Elin Cecilie Ranum's research on youth gangs, the socalled "maras", in Central America shows that the way the state apparatus has handled the gang problem has led to an increase in violence and negative consequences for the trust in state institutions and support for democracy.

When Ranum started studying the effects of violence on the process of democratisation in the Central American countries in her masters thesis about ten years ago, this was a relatively new and poorly explored field. The recently escalating drug wars in the region have not made the topic less relevant, and the complexity of the situation calls for thorough examinations of the problem. This was what Ranum wanted to contribute to during her now completed research at Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública at the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas in El Salvador, one of the leading centres of expertise on issues related to violence in Central America.

Tearing down myths

The first project she did at the institute was an assessment of the problem related to gangs in Guatemala, based on interviews with active and former gang members as well as people in the judiciary and other areas who had been working with these kinds of issues. Ranum and her colleagues did not want to focus on the causes that made young people join the gangs, which has been the emphasis of much of the research done on the field, but rather wanted to find out how many members the gangs had, where they were based, how long people were involved in gang activity, their juridical situation, and the effects of migration. Ranum claims that although migration had played an important role in the development of the gangs in the Central American countries in the 90s, when many gang members were deported back to their home countries from the United States where the gangs originated, this type of influence has declined in the recent years.

- The maras in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala show a high degree of autonomy, and the influence from the United States is therefore relatively small. Although there might be contact between gangs in different countries, this contact is normally based on the personal relations of the leader and is neither institutionalised nor organised in the way many seem to believe, she explains.

Ranum further emphasises the need for a less generalising approach to the issue than what is common in the public debate.

- There are huge variations between the different clicas, the small units that together comprise the mara phenomenon. They vary in size from around five to sixty members or more, and there are also great variations in the degree of participation of the individual members. Not taking these variations into account represents a great danger of painting black a large group of young people living in marginal urban areas, known in Central America as barrios. The medias play a significant role in this, and although I am hardly surprised of the Central American press coverage on the issue due to it's scandal-seeking nature, I honestly did expect more from Norwegian newspapers. But they also contribute to the painting of a picture of the maras as the new form of organised international crime, says Ranum and argues that this picture does not fit reality.

- Although the maras have been internationalised there is no evidence that they operate as international organisations, she states.

Police approach aggravating the problem

- When it comes to the high level of violence in Guatemala, Ranum found that the maras' share of the responsibility for this is considerably less than what many think.

- The gangs are rather products of the serious crime problem than the cause, says Ranum, and gives grounds to the argument with statistics showing that while the maras are concentrated in urban areas and the altiplano, most of the murders in Guatemala occur in other areas where organised crime and drug cartels have strong foothold. The same goes for El Salvador, where only 14-15% of the murders committed can be linked to gang, according to the Forensic Institute (Medicina Legal) crime.

- The maras are far from the most important actors in the Central American crime picture. In 2003 and 2004 gang members in Guatemala were mainly arrested for petty crime like disorderly conduct and possession of arms and drugs, the last in many cases planted by the police. Only 1% of the arrested gang members were accused of murder. This has to be seen in relation with the police strategy in handling the maras, says the researcher, and explains that while El Salvador and Honduras since 2002 have implemented anti-mara laws, these kinds of laws were not approved in Guatemala. The Guatemalan police have therefore used other means in the fight against the gangs, arresting thousands of young people for possession of drugs. These cases can not be dismissed without a court hearing, leaving people in jail over a year while they wait for their trial.

- This does not necessarily mean that they were not involved in criminal activity, but it is difficult to claim that the maras are the main actors, although they are more involved in criminal activity now than 4-5 years ago. But this also must be seen as a consequence of the government and police’s strategy for handling the problem. Putting thousands of young people together in jails has made the gangs better organised and professionalised, and has also eased recruitment of new members, says Ranum. She has heard many stories of of young people, who were not formally members of the gangs while they were arrested, going through the membership ritual of receiving kicks for a period of 13-18 seconds in jail. The police's approach to the problem has also increased the need for criminal activity, for example when the gangs have to support the wives and children of their arrested leaders, called portavozes.

- The fact that the prisons are not capable to handle this kind of pressure, when so many people are arrested over the same period of time, also imposes serious problems. Lack of control and widespread corruption in the prisons have led to massacres and the breaking of truces between the gangs in jail, which again contributes to the skyrocketing of gang activity and violence both in prisons and in the streets, Ranum asserts.

Violence threatening democracy

The Norwegian researcher advocates a broadening of the focal point to include a perspective on the gang members as victims of human rights violations.

- What tends to be undermined is the giant problem that arises with the gang members becoming victims of a practice I would call social cleansing, Ranum says, and points at the dramatic increase in extrajudicial executions over the last years, demonstrated in the findings of bodies with hands tied behind their backs, shot in the head at point-blank range and often with notes attached. In Guatemala City there now exists two sites for dumping dead bodies, and the gang members point out the police as responsible for a great number of these killings. A public scandal a few years ago that uncovered a campaign of social cleansing that went all the way up to the Minister of the Interior supports the hold in these accusations. According to Ranum, these kinds of attacks on the maras also contributes to raising the level of violence by strengthening the gangs’ unity.

The repressive approach the police are using also weakens the democratisation process in other aspects.

- Basing politics on the undermining of the rights of young people clearly deteriorates the judicial system, claims Ranum, and explains that people in general lose faith in the police and the legal system because of the way these institutions handle the mara problem. - When this happens they also to a greater extent accept people taking the law into their own hands, thereby creating more social accept for breaking the legal norms, she continues.

Ranums research on El Salvador has focused on the effects of violence on democratisation processes and political culture, and the results show that the high level of violence and the ways the authorities deal with it has a very negative effect on the efforts of building a democratic political culture.

- We see clearly that people who feel unsafe are less positive to democracy, and in surveys on democratic attitudes we see that security issues now is becoming the most important factor for people in evaluating the functioning of democracy, even passing economy, which traditionally have been heading the list. When people do not trust the institutions they do not use them either, and we see this on all levels. There is less participation in democratic institutions at the local level and also more accept for authoritarian regimes, she says.

Ranum claims that the state carry a great part of the responsibility of the negative development when the authorities in lack of good strategies for solving the crime problem have turned to easy solutions, bringing the army into internal affairs. This is a violation of the Salvadorian peace agreement, which established a clear separation between the military, with responsibility of external security, and the police, who would deal with internal security.

- What is happening is a strong militarisation of security issues, which is very serious if you think about the recent history and the army's record on human rights issues from the civil war. We have also seen many incidents where the police have been involved in human rights violations, Ranum states, but emphasises that the handling of crime in El Salvador has mainly been carried out within a legal framework, with special laws for dealing with the maras.

- The Salvadorian authorities are institutionalising repression through laws and other means. Instead of improving judicial rights, El Salvador is moving in the opposite direction and against international norms. This happens especially in the court system, where people are put under temporary arrest up to 18 months without trial, and where the prosecutors have no obligations to share their evidence with the defence, she tells.

Important to distinguish drug cartels from maras

In Ranum's opinion, the focus on the maras as the most important crime challenge has contributed to ignoring other criminal expressions and groups, especially the drug cartels. In Mexico the cartels in some cases use gang members, but Ranum claims this happens on an individual basis, and not as an organised gang activity as it is often portrayed in the media.

- Some gang members have left their gangs because it is far more attractive working for the drug cartels, and some do it as a way of contributing to their clica. But these people are only doing the dirty jobs for the cartels, she says. Ranum finds it very hard to believe that maras are smuggling drugs and arms over borders when they normally can not even go outside their own barrio without being arrested. She also doubts that the well established cartels would give away their highly profitable business to youngsters.

- Maybe some of the old gang members that are now at the age of 40 or 50 are entering the high levels of the drug industry. But this is something that must be seen apart from the mara issue, she claims.

First and foremost a social problem

- To fully understand the complexity of the problem you need to look at the dynamics of crime in the different countries and how the institutions are working. The gangs must be treated as a consequence, not a cause, of the social problems of the Central American countries. Therefore the issue is first and foremost of social and not criminological character, says Ranum. She further explains that the kids have the same reasons for entering the gangs as before. What attracts them is the opportunity of being a part of a social group with a strong identity and improving ones living conditions in some way or another.

- It is better to be a gang member than to be nothing at all when you have few other opportunities of finding a way out of poverty and you encounter violence at home. Even though the problem with gang crime has become worse, these are the issues that need to be addressed, Ranum argues. This is why she has also been involved in establishing a regional network for organisations and other actors working on preventing gang related violence, integrating former gang members into the local communities and increasing civil society’s influence on public policy. The focus of the network is especially on preventing that young people join gangs and on increasing the understanding of the problem.

- This problem is to a great extent over-dimensioned. Of course it is important to take it seriously, but what is vital is to understand what these gangs are, and treat them accordingly. They are not a new form of organised crime, and it is highly important to separate them from international organised crime and drug cartels that are operating in the region. The gangs are often used as scapegoats for all criminal activity, while in reality they are only one actor out of many, as is seen for instance in the increasing problem of extortions imposed on transport companies in El Salvador, where it is assumed that the gangs only are responsible for about 50% of the cases. This shows that you can not treat the problems of violence in Central America without looking at the gangs, but also that you can not only look at the gangs, Ranum asserts and concludes by calling for a better understanding of the situation of the gang members.

- These gang members are extremely vulnerable, they are the ones who are killed and the ones who do the dirty work, and these people will most likely never get out of the barrio. What we are witnessing here is a demonization of young people from marginal urban areas, and it is urgent to understand what they are facing and why they do what they do. When you are in contact with them you see the human even though they have done terrible things. To a certain degree you understand why, and you also see that it is not so difficult to integrate these young people into society - if only society is ready for it.

Elin Cecilie Ranum is currently working as a Program Coordinator at the Norwegian NGO The Development Fund (Utviklingsfondet). She can be reached at elin@utviklingsfondet.no

Links: La Coalición Centroamericana para la Prevención de la Violencia Juvenil: http://www.ccpvj.org/