Youth & Organised Crime in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
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Cirenia Chavez's presentation on Youth & Organised Crime in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Chavez presented the findings of her study at the International Academic Conference on Organized Crime and Gender 2018, hosted by Migration Policy Centre and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
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Youth & Organised Crime in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
- 1. Youth and Organised Crime in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico July 2018 Cirenia Chávez Villegas, PhD 1
- 2. Homicide Rates in Mexico Rising trend in more recent years, with 2017 estimated to be (pending INEGIs numbers) the most violent year since the ‘war on drugs’ began (Calderon et al., 2018) Source: Heinle et al, Drug Violence Mexico, Data and Analysis throgh 2016 Data from INEGI and CONAPO 9.8 9.6 8.8 9.3 9.6 8.1 12.6 17.5 23 24 22.6 19.1 17.1 17.5 21.3 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Vicente Fox Felipe Calderón Enrique Peña-Nieto 2
- 3. 22.5 9.5 3.9 3.7 3.6 1 0 5 10 15 20 25 Average regional homicide rate, 2014 Source: Author’s elaboration based on data from World Bank (2014) “The new forms of violence in the continent’s major cities like São Paulo, Medellin or Caracas have in short space of time claimed more victims than full-blown wars do elsewhere.” (Imbush et al., 2011: p. 96) 3
- 4. Country/territory Global rank (2015) Homicide rates (2015)* Number of victims of homicide (total, 2011-2015*) El Salvador 1 108.64 20,055 Honduras 2 63.75 31,791 Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) 3 57.15 66,978 Jamaica 4 43.21 5,644 South Africa 5 34.27 85,212 Trinidad and Tobago 6 30.88 1,965 Brazil 7 26.74 267,966 Colombia 8 26.50 72,017 Guyana 9 19.42 573 Mexico 10 16.35 117,015 Source: Data from UNODC (2017) Countries with the highest homicide rate, 2015 Source: UCDP, Frequently Asked Questions, (2017) 4
- 5. • Medicinal use of drugs End of XIXth century • Shanghai Conference and others 1909 • Mexican Revolution • PRI 1910-1920s Historical Overview 5
- 6. • Corporativismo 1930s • DFS creation 1945 • Revolutionary movements and student protests 1960 6
- 7. • Moral renovation • ISI to neoliberalism 1980s • NAFTA and OECD • ‘Tequila’ crisis 1990s • PAN administrations 2000s 7
- 8. Organised Criminal Groups in Mexico • Circa 2015 • Are they really cartels? • Defining characteristic: Fluidity Source: Drug Enforcement Agency, 2015 8
- 9. Research Question What factors can help explain why young men in Mexico participate in organized crime? 9
- 10. • Income? Yes, but that’s too simplistic… • Poverty rate 10
- 12. Sampling Location Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua Source: GEOATLAS Maps, accessed http://www.map-of-mexico.co.uk 12
- 13. Mixed-methods study including two samples: • A delinquent group (n=180) composed of adolescent boys and young men between the ages of 12 and 29, serving a prison sentence for organized crime related activity • A control group (n=180) of adolescents and young men in the same age group with no self-reported criminal record • 360 surveys and 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews with delinquent sample. All surveys and interviews were conducted face-to-face with all participants. • Random sampling and snowball sampling 13
- 14. Justification • Young population • Young people as main victims and perpetrators of crime • Overwhelming evidence that crime reaches its peak at the age of 21 and dissipates before the age of 30 (Barclay, 1990; Blumstein & Cohen, 1987; Holden, 1986; Weitekamp et al., 2000). • Mexico collects data on a biannual basis on youth, making the data comparable. Youth defined as 12 to 29. 0.1 3 27.3 30.3 16.2 4.8 0.6 5.5 12.3 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Under 12 12 to 17 18 to 25 26 to 35 36 to 45 46 to 60 More than 60 Several ages No response Perception of the age distribution of delinquents, 2012 Source: Elaboration by author based on data from ENVIPE 14
- 15. Quick and Key Figures (offender sample) Family • 44% were raised in a single-parent household • 26% “agreed” and “highly agreed” with the statement “at least one of your parents used physical violence as a form of punishment” School • 57% voluntarily dropped out of school • 69% dropped out of school because they wanted to earn an income • 30% “agreed” and “highly agreed” with the statement “When my classmates or I would get into trouble at school, my teachers would react with violence, with insults and/or physical violence.” On average, engaged in criminal activity at the age of 16.4 15
- 16. Aspirations and Concepts of a Good Life Aim: Understand aspirations, concept of a good life and constraints on opportunities of study participants, and determine whether they play a role in organized crime participation. Method: Surveys and in-depth interviews • Survey items: 1. List five aspirations that you had prior to participation in criminal activity. (open-ended) 2. From the following list of items, indicate ‘yes’ or ‘no’ which of the following constitute part of a good life. 3. To those that constitute part of a good life, please indicate –’yes’ or ‘no’ whether you had access to these prior to engagement in illicit activity. • Interview: What would you use the profits derived from illicit activities for? What would you buy? 16
- 17. Finding 1: Educational aspirations are a first priority for the largest share of respondents in both samples. Finding 2: Family and professional career related aspirations are more important in the delinquent sample 25 23.9 16.7 8.3 7.2 3.9 37.8 7.8 3.3 2.8 11.1 3.9 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Delinquent Non-delinquent Percentage of participants who mentioned aspirations in select categories 17
- 18. Finding 3: Delinquent respondents are more materially inclined than non-delinquents 38.3 37.8 21.2 23.5 27.4 27.8 8.9 31.1 27.5 27.4 12.3 15.1 19.5 20.7 3.4 26.8 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Delinquent Non-delinquent Percentage (%) who agree that material elements constitute part of a good life: select items 18
- 19. Interviews confirmed that spending the proceeds derived from illicit activity on material items was prevalent. • “[…] alcohol consumption, partying, wanting to be well dressed, wanting to have a car, having, I don’t know, jewelry…you know, looking good” –In-depth interview with Juan Jose, 2014, penitentiary centre* • If I wanted a 2012 Lincoln [truck], they [organized crime groups] would provide it for me. How? I don’t know. They would just give it to me. If I wanted an airplane, or anything, I could have it. I could have protection, weapons, they would provide money. And one would think, this is awesome…money, guns, weapons, power, no way, what more could anyone ask for? – In-depth interview with Gabriel, 2014, penitentiary centre 19
- 20. Finding 3.1: Of these material items, clothes, especially brand items are especially important, as they constitute symbols of status and prestige and avenues for social mobility • On the importance of brands: “Well this is what is fashionable. I don’t know about now; I suppose they still are [fashionable]. This is fashion and I always liked to be well dressed. This raised my self-esteem. It made me feel, I don’t know…well, even better than other people…something that I was not.” – In-depth interview with Pedro, 2014, penitentiary centre • “Narcos have money and power and better clothes – way better clothes.” (Muehlmann, 2013). Ethnographic evidence on the importance of material items confirmed by various authors (Anderson, 2000; Densley, 2013; MacLeod, 2010) 20
- 21. Arrest of Edgar Valdez, 2014 21
- 22. Motivations • Social mobility • Counter ‘racist logics’ (Moreno, 2010) and ’everyday racism’ (Essed, 2002) • Mestizaje as a unifying concept that masks tacit yet obvious forms of racism “The possibly darker skin tones of the mestiza/o […[ does not ultimately have the last word in determining if this group can or cannot occupy the space of racial privilege, or whiteness” (Moreno, 2010: p 397). Black, or Afro-Mexican Indio, dark mestizo Poor, the “other side of the dividing line” White European descendant Wealthy Mestizo 22
- 23. Finding 3.2: The inclination for material items was especially evident in the youngest respondents. 63.6 54.6 52.3 25.6 37.2 25.6 39.5 34.8 17.4 13 6.5 15.2 10.9 28.3 26.8 19.5 19.5 2.4 15.9 7.3 19.5 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Brand clothing To be wealthy Luxury goods Drugs Cigarettes Alcohol Dine in fancy restaurants 12 to 17 18 to 23 24 to 29 Percentage (%) who agree that material items constitute part of a good life: delinquent sample 23
- 24. Finding 4: The proceeds of crime are used to buy material goods, but also for altruistic expenditures, especially in regards to the family • “Everything was to help them [his siblings] out. Studying was not important to me anymore, what I was interested in was for my nieces and nephews to eat, that my sisters had something to build on to get ahead [in life].” - In-depth interview with Gabriel, 2014, penitentiary centre • “I bought school supplies, shoes, uniforms. This is why I did it, I wanted to help my family, lend them a helping hand. I was spending everything on them.” - In-depth interview with Rodrigo, 2014, penitentiary centre 24
- 25. • “[…] There were times when they had difficulty paying bills, or my grandmother did, and that is when I would help them out, I would give them money. But that money, most of it was spent on drugs, alcohol and women…on parties. Now the little money that remains is for my princesses [daughters].” -In-depth interview with Alfredo, 2014, penitentiary centre • 25
- 26. Policy Guidelines • "I think that more than anything what would help young people who start to get involved in crime is for them to hear advice from people of their same age, or who have been through similar situations.” – In- depth interview with Manuel, 2014, penitentiary centre • “They [public officials] think that with fixing a park, a community centre, that’s it. They take you to participate in a football match, and they think they have done their jobs. They really haven’t. All of us can play sports, we can all take a course, we all do something. But if there are no good jobs and education is as bad as it is in the country now…if they don’t pay attention to young people who are hanging out in the barrios, nothing will change. Y no vamos a salir de lo mismo nunca.” – Miguel, 2014, penitentiary centre 26
- 27. • “For those who are leaving the penitentiary centre, [need] a bit more of understanding and support. Why? I have spoken to people who have left the area where I am in, and I talked with them and they tell me ‘well, people [outside prison] treat you very badly, they discriminate you because you just left the CERESO [prison], they won’t give you a job, nothing’…all of these are things that lead young people to commit crimes again […] I understand, we all make mistakes, but we all deserve a second chance at life, no? 27
- 28. Questions for Reflection • How do we define the protagonists of our research without using words such as ‘offender’ ‘perpetrator’ • How do we talk about violence in the region without sending the message that the region as a whole is violent? • Crucial ethical question/obligation: how do we give back to the people that we work with? How do we avoid building careers out of people’s misery and hardship? 28
- 29. Thank you. 29
Editor's Notes
- -2007 the most peaceful year recorded since statics on homicide in Mexico have been collected, from 2008 and forward there was a tripling of homicides until the peak witnessed in 2011 According to the report Drug Violence Mexico 2017, between 34% and 57% of all homicides in Mexico from 2006 to 2017 bore characteristics of organized-crime style violence For 2017 the most conservative estimate suggests that a third of homicides were attributable to organized crime.
- In five Latin American cities, 50% of homicides occurred in 2 per cent of blocks. In Colombia, just 1.2 per cnt of street addresses accounted for 99 per cent of homicides (Mejia et al., 2014) In Venezuela, 80% of homicides in Sucre, Caracas came from just 6 per cnet of its street segments
- 19th century: -use of medicinal drugs ‘vinos con coca’ was quite common -import of opium from Chinese workers brought in to improve the rail networks 1909: -Shanghai Conference, American diplomats pushed for the implementation of measures to halt the opium trade -Anti-drug legislation such as the Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 and the Harrison Narcotic Law pushed narcotics further into the black market. According to Maria Celia Toro (1995), “The outlawing of narcotics in Mexico and the United States ensured that exports became a very profitable line of business for those willing to take the risks.” 1910: -Mexican revolution -Consolidation of PNR, later PRI As the historian Luis Astorga notes, the consolidation of power in the presidency and in central government, the fragmented and disorganized nature of political opposition and the co-option of social movements and unions by the corporatist state allowed PRI officials to exercise an unofficial de facto monopoly of the narcotics industry with total impunity. According to Astorga, drug trafficking was subordinate to politics since the time of the Revolution and continued to be so in the post-revolutionary period. 1945: -CIA creates DFS -Anti-communist crusade, expansion of communism in LAC As Peter Dale Scott has observed, the US used both the Mexican DFS and their drug traffickers as assets for violence against the Latin American left. According to Watt and Zepeda, from its beginnings, the DFS essential coordinated and was embroiled in the largest trafficking operations in Mexico, often with CIA collaboration and direct involvement. The relationship between drug traffickers and the ruling party had strengthened following the Second World War. Their connection was coordinated by the Mexican Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Judicial Police (PJF), and reinforced existing, government-established, patron-client relationships with drug traffickers (O’Neil, 2009
- 1960 and 70’s: -Era of protests worldwide. In the US, civil rights movement and protests against the war in Vietnam, increase in marihuana use in this decade -In Mexico, student movement of 68 in Tlatelolco was met with repression -Dirty War According to Watt and Zepeda, playing on public ignorance about the threat of Communism and associating guerrillas and dissidents with long-held fears about the deranging effects of illicit substances were effective tools for discrediting political enemies. -Operacion Condor: Ten thousand troops sent to destroy poppy and marihuana plantations in the area known as the ‘golden triangle’, comprising the states of Sinaloa, Chihuaha and Durango The plaza system: -State involvement in narcotics trafficking was a constant that dated back to the early twentieth century but became stronger during the 1970s and 1980s -The PRI exercised a monopoly over the trade, often called la plaza. Whoever controlled la plaza enjoyed the protection of the police and army, so that incursions from competing traffickers were met with fierce resistance from the authorities. -According to Watt & Zepeda, traffickers during the 80s were far from independent agents: they were, on the contrary, paying tribute to their protectors and taking orders which came down the chain of command from high level officials. -Stanley Pimentel (2007: 81) has termed the problem of narco-trafficking in Mexico an ‘elite-exploitative’ model, in which the traffickers were under pressure from, indeed forced by the legitimate authorities to accept and sell loads of seized drugs, were constantly threatened and taxed and compelled to pay a percentage of profits to officials According to Hernandez in the book Narco Land, the army would protect plantations while the PJF looked after the shipment, and the DFS dealt with the traffickers and kept them under control. For every kilo of contraband produced, traffickers could pay a tax of sixty dollars; twenty dollars to the military leaders of the given area, or plaza, twenty to the federal police chiefs and a further twenty to the DFS (Hernandez, 2010a: 121). -Declarations by Rizzo: claimed that the wave of violence which has engulfed the country in the first decade of the twenty-first century resulted from the breakdown of agreements between the PRI federal government and the narcotraffickers. Equally, he acknowledged that during the PRI era, agreements between the federal government and drug cartels had determined the narco-routes of every cartel in the country and claimed that the control of narcotrafficking organizations was overseen by the presidential office (Coronado 2011) 1980: -Renovacion moral: the government crack down on corruption, abuse of power and those in government who were using their posts to enhance their business investments. -Neoliberalism: The transition from a protected economy under the umbrella of a corporatist state that had co-opted groups that could challenge PRI power to the embrace of a free market appears to have contributed to the independent growth and power of organized crime syndicates as the neoliberal project progressed According to Astorga, the weakening of the state and its mechanisms of control, criminal organizations entered a process of violent struggle to establish hegemony over the drug trade. Criminals have benefited from the political differences of the governing parties at the different levels of government. This helps explain why in those states where the largest opposition party throughout the 80s and 90s, the PAN had higher rates of violence.
- Peter Watt and Roberto Zepeda in their book ‘Drug War Mexico’ argue that reality is quite different from the (Manichean) notion that this is a war in which good on one side tries to defeat evil on the other. Instead, we argue, the drug traffickers have often benefited from accords and agreements with political power and big business. In fact, drug cartels could not have grown as they did without the complicity and assistance of politicians, police chiefs, the army and the security agencies. According to Astorga “drug organizations do not represent a ‘parallel power’, completely independent of the state, but rather a form of economic activity connected with, tolerated, promoted or protected by various sectors of the state.
- -percentage of MPI poor for 2014 (46.2%)
- Include basic characteristics of Juarez Population MPI index for Chihuahua and for Juarez (latest available) Large source of employment is in the assembly plants City with the highest homicide rate in the world in 2009, height of the ‘war on drugs’ in Mexico
- 57.6% of perpertrators of crime were perceived to be between 18 and 35
- Last was found to predict not only dropping out of school but also participating in organized crime….
- The present chapter will attempt first to understand the aspirations and concepts of a good life of the young men surveyed in this study. Aspirations are defined as what individuals wanted to achieve in life, and the concept of a good life is defined by participants themselves through a specific list of items. This chapter will first look at whether individuals across the two samples considered in the study (delinquent and non-delinquent) have similar aspirations and second, whether there is a difference in the items participants believe constitute part of a good life. The chapter will then look at opportunities to access items considered part of a good life as well as satisfaction in different areas, in order to evaluate whether differences in perceived opportunities and satisfaction contribute to delinquency This study predicts that there will be common aspirations across participants in both samples (h1), that concepts of a good life will be similar across both groups (h2), and that opportunity constraints to access valued items will predict criminal participation (h3).
- Participants provided more than 130 distinct answers, which were grouped into 13 different categories, consisting of: 1) Employment, 2) family, 3) education, 4) career or profession, 5) supporting the family financially, 6) access to privileges, 7) self-improvement, 8) material belongings, 9) owning a business, 10) sports, 11) altruism, 12) addictions, and 13) others. Discrepancy in family and professional career categories Professional career: At least 10 participants in the delinquent sample mentioned that they had wanted to be soldiers or policemen, and 16 participants wanted to earn a bachelor’s degree. Four participants mentioned that they wanted to become engineers and six wanted to be artists. However, there is an important discrepancy with another question that I also asked. When asking respondents in the offender sample whether they had voluntarily dropped out of school at any point in their lives almost 80% confirmed that this was the case. It is perhaps possible that this aspiration in the delinquent sample reflects their current aspirations; in that prison has given them time to reflect on their life choices and currently they believe that having an education is important. Despite this, very rarely do offenders who complete their prison sentences and are released go back to school. This is an important point because recent evidence of prison to college programs in the United States (such as the Prison to College Pipeline which has been pushed forward by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice)and in the U.K. (Learning Together) have had very positive results. Family: X% had children in the del sample X% in the non-delinquent sample. The high prevalence of relatively young fathers in the delinquent sample can perhaps help explain why there were differences in the category for family. For the first group having a family is a central aspiration but also a not so distant one, while for the second group, which has a higher level of education having a family may not be an immediate aspiration, rather an aspiration that can be postponed for the future
- -For 12 out of 13 material items included in the survey, the proportion that agree that the material items constitute part of a good life is higher for every item for delinquent respondents Material items are important because -Constitute an avenue for social mobility: As Raphael explains in his book on the 'mirreyes' of Mexico, owning or having access to certain material goods constitutes a “passport” to enter a particular social group (2014: loc. 465). -Can represent independence an autonomy: Several interview participants mentioned that while their parents were not deprived, they were not given money to purchase ‘luxury items’. -Are important in relation to the opposite sex: Having access to material items gives the impression that one is able to provide. According to Agnew’s strain theory, the presence of specific strains including “the failure to achieve monetary, autonomy, and ‘masculinity’ goals” have been empirically verified to be associated to crime (Agnew, 2001: p. 326). As Hernandez explains, when referring to the poor kids in the state of Sinaloa (one of the most important states in the production of various drugs) who are taken out of school to help in the poppy harvest. They hardly finish elementary school and “can only aspire to being drug traffickers, hopefully with a fleet of SUVs and plenty of women” (Hernandez 2013: loc. 2938). -Can be a source of esteem and respect
- In his ethnography of youth gangs in London, Densley (2013) recalled witnessing ‘bedrooms adorned with large flatscreen televisions and stacked ceiling-high with boxes of Nike shoes’. For Anderson (2000), the fashion imperative of the Philadelphia street youth were Timberland boots and gold chains. MacLeod’s (2010: p.48) study of young, poor, men residing in the projects of Massachusetts pointed out that access to things like “beer, sneakers and joints” were important. According to Shover and Honaker the intense concern of offenders with outward appearances, with ‘looking good’, is derived from a strong attachment to the values of street culture, values that place great emphasis on the ‘ostentatious enjoyment and display of luxury items’ (1992: p. 283). According to Campbell (2009), drug trafficking “is an illegal form of capitalist accumulation. In some cases, it is an almost caricatured celebration of consumerism and wealth – narco-mansions biggtrucks, expensive tasteless clothing, gaudy jewelry – facilitated by neoliberalism and collusion with elements of the state (p.16).
- Clothes serve as symbols that reducing the distance between the class that is discriminated (the poor) and the class that commands respect (elite). Several respondents spoke of buying ’ropa fresa’ with the proceeds of crime. Writing about the U.S. Mexico borderland narco cultures, Muehlmann (2013) describes in the book When I Wear My Alligator Boots, that “over the past decade, the style of dress associated with narcos in Mexico has changed quite dramatically. The chero look is still popular among older narcos but the new generation wears designer brands such as Abercrombie and Fitch and Ed Hardy. They wear ball caps and bling and Nikes, more closely mimicking the style of successful rappers” (p.185) Data from ENADIS: According to the Mexican National Survey on Discrimination (ENADIS), lacking economic resources was the main reason cited for which individuals had felt their rights had not been respected, followed by physical appearance (Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación, 2010). The same survey also found that 53% of young people from a low socioeconomic background surveyed in Mexico agreed that they were not offered employment due to their physical appearance. Not dressing in the right way constitutes an obstacle for belonging in a group, but it is also an obstacle to obtain the means to have the possibility of someday belonging to that group.
- In her book Narco Land, the journalist Anabel Hernandez details how the poor kids in the state of Sinaloa are taken out of school to help in the poppy harvest [which is later processed to produce heroine]; kids that she says hardly finish elementary schools and “can only aspire to being drug traffickers, hopefully with a fleet of SUVs and plenty of women” (2013: loc. 2938). According to Muhelmann, within a three month period after the arrest of Edgar Valdez, seven high-ranking drug traffickers were arrested wearing open-neck, short sleeved jerseys with the recognizable polo insignia. Now there shirts are sold on street markets for 13 USD.
- According to Moreno “racism [in Mexico], as a structuring principle that creates racist logics, is not recognized institutionally or publicly, but rather is lived as a individual embodied experience” (2013: p 139). These forms of ’everyday racism’ are present in dynamics such as: -When no sing officially excludes darker skin colour from a night club but only allows access to white men and women -when a darker skinned mestizo man drives a luxury vehicle and spectators question whether he is the driver Brand clothing and luxury items become the tools with which to negotiate one’s place in the social hierarchy, especially for those that lack the ‘correct’ physical characteristics. This last quote is reminiscent of a colonial reality where “with enough planning and know-how people could negotiate their racial belonging to their advantage” In Mexico, “old colonial racial categories remain and ‘passing’ towards ‘whiteness’ – in its peculiar Mexican version – is still a goal for the inhabitants, a problematic area in terms of identity and a non-spoken rule of social stratification” (2010: p. 391)
- Adolescence as as an age where peer opinions matter increasingly more; where conforming to social standards is especially important. According to Handa et al (2017), research indicates that adolescence is a period when life satisfaction becomes increasingly linked with material well-being. Research from neuroscience has also found that adolescence is a period of neurological changes that lead to a strong desire for acceptance and belonging, and a heightened sensitivity to rejection and embarrassment.
- Aspirations of offenders are more centred on the family when compared to their non-delinquent counterparts and they are capable of the deepest respect and sympathy for members of their family and friends, especially their mothers, who take on an almost religious role. In an interview with the journalist Julio Scherer, a young offender serving time in a correctional facility for minors in Mexico City described his mother in the following way: “I have always said that my objective, my weakness and [at the same time] my strength, my goal, is my mother. Until this very day, in these five years, my mother is present in all of my thoughts” (2013: p.58) In her book Narco Land, Hernández describes how the drug baron Joaquín Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa organisation, “had a great affection and nostalgia towards his mother” (Hernández, 2010: p. 156), he missed her when she was far and wanted his women (yes, plural, like any drug baron) to cook like her (2010: p. 156) Evidence derived from the interviews further reinforces this image. Martin describes how in addition to buying clothes and a car, he used the money derived from crime to help his mother. He explained that he and his brothers would take turns to pay the bills and groceries for her. Gabriel describes how he used the money derived from harvesting marihuana to pay for household services. He helped his sisters to buy basic goods, such as shoes and clothing. He described that: Everything was to help them [his siblings] out. Studying was not important to me anymore, what I was interested in was for my nieces and nephews to eat, that my sisters had something to build on to get ahead [in life]. Rodrigo describes how he originally dropped out of school to help his mother, and after he was involved in organised crime, he used the profits derived from this to “buy clothes for everyone…I bought groceries for everyone, fixed my house up, my mother’s house as well.” The interviews also reveal that it is not uncommon for some of these men to support other family members. For example, Rodrigo mentioned that he used a part of his money to help his brother buy all the things he needed and paid for his brothers and sisters to go to school. “I bought school supplies, shoes, uniforms. This is why I did it, I wanted to help my family, lend them a helping hand. I was spending everything on them.” Jorge described that a large part of his family was involved in the drug trade. Before they participated he mentioned that his grandmother used to live in a house made of carton, but after a year, they were able to build a two-story house for her. In the beginning, he explained, they had no furniture and after a while, some members of the family even owned cars. He described that before participating in crime: “I saw that a lot of people were having a hard time to buy food, or had no electricity. I never wanted that for my family. Because my grandmother, from my mother’s side, is poor –she is from the sierra [mountains]. I always wanted them to have something.”
- What kinds of policies are needed to keep adolescents in school? How does exposure to community violence impact educational attainment and enrollment? How does violence in the household and violence experienced in the school setting (bullying) impact attainment and outcomes? What are effective strategies for rehabilitation of adolescents and youth? What factors contribute to desistance from crime? How do we change the discourse on armed conflict and violence to place greater emphasis on the LAC region?