Ecuador legalized gangs. Murder rates plummeted

In 2007, the crime-riddled nation of Ecuador did something surprising: It legalized the gangs that had been the source of much of the violence. Then something even more surprising happened over the next decade: Murder rates plummeted.

Ecuador’s approach to violence reduction is about as far away as you can get from America’s, which tends to criminalize gangs. To be clear, just being a member of a gang is not illegal. But because many gang members are known to engage in illegal activity, US law enforcement targets people it suspects of being members. It uses large gang databases (especially common in cities like New York and Chicago) to round up young people, often from poor communities of color. They may be deported or imprisoned for years. When we talk about criminalizing gangs, we’re talking about this punitive approach.

In Ecuador, the unprecedented decision to legalize gangs across the country was basically a decision to adopt the opposite attitude. The country allowed the gangs to remake themselves as cultural associations that could register with the government, which in turn allowed them to qualify for grants and benefit from social programming, just like everybody else.

This approach appealed to David Brotherton, a sociologist at the City University of New York who’s been arguing since the 1990s that US policy wrongly pathologizes gang members. So in 2017, a decade after Ecuador legalized gangs, he headed over there to conduct ethnographic research on major groups like the Latin Kings and Queens.

It turned out they’d undergone a stunning transformation. The members were still very active in their gangs, but these were functioning more like social movements or cultural groups. Previously violent Latin Kings were working in everything from catering to crime analysis. And they were collaborating with other gangs they’d warred with in the past.

Brotherton is preparing to head back to Ecuador for the next phase of his multi-year research, which will focus on a gang called Masters of the Street. He just won a Guggenheim Foundation grant in support of that work, which is how I learned about it. What he’s discovered has the potential to upend the mainstream US approach to deviance.

vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/26/18281325/ecuador-legalize-gangs

I spoke to Brotherton about what he saw on the ground in Ecuador and whether he thinks that model can work in other Latin American countries and even in the US. A transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
Sigal Samuel

How did you get interested in studying street gangs in Ecuador?
David Brotherton

In the late 1990s, I was working with a bunch of groups in New York City, especially the Latin Kings. This was during the period of [Mayor Rudy] Giuliani and his policy of “zero tolerance.” I wrote a book on it in 2004. I thought that was the end of the story.

Then I got an email from a social worker in Barcelona who said, “We have a group here called the Latin Kings, and we haven’t had gangs like this in Spain. Where are they coming from? Can you help us?” So I went to give a talk there. I said: “I don’t think you should do what they do in America, this ‘zero tolerance,’ because you won’t get to the root of the problem. You need to engage them.”

They took that seriously and talked to the City Council of Barcelona. In 2004 or 2005, the council proclaimed that these groups would be known not as gangs, but as cultural groups. They found that the more they engaged the groups, the fewer problems they had. Then the city of Genoa in Italy adopted the same approach. They semi-legalized them, and the same thing happened.

Then I got a call from Ecuador. In 2007, there was optimism there because [Rafael] Correa had won [presidential] elections on the platform of the Citizens’ Revolution: He said instead of just focusing on law and order, security will be based on social security. Someone close to Correa said, “What will we do about these street gangs? Their membership is in the thousands.” They came up with the radical policy of legalization. That took the Spanish thing a step further, because this was national, not just one city. The gangs responded very positively to that engagement.
Sigal Samuel

And that’s when Ecuador’s murder rates started going down, right? In your 2017 study, you note that Ecuador’s murder rates fell drastically after it legalized gangs — from 15.35 per 100,000 people in 2011 to 5 per 100,000 people in 2017. To what extent can you show that that was actually caused by gang legalization, as opposed to other factors?
David Brotherton

Statistically, you can only show correlation. And, actually, at first I thought maybe the crime rate was going down because the country had reformed the police. But we spent a year traveling around Ecuador and interviewing all the [gang] leaders. And when you hang out for a while, you see how differently they respond to conflicts now. For example, they [the Latin Kings] put on one of the biggest hip hop concerts ever, and they worked with other previously antagonistic gangs on the project.

We found there was this fascinating phenomenon going on of peaceful coexistence. A number of the senior guys were working with the government or in the police force. Some were doing crime analysis. Some were in college studying constitutional law and social work. Some were getting into entrepreneurship, becoming caterers or graphic designers.
Sigal Samuel

How did legalization change the relationships within individual gangs, for example between men and women?
David Brotherton

The Latin Queens say they feel positively about the possibilities they have in the gangs since legalization. The more power the women get — and the women are very powerful, they’re in leadership positions — it helps in the positive transition of the group. Women soften the gangs to a certain degree, especially if there are kids involved. The family instinct kicks in. If you go to a large gang meeting, you might find about 700 or 800 people there. They bring their children — there’s maybe 150 kids.

The US already allows legal gangs, in fact they are a constitutional right.. They are called a militia.

the funniest part is how any street gang of teenagers could EASILY disarm any 'American militia', overpower them, and gangrape their women.

That's because militia are made up of peaceful law-abiding citizens while street gangs are made of human scum.

If those beta weaklings are the ones tasked with "the security of a free State" then you already lost not only your fight but also your purpose.

The security of a FREE state. The emphasis is on maintaining freedoms. Do they have to be scary to do that?

Yeah, I'm sure a bunch of niglets who hold their guns sideways could totally take out a group of people who actually know how to shoot.

The solution, then, is to organize American street gangs into proper militias. Perhaps with a Revolutionary War-era bent.

Tyreese, give those niggas a volley.

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