Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, is a well-known transnational criminal organization (TCO) originating from El Salvador. They are specifically targeted for its involvement in transnational criminal activities including drug trafficking, kidnapping, human trafficking, sex trafficking, and many more. It is certain that there are more transnational gangs other than MS-13, but the reality of these gangs impact society, and their neighborhoods, more than one can imagine. There are underlying realities “that make it difficult to generalize [the gangs].” The one of many underlying realities is that each neighborhood level gang group of transnational gangs, particularly MS-13, has a “great deal of autonomy in the relationship it maintains with other organizations.” The second reality factor is that gangs, especially MS-13 in El Salvador are in a state of turmoil. The third reality factor is that the gangs in Central America differ from each other in significant ways. Although most gangs are involved in human smuggling and drug retail, MS-13 has a solidified relationship with “transportista networks and are reaching out to Mexican TCOs.” These realities can be analyzed with Taussig’s notions and theoretical framework of space of death. Year 2005- Los Angeles, California (true story) “David” was a construction worker from El Salvador and although he was not an MS-13 member, he knew some members through a soccer league of young Central Americans. Actually, he knew one gang member since he had owed him money. David and the gang member made a cash transaction and then decided to have lunch together. However, they were surrounded by federal immigration that arrested them in an MS-13 gang crackdown. They had already arrested 15 member... ... middle of paper ... ...ir votes to politicians who will deliver the gangs’ agenda. The third reality factor is that the gangs in Central America differ from each other in significant ways. Although most gangs are involved in human smuggling and drug retail, MS-13 has a solidified relationship with “transportista networks and are reaching out to Mexican TCOs.” Gangs in Honduras control less territory that are significant to the TCOs are on the “sidelines of the drug trade by local and regional criminal groups.” MS-13 in El Salvador is expanding their weapon quantity, moving from handguns to automatic rifles like AK-47s, grenades, rocket propelled grenade launchers, and more. However, most of these weapons are possessed through theft or purchasing them from the military. Also, gangs take advantage of the government gun-buy-back programs to trade in old weapons for higher quality weapons.
In the Documentary “Mexico’s Drug Cartel War”, it displays a systematic approach of drugs and violence. The Drug War has been going on since the United States had a devastating impact on Mexico after the recession where it nearly doubled its interest payments. Mexico could not afford the interest payments but did have many agricultural imports. This created the trade between the United States and the land owned by the two million farmers. It spread the slums to Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez to work in maquiladoras (assembly plants just across the border) (Jacobin, 2015). This paper will focus on explaining how drugs are related to violence in Mexico, how drug enforcement policies influence the relationship between drugs and violence, and how battle for control in their own country.
Introduction The exponential growth of gangs in the Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) has led to an epidemic of violence across the region. The two largest and most formidable gangs in the Northern Triangle, the Mara Salvatrucha-13 (MS-13) and the Barrio 18, wage battles against one another to control territory and defend against incursions. In 2011, Honduras led the world in homicides, with 91.6 per 100,000 people; rates were also alarmingly high in El Salvador and Guatemala, at 69.1 and 38.5 per 100,000 people, respectively. In El Salvador, a country with a population of only 6.2 million people, 4,354 were the victims of homicide in 2011 alone, with the Catholic Church estimating that more than 1,300 of these deaths were the direct result of gang violence. To counteract the growth of the gang phenomenon, during the 2000s the Northern Triangle countries favored a mano dura (iron fist) approach to dealing with the increasing belligerence of gangs.
Individuals generally join a gang as young adults but, are sometimes recruited as early on as elementary school. Society generally sees gangs as dangerous groups to stay away from, but for a young person on the street, a gang offers a sense of family. Gangs present the benefit of protection and being part of a pack. When Latin Americans came to the United States as illegal immigrants they had very few resources and were essentially homeless. A simple solution was to join a gang. Mara Salvatrucha 13 profited from this scenario, exponentially growing in strength and size (Illegal Immigrant Gangs Commit Most U.S. Crime, 2009). An initial reason for the formation of Mara Salvatrucha 13 was for the immigrant’s protection from other gangs, but eventually ended up greatly surpassing their competition in both size and strength (2009).
The subject that I have chosen for my essay is: ‘Maras in Central America. Analyse its social causes and consequences’ – a gang that operates on territories of Central and Latin America. During writing my essay I want to analyse the phenomenon of how a not that big community of Salvadoran young immigrants has been transformed into one of the most dangerous and the largest gang groups in the United States and Northern Central America in about 30 years. Also I would like to analyse and present social causes and consequences of Las Maras. The past 20 years has been an escalation of crime in Central America. Surprisingly not in Colombia but in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are one of the most dangerous countries in the world. According to
This paper will cover issues that young minorities encounter in the movies; Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2008), Gran Torino (2008), A Better Life (2011). Movies will be summarize, and compare and contrast youths experienced. Criminological theories shall be utilized to further elaborate issues. Finally steps and theories will be utilized towards solving issues, also possible methods to correct the issues will be addressed in the end.
The problem of transnational criminal organization poses some unique challenges to the law enforcement community. The scope of these organizations’ activities and personnel creates exponentially more work for law enforcement than relatively isolated or contained criminal acts by individuals or small groups. Random and personal crimes committed by individuals can usually be handled by police at the local level, as the investigation is limited to the known crime (or crimes) that have been committed and reported. In these cases, identifying and apprehending the perpetrator is possible through investigation of the evidence of the specific instance of crime. This is not the case with large criminal organizations. The scale of criminal activity committed by transnational criminal enterprises dwarfs those committed by lone “local” offenders. Organized criminal enterprises have a pattern of wide-scale criminal activity on a daily basis that involves the participation of many individuals. Transnational criminal organization are somewhat like the mythological nine-header Hydra – when one of its heads was cut off, it would quickly grow back. So, in order to any impact on the organizations as a whole, law enforcement must target their leadership and coordinate their arrests. To achieve this end, law enforcement must work meticulously to identify the entire scope of the criminal enterprise’s operations and map of it organization – identifying key personnel and associates. Not only that, but in the course of this intelligence gathering, law enforcement must also gather credible evidence that will help bring about a conviction in court. A main analytical technique that can be used against transnational criminal organization is network ...
They each control various cities in Mexico and along the US-Mexican border. For the sake of this report, the Gulf cartel will be discussed. The Gulf cartel is one of the major organized crime organizations in Mexico whose prime interest is drug trafficking, with their main operations in Nuevo Laredo, Miguel Alemán, Reynosa, and Matamoros (Brophy, 2008). Although the Gulf cartel is powerful enough with their large numbers of followers, places of operation, and weapons, they also work together with another group called the Zetas. The Zetas can be classified as mafia style group that specializes in one type of commodity, and in this case, the commodity is protection (Brophy, 2008). They defend the Gulf cartel and their territory, as well as act as their hitmen and assassins, and engage in kidnapping, trafficking arms, money-laundering, drug dealing, and collecting payments (Brophy, 2008). With both of these powerful groups controlling many parts of Mexico, the drug trafficking community is intense, violent, and the cities often suffer dire consequences when in conflict with the groups. The illegality of the drug trade has largely to do with the extreme amount of violence when it comes to feuding drug cartels and law enforcement (Brophy, 2008). The Gulf cartel and the Zetas are not only powerful due to their weapons and violence, but they have a great mount of influence as well, especially though politics, and this will be discussed further in the report. With the Gulf cartel being but one of many threats in Mexico, the country is also affected in many others ways not only by the cartels, but by the United States as
Over the last several decades, violence has consumed and transformed Mexico. Since the rise of dozens of Mexican cartels, the Mexican government has constantly been fighting an ongoing war with these criminal organizations. The cartel organizations have a primary purpose of managing and controlling illegal drug trafficking operations in Central America and South America to the United States. Violence on a massive and brutal scale has emerged due to the nature of the illegal drug trade. Because the drug trade is vastly widespread, cartels are often fighting one another and competing in business. Mexican authorities count at least 12 major cartels, but also talk of an untold numbers of smaller splinter groups. (Taipei Times). Five cartels from Mexico have risen to become the extremely powerful amongst all the drug organizations operating in Mexico. The Guadalajara Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, and the Gulf Cartel. These organizations, along with other distinguished Mexican cartels, have plagued Mexico with violence, terror, and fear due to the essence and nature of illegal drug trafficking.
Members of MS-13 are involved in an assortment of criminal activities. Although, the most harmful is homicide. Mara Salvatrucha uses a variety of weapons to murder people. The most prevalent way to kill a person is through the use of firearms. For example, Honduran authorities estimate that there are 1,800,00 guns in Honduras. Only 600,000 of these guns are registered with the government of Honduras (Lohmuller, 2). With 1,200,000 guns circulating in the honduran black market it is very easy for a gang member to obtain a firearm; making it even easier for a Mara Salvatrucha member to take someone’s life. To prove this point, Michael Lohmuller said, “80% of the murders in Honduras are committed with illegal firearms.” In 2011 the United Nations reported that there are 92 people murdered for every 100,00 people...
As a result, the law enforcement officials have proven to have a lack of empathy and the poor connection to their county. Which has provoked many citizens to speak out against law enforcement and in view of the opinion of the newscasters it has “created a climate of fear” and has left the Latin community feeling intimidated and helpless. The government has precautionary reactions to this violence and have observed the organization of MS-13. The video then speaks of the gangs as “domestic terrorists” with the most threatening crimes, such as the piling unsolved homicide cases, which have led to many suspects. Government officials chose to state that these gang members would be eradicated from their community, by remaining fully committed to “finishing the job”.
Mexico has been fighting drug cartels and their violence since December of 2006, since then, the activity between these organizations and crimes have been on the rise. In Mexico, over 70,000 people have lost their lives in crimes and violence associated with the leading cartels of Mexico. These leading cartels include: The Beltran Leyva, Gulf Cartel, Juarez Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, Los Zetas and the Tijuana/Arellano Felix Cartel. One of the most important effects of these cartels is in the social life of the citizens. Most of the citizens are terrified of these cartels, to the point where streets seem vacant because the people are too scared to roam the streets. These cartels impose fear with acts such as that of September 15, 2008, when grenades were thrown into crowds in Morelia town square in an independence day celebration killing eight people. The soci...
The documentary Crips and Bloods: Made in America, can be analyzed through three works: “Modern Theories of Criminality” by C.B. de Quirόs, “Broken Windows” by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling and “Social Structure and Anomie” by Robert K. Merton.
Our team presentation focused on three Latino gangs, MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha), the Mexican Mafia and the Los Surenos gang. My part of the presentation was to provide information on the type of crime these three gangs are known to commit. The crimes committed by the MS-13 gang are varied, violent, and take place all over the country. The FBI even put together a task force called the MS-13 National Gang Task Force in December of 2004 to try to put a stop to this gang’s activities. (www.fbi.gov). Los Surenos or Sur-13, originally based in Los Angeles, has also branched out from turf wars with rival gangs to “for profit”, violent crimes across the country. The Mexican Mafia has a similar story to tell as well in regards to gang crimes, which again range from respect crimes, and retaliatory violence to crimes for profit.
No country is devoid of violence, but it is especially prevalent in Latin America. The Organization of American States labeled violence in Latin America as an “epidemic, a plague that kills more people than AIDS or any other known epidemic” (Carroll). Brazil and Colombia are two countries that have been shaped by gang violence; both are gripped by some of the largest, most violent, and institutionalized gangs in the world. In Donna Goldstein’s ethnography of life in a Brazilian shantytown, Laughter Out of Place, the power and prevalence of gang violence is apparent. In Colombia, gangs flourish nationwide and have direct consequences on the country’s economic, political, and social structure. Despite existing in entirely different countries, and though they are unlike in some regards, gangs in Brazil and Colombia, as a whole, share similarities in their power, function, and effect on the lives of the poor.
...y, we have Los Zetas, a Mexican originated gang. I know that most people believe that MS-13 is the most dangerous gang world-wide but from my deep research I came across very limited footage of crimes that Los Zetas committed, including the decapitation of victims on camera. The gang recruits ex-military members and is associated with drug smuggling, kidnapping and illegally syphoning oil from pipelines, but also for their habitual mass murders. They’re one of the most powerful drug cartels in the world. Starting 2012, Los Zetas has control in excess of 11 states in Mexico, making it the pill cartel with the biggest domain in the nation. Their sheer brutality and widespread criminality has managed to land them with the World’s Most Feared Gang title, and I’m pretty sure the leaders are very excited about that, because in the gang world “reputation is everything”.