Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine characteristics of gang organization in youth correctional facilities as reported by youth and staff as well as to analyze the relationship between institutional violence and level of gang organization.

The data were collected through interviews with staff and youth in correctional facilities. Gang organization level averages are compared across youth and official perspectives, and the variability of responses among youth is also examined. Negative binomial regression models are conducted to determine the association between perceived level of gang organization and officially recorded violent behavior, both prior to and subsequent to the interview.

Perceptions of institutional gang organization vary notably depending on who is reporting. In contrast with prior studies of street gangs, controlling for youth demographics and offense characteristics, the authors find no significant relationship between gang organization and violence.

The sample size is small and the data are cross-sectional. Future studies will need to be conducted in order to confirm these findings, as they contradict prior studies. The analysis of street gang organization may need to be approached differently by scholars.

Research has not been conducted on the organizational structure of gangs in youth correctional facilities or its relationship to institutional violence.

The purpose of this paper is to use nearly a century’s worth of gang research to inform us about modern terrorist groups, specifically the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

A case study approach is employed, comparing and contrasting the competing theoretical frameworks of gangs and terrorist organisations to understand group structure, demographics, patterns of behaviour (e.g. territoriality, strategic, and instrumental violence), goals, and membership patterns of ISIS.

The qualitative differences of ISIS make them more comparable to street gangs than other terrorist groups.

ISIS, while being qualitatively different from other terrorist groups, actually has many similarities with street gangs allowing for the adaptation of effective gang prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies. This paper highlights how the expansive literature on street gangs is able to inform practical interventions to directly target ISIS and deradicalise potential recruits. By introducing a gang-terror nexus on the crime-terror continuum, this paper provides a useful perspective on the decentralised but dynamic nature of modern era insurgencies. This paper urges similar case studies of terrorist organisations to determine the extent to which they conform to street gang characteristics.

Terrorist groups are often compared to street gangs, yet it has not been until the last few years that gang researchers (Curry, 2011; Decker and Pyrooz, 2011, 2015a, b) have begun to compare and contrast these two deviant group archetypes. The goal of this paper is to use nearly a hundred years of gang research to better equip scholars and practitioners with a broader understanding of terrorism and insurgency in the era of globalisation by presenting a case study of ISIS using a street gang perspective.

Social movements are made up of organized groups and individuals working together to accomplish shared objectives. Under what circumstances do active groups build and break their coalitions? Five conditions have been identified in the literature as influencing coalition formation: common identity, resources, organizational structure, historical connection, and institutional setting. Whereas coalition dynamics within a movement wave are best understood in terms of institutional opportunities and threats, further research is needed to determine how and to what extent these contextual elements influence coalitions. This chapter examines how threats posed by indiscriminate and selective repression affect the shape and structure of interorganizational coalitions during the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) protests in Hong Kong. The analysis relies on an original political event dataset and an organization-event network dataset. These datasets were produced utilizing syntactic event coding techniques based on Telegram posts, which Hong Kong protesters used to distribute information, plan future actions, and crowdsource news. Furthermore, Telegram provides detailed information about state activities, event-level coalitions, and violent groups, which is difficult to access from other sources. This study investigates the coalition networks across the movement's four stages, each of which was marked by a particular type and degree of repression. The findings indicate that indiscriminate and selective repression have varied effects on coalition networks. A wide coalition disintegrates as a result of indiscriminate repression. Selective repression, however, leads to the formation of coalitions around activist groups targeted by repression.

States that the concept of the “classical” organisation is undoubtedly in transition. As a result new organisational concepts emerge. Addresses the nature of quality management and assurance in “organisations under construction”. Starting with a brief overview of the characteristics of new organisations, blending into the concept of the “individualised company”. The assets of such a company are its core competencies linked to people. The question is: how do existing theories and practices of quality management fit in with these new organisational concepts? To provide the beginning of an answer a new quality approach labelled “personal quality management’ is explored. The essence is that quality management becomes more and more an individual responsibility. Some narrative empirical evidence is provided to support the development of this approach.

In the context of desistance, employment has been described as a contributing factor in the formation of a non-offending identity. This study aims to examine the lived experiences of adult male ex-offenders who had served a custodial sentence in the UK, to explore the potential influence of employment as a desistance-promoting factor in the construction of a new, non-offending identity.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis was applied to eight semi-structured interview transcripts, up to 12 months after release from prison, from which five themes emerged.

Findings showed that lawful income through employment is associated with a shift in the values and goals of former prisoners, but only after transformation from an offending identity into a pro-desistance identity had taken place. The early days of prison, soon after induction, were reported as critical to catalyzing identity reconstruction. Once committed to a non-offending identity, desistance was then consolidated by employment and external support.

External support soon after arrival at prison may be useful in helping offenders to develop a non-offending identity. Professionals within the prison service could initiate identity reconstruction strategies in the days immediately following arrival at prison. This was shown to be a potential key phase of reflection for offenders, which could result in life-changing identity reconstruction.

The findings challenge previous research, which suggests that identity change occurs on release from prison or after sourcing regular employment. The application of identity reconstruction strategies, immediately following arrival at prison, might provide a useful approach when supporting the development of a non-offending identity among adult men serving a custodial sentence.

This article considers the implications of the government's Prevent Strategy and the likely impact of a new national target for tackling extremism, National Indicator 35, for CDRPs. It offers suggestions for how CDRPs might devise a successful action plan to meet this new and ambitious performance target.

Specialized police gang units are a rapidly emerging form of concentrated social control. Prior research, however, into the creation of specialized gang units suffers from a number of theoretical and methodological shortcomings. These shortcomings make it difficult to understand which of several potential explanations can best account for the establishment of specialized police gang units. Three perspectives are examined that have been hypothesized by policymakers and academics to explain the creation of gang units: contingency theory, social threat theory, and resource dependency theory. Using data obtained from police departments and communities around the country, the explanatory power of measures derived from these three theories is explored, while controlling for several environmental and organizational influences.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how the management structure of cybercriminals has changed and will continue to be revised in the future as their criminal business models are modified. In the early days of hacktivism, a distinction was made between a “hacker” and a “cracker”. The hacker was considered someone who was interested in the vulnerabilities in a computer system, but they were not out to exploit these vulnerabilities for illicit gains. Today, this is no longer true, as loosely coordinated gangs of computer hackers exploit vulnerabilities of financial institutions and the public to steal and transfer money across borders without difficulty.

The paper reviews legal cases dealing with the computer theft of assets from financial institutions and individuals. The focus is on external exploits of hackers not on employee’s theft of assets. It explores the management structure used by cybercriminals who have been caught and prosecuted by legal authorities in the USA and other countries. The paper discusses how this management structure has evolved from older traditional crime business models based on “family” relationships to morphing criminal gangs based in Russia, the Ukraine and other locations almost untouchable by the US legal authorities. These new criminal networks are based on knowledge relationships and quickly disappearing network connections. The paper concludes with a discussion regarding the management structure cybercriminals will follow in the future, as they continue their criminal activities.

The study provides indications of a trend toward more complex management and organizational structures among cybergangs.

Although there are many annual studies identifying the growth of cybercrime and the types of attacks being made, but there is not even a single study that shows how the cybercrime business model has changed over the past 20 years. From that perspective, the paper provides information of a changing and more effective business model for cyberattacks.

This paper aims to discuss the importance of having several entry points into the field, via gatekeepers who do not belong to law enforcement agencies, in contexts where the police cannot be defined as trustworthy.

The argumentation of this paper is based on qualitative research on women and gangs in Honduras. An ethnographical methodology was implemented, which included over a year of observations, 65 interviews and two focus groups in gang-controlled communities and detention centers in Central America (with a focus on Honduras), between 2017 and 2020. The paper implements a feminist reflexive approach, focusing on patriarchy, positionality and silence.

Collaborating with the police as gatekeepers in gang research needs to be reevaluated. In countries such as Honduras, the police are riddled with corruption and impunity, which eventually leads to mistrust among gang members and other citizens. Hence, it is recommended to approach other, non-law enforcement, gatekeepers, who often stand much closer to the gangs and have a less conflicted or biased position toward them and toward other people living in gang areas.

A feminist reflexive approach is recommended for researching women and gangs, and thus also for choosing the right gatekeepers in the field, taking into account researchers’ and gatekeepers’ positionality.

Police corruption in relation to gangs and gang-related crimes often goes unreported and silences people living in gang-controlled areas. This paper exposes these conflicted roles, not only regarding police abuse vis-à-vis gangs and people living in gang areas but also in relation to gang researchers in the field.