can work with the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy on maritime drug interdiction efforts.
66. U.S. Department of State, Office of Language Services Translating Division, "Not All That is Gold Glitters and Not All That Glitters is Gold," by Joel Fyke and Maureen Myer, March 2008, originally published in Foreign Affairs en Español, Vol. 8, No. 1. 66 "Gang Wars," Justice Policy Institute, Washington, DC, July 2007. 67 "Memo: The Merida Initiative and Citizen Security in Mexico and Central America," Washington Office on Latin America, March 2008.