Evangelicalism Offers a Way Out for Gang Members

José Miguel Cruz and Jonathan D. Rosen, "Mara Forever? Factors Associated with Gang Disengagement in El Salvador." Journal of Criminal Justice 69 (July-August 2020).

Abstract:

Objective

This study examines the factors associated with intentions to leave a gang in a context controlled by some of the most violent and structured street gangs in the Americas. It contends that group interactions better explain intentions to leave a gang in a place like El Salvador than life-course events.

Method

Based on a series of logistic regressions using a cross-sectional survey with nearly 1196 active and former gang members in El Salvador, we identify the factors associated with disengagement intentions. We complement the analysis with 24 in-depth interviews with former gang members.

Results

We find that group-related variables, such as the number of gang members in the clique, learning that a peer has successfully left the gang, incarceration, and affiliation with an Evangelical church are the most critical factors associated with attempts of disengagement. Intentions to leave the group are a direct function of the gang's ability to regulate the life and peer relationships of its members.

Conclusions

Social environments controlled by gang rule constrain the potential effects of life-course events. They curb the chances of disengagement, even among those with maturational tools required to desist from gang life.

Jonathan Rosen has done a lot of great work on gangs in El Salvador, and we discussed the issue of leaving gangs on my podcast back in December 2018. As always with his work, read the methodology section about interviewing gang members--it's not your everyday work.

The key findings are that "life-course" events, such as getting married, employment, or having children, don't seem to prompt gang members to leave. Instead, religion is central, both because it offers some moral clarity for the individual, but also because it is an accepted reason. In other words, you won't get killed for it.

It would be neat to connect studies like this to analyses of Evangelicalism in Central America. It's interesting, for example, that Evangelicalism offers a path out that Catholicism apparently does not. Perhaps only Evangelicalism provides a sense of being saved, of actually changing course. As Cruz and Rosen note, gang leaders "only accept the Evangelical church." Catholicism doesn't count.

 

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Podcast Episode 72: Nayib Bukele and Other Things

On Episode 72 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast, I talk again with Christine Wade, Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Washington College. We start with a discussion of what Nayib Bukele is doing with the military in El Salvador and what that might mean for democracy. Then we shift to the writing of the 7th edition of her co-authored textbook Understanding Central America: Global Forces and Political Change, which just came out.

You can find this podcast at iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and anywhere else podcasts can be found. If there is anyplace I've missed, please contact me. Subscribe and rate!

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21st Century Civil-Military Relations in El Salvador

Christine Wade has an op-ed in The Globe and Post about Nayib Bukele's civil-military disaster in El Salvador.

While the delicate situation is still evolving, one thing remains clear: Bukele is playing a dangerous game. In 1992, at the end of El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, the government and FMLN rebels pledged to resolve their conflicts through peaceful means. While certainly imperfect, that pledge has held for 28 years. 

Much of that success can be attributed to placing the military under civilian control and depoliticizing its role. Involving the army and police in a dispute between civilian institutions not only violates the letter and spirit of the 1992 peace accords but attacks the very foundations of Salvadoran democracy.

In El Salvador we're seeing 21st century civil-military relations and it isn't pretty. Bukele's running around taking selfies and the military is professing its political allegiance to him via Twitter. "Democracy" is redefined to be "whatever the president thinks is good for the people." Many Salvadorans support his actions, because he's just shoving things down the legislature's throat for the good of the people. The idea that the military is an apolitical and non-deliberating body is a stupid 20th century concept.

I am glad to see the U.S. Ambassador condemning all this. I do worry, though, that the real policy makers in the White House love what Bukele's doing.

One other point. Christine writes the following:

Heralded by many Salvadorans as the “first post-war” president, it now seems the post-war president needs to heed lessons of the past.

I agree with this, but it makes me feel old. I am the old guy complaining about the youngster and his selfie stick, with his newfangled ideas about bringing a few of his heavily armed friends into Congress to threaten them on God's behalf. I am old enough to remember the debates about the army's optimal role in a democracy, and how sending them directly into the legislature tends to send the wrong message about your commitment to democracy.

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Latin America Tries to Ignore Trump

Over the past several days, I have been writing about how the Trump administration paints itself into a corner with constant threats, most of which do not translate into action. That is true in Venezuela and for now it is also true for Central America. Trump made a huge deal about cutting aid to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala for "doing nothing" about immigration. Nonetheless, the governments of both Honduras and El Salvador say they haven't been notified about anything:

Both Honduras and El Salvador pointedly said they had not been formally notified of any specific cuts in U.S. aid. Honduran Defense Minister Fredy Díaz said cooperation with the United States on security is "unchanged," while the Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the relationship has been "solid, close and positive."

They are taking the same stance as AMLO after Trump trolled Mexico on Twitter, which is to ignore him. Step lightly and wait for Trump to be distracted by something else. They figure the chances of him actually doing anything--shutting the border, attacking Venezuela, cutting off all aid--are too low to bother with the risks of confrontation. (I should note, however, that the Mexican stock exchange did not ignore it).

Trump's "negotiation" style is to take an unreasonable position and wait for the other side to concede. Since time after time he backs off the unreasonable position, often without getting anything in return, it becomes easier to ignore. That is a situation ripe for misunderstanding and catastrophic results.

Update a few hours later: Trump says he will not close the border and will give Mexico a year to "stop the drugs," whatever that means. If you issue fake threats, why should any leader of another country listen to you?

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Podcast Episode 63: Nayib Bukele Wins in El Salvador

In Episode 63 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast I talk about the Salvadoran presidential election with Christine Wade, Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Washington College. We talk about why Nayib Bukele won, the problems with the two dominant parties, the role of ideology, and much more. We end on a more optimistic note than normal!

You can find this podcast at iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and anywhere else podcasts can be found. If there is anyplace I've missed, please contact me.

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Podcast Episode 61: Exiting Gangs in El Salvador

In Episode 61 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast, I talk with Jonathan Rosen,

Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Holy Family University. He does research on drug trafficking and also gangs in Latin America, especially Central America. Notably, he’s gone into prisons in El Salvador to do interviews. We discuss his new article, ““Rethinking the Mechanisms of Gang Desistance in a Developing Country,” which is based on a survey of nearly 1,200 gang members and 24 in depth interviews. Super interesting conversation.

Here is the link to the article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01639625.2018.1519130

If you do not have access to that journal, I encourage you to contact Jonathan directly, as he can give you the PDF. His info is here: https://holyfamily.academia.edu/JonathanRosen/CurriculumVitae

In the episode I mention my Open Access textbook Understanding Latin American Politics. You can find it here: https://omp.uncc.edu/library/catalog/book/7

You can find this podcast at iTunes, Spotify, and anywhere else podcasts can be found. If there is anything I've missed, please contact me.

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White House Statement on El Salvador and China, Annotated

Here is the official White House statement on the Salvadoran government's decision to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the PRC, with my annotations.

On Tuesday, the Government of El Salvador announced it would discontinue its decades-long diplomatic relations with Taipei in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing. 

Just like we did, almost 40 years ago.

The leaders of El Salvador’s governing party have made this decision, which will have implications for decades to come, in a non-transparent fashion only months before they leave office. 

"Non-transparent" means "you did it on your own without asking our permission, which is really annoying."

This is a decision that affects not just El Salvador, but also the economic health and security of the entire Americas region. 

Because...well, we're not sure, but it's really bad.

The El Salvadoran government’s receptiveness to China’s apparent interference in the domestic politics of a Western Hemisphere country is of grave concern to the United States, and will result in a reevaluation of our relationship with El Salvador.

We figure all your decisions are based on some other country's interference. But it should be our interference only.

Countries seeking to establish or expand relations with China in order to attract state-directed investment that will stimulate short-term economic growth and infrastructure development may be disappointed over the long run.

We just prefer that disappointment be generated primarily from private interests and not the state.

Around the world, governments are waking up to the fact that China’s economic inducements facilitate economic dependency and domination, not partnership.

We know better than you and you're asleep at the wheel. Just let us drive.

The United States will continue to oppose China’s destabilization of the cross-Strait relationship and political interference in the Western Hemisphere.

Tariffs, baby!

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Reintegrating Former Salvadoran Gang Members

The topic of reintegrating ex-gang members in Latin America is very much understudied. It gets some--though certainly not enough--attention in the United States, but in Latin America there are many people getting out of gangs who don't know what to do next and suffer discrimination. That's the topic Jonathan Rosen and Josá Miguel Cruz tackle in an article just published in International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology (sorry, gated). The abstract:

This article is an effort to better understand the discrimination mechanisms that ex-gang members perceive upon leaving the gang and seeking to reinsert themselves into a society marked by high levels of violence and inequality, as in Central America. Based on 24 in-depth interviews with former members of MS-13, the 18th Street gang, and other street gangs in El Salvador, this article analyzes the different mechanisms of discrimination perceived by respondents as a result of the stigma of past gang membership. This article also documents how these perceptions of discrimination can affect individuals who are searching for employment opportunities and seeking to reinsert themselves into society.

Governments try to get people to leave gangs but do much less to help them reintegrate. They often turn to the church, but churches don't have the necessary resources. If you can't find a job, then you can guess what will happen.

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The Corruption Cycle in Latin America

Christine Wade has an article in World Politics Review about corruption in El Salvador.

Some question whether pursuing crimes of the past is a good use of scarce resources, given current levels of corruption and crime in El Salvador. But the legacy of impunity directly influences contemporary attitudes about crime and corruption. The failure to punish past crimes has led high-ranking public officials, like Funes, Saca and Flores, to believe they are above the law. Criminals, elected and otherwise, commit crimes knowing that they will likely never be prosecuted, much less convicted.

This is all happening at the exact same time that the Trump administration is intentionally weakening CICIG in Guatemala in return for Jimmy Morales' support for the Jerusalem embassy, which for Morales was a planned quid pro quo. In other words, national institutions in Central America are horrifically weak, and Donald Trump stands ready to make sure that no international body can help out either.

The bigger question she poses is about the build up of corruption. If you don't prosecute the old ones, no one will feel accountable. It is now almost a cliché: Latin American candidate campaigns on an anti-corruption platform, then later is found to be corrupt. Help from the United Nations (i.e. like CICIG) is no cure-all, but I can't think of any other way of kick starting the process. If we undermine that, then we're stuck.

And, incidentally, if the U.S. undermines efforts to deal with corruption, then the U.S. is directly contributing to the continued erosion of the rule of law, which in turn is contributing to emigration. But that's a whole other story.

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TPS and Salvadorans in NC

I'm quoted in this local story for the Salisbury Post about TPS for Salvadorans. Salisbury and Rowan County are just northeast of Charlotte up Interstate 85. The reporter's goal was simply to educate the local population about the impact Trump's decision will have on the area and people who live there.

One thing I try to remind people of, whether it be in class, public talks, or elsewhere, is that these decisions hit home, all around you. Undocumented immigrants, whether they are currently protected or not, are deeply embedded in our communities. The bright student in your class may have undocumented parents and faces imminent upheaval. The owner of the business you like may be dealing with the constant stress of uncertainty. And your government is targeting people you know and like, labeling them as dangerous enemies.

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Running Elections in El Salvador

Especially given the fraud by the Electoral Tribunal in Honduras in November, Tim Muth's post on the TSE in El Salvador is thought provoking.

Perhaps the biggest challenge El Salvador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal ("TSE") has right now is to find the more than 94,000 citizens needed to run the vote reception tables across the country.    In previous elections, this was the responsibility of the political parties and the persons at the voting tables could be affiliated with the parties.   The parties recruited, trained and made sure that people showed up  Fairness was ensured by the fact that each of the parties was represented by one of the officials at the tables.   

However, since the last election the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the officials at the voting tables must be non-partisan and unaffiliated with the parties.  Now the TSE must enroll 94,000 nonpartisan officials and train them on a very complicated voting process.   The TSE has gone about this by directly recruiting persons to serve as officials, by using lists proposed by the political parties, and by a citizen draft.

This last part is staggering. The elections are in two months and they need to find 28,000 people, tell them they're working on the election, and fine them if they don't comply! What you'll likely end up with is a mess, with people who don't care and aren't committed to the endeavor. I am not an expert on poll workers, but in the U.S. generally the idea is that opposing parties get some representation. You need as much training and oversight as you can get. Hooking people off the street does not achieve that.

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El Salvador in 2016

Mike Allison has an article in the recent issue of Revista de Ciencia Política (from Chile) summing up the challenges El Salvador faced in 2016 (the issue has that theme for the region with case studies). The Salvadoran case is not what you'd call positive:

El Salvador continues to struggle with elevated levels of criminal violence perpetrated by street gangs, drug trafficking organizations, members of the security forces, and other criminal groups. The Attorney General’s Office and courts have taken some positive steps towards tackling impunity for current and civil war-era crimes. However, a history of corruption and favoritism within those institutions continues to undermine citizens’ faith in the legitimacy of their actions. Finally, El Salvador confronts a challenging road ahead characterized by uncertainty over the implications of an overturned amnesty law, low rates of economic growth, and a new U.S. president in the White House. 

Corruption, violence, strict abortion laws, stubborn poverty rates, slow economic growth, indifference and unpredictability from the Trump administration you name it. Go take a look but don't expect to feel good afterward.

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Jeff Sessions in El Salvador

Attorney General Jeff Sessions went to El Salvador where he emphasized that MS-13 had its "base" in El Salvador, when in fact it originated in Los Angeles and is based there and many other places. He then asked President Salvador Sánchez Cerén to put "emphasis" on gangs, as if that was something that perhaps a Salvadoran president doesn't already do. All of that to promote a mano dura policy that is widely seen as counterproductive, especially in a country with abusive police.

It's a seductive approach, as it drips with masculine images of being tough, hurting "bad guys," throwing people in prison and throwing away the key, etc. When it doesn't work, you can easily just say you didn't do it hard enough. And every so often you can go down to El Salvador and tell them to work harder, then head back to tell your boss how tough you are.

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Trump and MS-13

In the 1980s President Ronald Reagan prioritized funding the civil war in El Salvador, which was extraordinarily violent and prompted large scale emigration. Many migrants went to California, especially Los Angeles, where over 30 years ago they formed gangs like MS-13 as a means of protecting themselves from existing gangs. Over time members of MS-13 became entrenched in their communities and spread out across the country. Prior to the civil war, there had not been a large migrant stream from El Salvador. This was a phenomenon created by U.S. foreign policy, specifically the Reagan administration.

This process began when Barack Obama entered his 20s. But, naturally, he is to blame.

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Elliott Abrams and Human Rights in Latin America

Mike Allison writes about how Elliott Abrams is mad that The New York Times is claiming Ronald Reagan (and by extension him) was indifferent to human rights in El Salvador in its obituary of Ambassador Deane Hinton. As Abrams writes:

And Ronald Reagan was a great president under whom there were remarkable advances for human rights in Latin American and around the world. Let’s leave it at that.

Mike puts that in the context of Efraín Ríos Montt, who Reagan believed was a committed democrat, going on trial for genocide in Guatemala.

Let's just get something out of the way. The notion that there were any advances, much less remarkable ones, for human rights in Latin America--or anywhere, really--under Reagan requires ignoring Mt. Everest-sized mountains of contrary evidence. And it should be noted that Abrams himself served in the State Department under Reagan in a human rights capacity, and his idea of promoting human rights was to attack human rights organizations. Those groups, meanwhile, could only respond that Abrams was so vicious that sometimes his attacks helped their cause. More recently, he was a vocal supporter of the coup in Honduras.

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Gangs in El Salvador

A group of researchers at Florida International University wrote a lengthy report on gangs in El Salvador, based on surveys and interviews. The title is "The New Face of Street Gangs: The Gang Phenomenon in El Salvador." I know from talking to one of the authors, Jonathan Rosen, that he personally went into Salvadoran prisons to do the interviews. That's some serious fieldwork (with some serious IRB requirements!).

Some key points:

--contrary to widespread opinion (including mine) there seems to be little connection with migration/deportation. The interviewees were born and raised in El Salvador and had little connection with peers in the U.S. I think this deserves even more attention. The gangs are indeed transnational but the connections are not always clear.

--another transnational connection is the long-term effect of the civil war, which tore families apart. "El Salvador has been left with a broken social fabric as a result of the prolonged civil war" (p. 23).

--leaving gangs does happen, though it's not easy.

--having a religious experience is a major part of leaving gangs.

--kids join gangs for the reasons you would expect, such as economic deprivation. The results strongly suggest that they'd prefer something else. They want education and jobs.

It's well worth a read.

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Abortion in El Salvador

My dad has a post about abortion in El Salvador, which has very strict laws. Two key points he makes are that the debate (and law) is rife with hypocrisy, and that religiosity rather than religion per se determines how much the Catholic Church (or any religious denomination globally) pushes for anti-abortion laws.

There is at least some good news:

I should point out, however, that to its credit El Salvador does allow access to contraception and the PRB World Population Data Sheet shows that 68 percent of married women aged 15-49 are using some form of modern contraception--exactly the same percentage as in the U.S. 

Contraception gets too little attention in debates about abortion. For example, as Republicans in the United States vote to defund Planned Parenthood, they are also making it more difficult for women to get access to contraception, this increasing the chances of unwanted pregnancies. Same goes for repealing the Affordable Care Act, which includes a birth control mandate. The bottom line is that if you want fewer abortions, you need to provide broad access to contraception.

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Russell Crandall's The Salvador Option

I read Russell Crandall's The Salvador Option: The United States and El Salvador, 1977-1992 (2016) and it is worth your time. The book is an exhaustive (500 pages plus 100+ more of endnotes) analysis of U.S. policy toward El Salvador, using declassified documents in addition to the massive literature on the topic. The guiding question--contained in the title--centers on how El Salvador is held up (especially by the U.S. military) as a counterinsurgency and state-building model (not unlike Plan Colombia).

This is "thick description," like a number of other very good books in the past few years on U.S. policy (like Morley and McGillion's book on U.S. policy toward Chile, but also books by Brian Loveman, Lars Schoultz, Bill LeoGrande, and others). One important point is that the Reagan administration was not monolithic at any time and evolved, especially when George Shultz replaced Alexander Haig, and when Jeane Kirkpatrick left the administration, not to mention when different ambassadors were in San Salvador.

Crandall dives into the context in detail. So we simultaneously have to come to terms with the fact that the U.S. wanted a moderate (José Napoleón Duarte) in office rather than Roberto D'Aubuisson, and used money to make it happen undemocratically; that it held fast to Duarte even as the army's extrajudicial killings went on; that the army and oligarchy were violent and inflexible; that the FMLN used vicious tactics of its own and did everything it could to disrupt elections; that the Salvadoran army was inept in the field no matter what kind of training it received; that the Cold War dominated the motivations of virtually everyone; that Cuba and Nicaragua were major players as well; that Washington had no serious plan for changing the conditions that generated armed conflict in the first place (despite knowing quite well what those conditions were and paying lip service to land reform); that for years no one could even agree on what "negotiations" should mean; that U.S. policy in El Salvador was often ad hoc; and that the money flowing in made the U.S. Ambassador into a proconsul.

The result was carnage that went on and on until both sides were worn out, and the Cold War was over so Washington didn't care so much anymore. Everyone sought to take credit for the peace agreement (though no one wants to take credit for the bloody aftermath we see now).

Crandall's goal is to lay it all out, sparing no one and trying simply to understand motivations, causes, and effects, which is not easy. The civil war has hardened into caricature for many people depending on their ideological orientation. He does not try to show how his analysis might fit into existing IR theory, which I think would be a fascinating exercise. For example, Kathryn Sikkink's work on "green lights" would be interesting, where the actions of the Salvadoran army and civilian elites might be guided by their belief of what Ronald Reagan wanted to happen in the country.

And what of that original guiding question? The main answer as I see it from Crandall is that the "Salvador Option" makes little sense when taken out of its own specific context, besides the conclusion that inserting yourself into civil war carries heavy ethical and practical implications that are rarely taken into consideration. Sadly, that is a point that gets forgotten by too many policy makers.

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Obama in Latin America Five Years Ago

Five years ago today I blogged about how President Obama was in El Salvador, after first going to Chile. He has a better team setting these trips up these days, I suppose, as back then multiple media outlets were asking why he was going, and the White House seemed unable to answer clearly. One similarity to his Argentina trip was an effort to bolster centrist governments (whether they be center-right or center-left).

Beside the announcement of declassifying documents, the trip to Argentina now may well be very similar to the El Salvador trip exactly five years ago. There will be some announcements, which will prompt further positive low-level connections between the two countries. The specifics of those announcements will be less important than the highly symbolic image of getting along. Argentines have the lowest opinion of the United States, so this matters.

This doesn't mean there will be any major breakthrough, and this visit will fade into memory. But as I've argued before, the continued low-level connections do matter, and foster better relations.

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Stopping Pregnancies in South America

Yesterday I wrote about the Salvadoran government telling women not to get pregnant for two years because of the Zika virus. I hadn't known that Colombia and Ecuador had done the same, as did Brazil. I'm still trying to get my head around the long-term implications, assuming the calls are actually heeded (which is open to question). If so, then at a minimum you'll end up with demographic "dents" (for lack of a better word) which will be felt later when the size of the working-age population is smaller.

But this scary stuff:

Nearly 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly have been reported in Brazil since October, compared with fewer than 150 cases in the country in all of 2014.

Incidentally, the role of mosquitoes in Latin America would be a great topic for research. Their effect on the development of the Panama Canal is legendary, and in general fighting them has been a highly political activity. This current Zika virus crisis shows how pervasive (and political) they continue to be.

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