According to the UN Study on Violence Against Children, “gangs are an important factor in violence among and against children in many parts of the world.” 

Most countries report some degree of gang violence. Gangs tend to operate in and around school premises, even where members are non-school-goers. In addition to violence against children who are not a part of the gang, it may also be directed against members who fail the gang, refuse to carry out a leader’s order, or are in breach of its internal rules. Gangs may be made up of either boys or girls, although the majority are male, reflecting the widespread belief that physical and verbal aggression are healthy and normal, or even ‘necessary’, for masculine development.

According to the Study, boys join gangs for a variety of reasons:

"In some cases, lack of nurturing and emotional support at home may prompt young teenagers to seek gang membership; in others, gang affiliation is the only means of achieving economic sufficiency or feeling safe. In the USA, an ethnographic study of immigrant school children from Mexico and Central America found that they joined gangs to find a positive cultural identity as Latinos when they felt thwarted by negative stereotypes."

Concerns were also raised during the Study process about children’s involvement in organised armed groups acting outside defined war zones, including organised crime organisations (including those in the drug trade), ethnic or religious militias, vigilante groups, and paramilitary organisations. The Study found that “children working for armed groups were directly involved in acts of violence, including the murder of fellow group members and non-involved parties”.

However, the stereotype – portrayed by politicians and the media in, for example, Europe and North America – that street gangs are always large, well-organised, very violent entities that control neighbourhoods, is not true about most gangs. Types of gang activity, and the composition of gangs, will vary significantly from country to country. In the United States, where much of the research on gang activity has been conducted, the most common victims of gang murders are other gang members. Fear among the community about gangs is fuelled by media hyperbole and community programmes that aim to raise awareness of gang activity. A comparative European/US study found that street gang activity in Europe had a lower “severity and lethality” than in the US. The most common form of violence in European gangs was found to be physical fighting.

Nonetheless, membership of street gangs is usually associated with some form of violent behaviour, and in the US/Europe study above, is more likely to expose members to the use of weapons. 

It is important to recognise that in, for example, the United Kingdom, ‘moral panics’ about the prevalence of gang violence, fuelled by media reports, public fear about crime and political rhetoric, is contributing to a general distrust of young people. There is evidence that such distrust escalates, resulting in stigmatising beliefs and discriminatory attitudes particularly, for example, in respect of children and young people who may be wearing clothes, or behaving in a way that adults wrongly believe to indicate gang membership.

What can be done about it?

According to the UN Study, repressive law enforcement tactics used by many governments to deal with children involved in organised armed violence are ineffective for several reasons:

they does not deal with the root causes of the problem;

the juvenile justice and penal systems in most countries affected by this problem are inadequate and worsen the problem;

and armed groups tend to become more organised and increasingly violent when faced only with repressive tactics.

Some countries in Latin America have adopted repressive measures and legislative reforms that,

"not only contradict human rights principles but that may also have negative effects on the levels of violence and the organisation of youth gangs...The adoption of security strategies which focus on repressive measures is marked by a harsh rhetoric, the neglect of long-term preventive measures, and the lack of data to guide and determine the impact of such strategies".

On a visit to Central America, for example, the Independent Expert on Violence Against Children found that adolescents were being detained on the grounds of supposed gang membership because they had tattoos or signals. Moreover,

"large-scale arrests of supposed gang members have also resulted in a significant increase in the population of already extremely overcrowded detention centres, leading to violent conflicts within these institutions. These institutions also expose young detainees to the gang networks, thereby increasing the internal linkages of gangs and rivalry among opposing groups”. 

The Committee on the Rights of the Child, in its Concluding Observations to El Salvador in 2010, noted the government’s past repressive approach towards dealing with gangs, or “maras”, and recommended a number of interventions to deal with the issue.

CRIN has also reported criticism of  an “anti-gang law” in Honduras.

The UN Study concludes that: “Continued pressure from international child protection agencies must be focused on the eradication of any such legislation that would place certain minors under harsher legal regimes than others”. It emphasises that strategies to deal with youth violence must be developed according to reliable data.

In general, programmes and policies will need to address the full spectrum of social, economic and political factors leading to the marginalisation of young people, and the development of gang culture.

Source: CRIN