3rd Generation Gangs

Criminal Insurgents

Third generation gangs (3G2) are one of the most frightening manifestations of globalization’s potential for “collateral damage.” These groups go beyond exploiting the seams of state legitimacy and create under-governed spaces that they can then dominate. Existing at the intersection of insurgency and crime, 3G2 are empowered by the globalization’s networks and capable of carving out niche territories in which they stand in as an alternate government.[1] Much of the literature on 3G2s, and use of the moniker itself, has sprung up on the past two decades. Upon closer analysis, 3G2s may simply be a new twist on a basic quest for efficacy.[2] Looking at the latest manifestation of 3G2 without efforts to find historical corollary runs the risk of needlessly re-learning lessons. This paper examines the environmental factors surrounding 3G2 to determine causality; especially in consideration of the social circumstances and market/network forces associated with 3G2. The thesis of this paper is that 3G2 are byproducts of globalization—insurgents who seek power through crime rather than politics.

Much current literature on 3G2 focuses on groups such as Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the Eighteenth street gang (M-18), but the tag has also been co-opted to describe almost any sophisticated transnational criminal organization (TCO).[3] Unfortunately, because the term implies an evolution of capabilities, and the characterization “third-generation” is so ubiquitous, understanding the underlying dynamics of 3G2 may be lost in hype as researchers uncover 3G gangs wherever they look. Therefore, the first task of an author is to strictly define the characteristics that make a gang “third-generation.” According to the term’s originator, gangs become 3G when they move from turf- and market-centric to taking on a political purpose and a networked, international structure.[4] These traits are ubiquitous and beg the question of whether 3G2 are truly new types of criminal syndicates, or simply a natural adaptation of criminal groups to changing social factors. The answer to this question is key to defining 3G2.

To begin with, what gangs are typically called “3G?” Compiling the lists offered by multiple authors, this paper offers a snapshot of 3G2 in table 1. For historical reference, the author has added few examples of past “gangs” that fit a similar characterization rubric as presented by Sullivan, Brands, and Manwaring (three leading authors on 3G2). None of the authors provides a compelling definition of their common rating structure (politicization, internationalization, network structure) but some broad themes become apparent in their application. The Crips and Bloods are deemed insufficiently political (since they primarily only terrorize each other).[10] The Central American gangs qualify as 3G2 since their use of terror extends to setting political conditions, such as influencing police and local security conditions.[11] Many of the Chicago based gangs seem to have been selected for their demonstrated willingness to perform “mercenary guerrilla action” including large-scale attacks against police using advanced weaponry.[12] The PCC is given the nod by Brands because it has made sophisticated terror attacks to influence the Brazilian government.[13] PAGAD and Hard Living in South Africa (the former a reaction against the latter) are nowhere near as international as the other gangs, but their use of networked organizational structure makes them 3G.[14] By this rubric, it becomes hard to exclude groups from being called 3G2. Perhaps the data needs to be looked at another way.

Looking at the point of origin for these groups, all seem to share some common traits such as an ethnic connection; a frustrated common sense of political efficacy; a diaspora network which crosses social-structural boundaries; and willingness to use illicit activities to increase their “value capacity.” Many of these concepts were the same factors that Ted Robert Gurr captured in his work Why Men Rebel. Gurr identified that violent actions by large groups; such as violent protests or violent enforcement of segregation and in-group policing; represents a reaction against a perceived efficacy gap. The groups which is “rebelling” against what they see as an illegitimate social order is doing so because they have experienced relative depravation and are using means which are outside of their societies “norms” to rectify the disparity.[15] Relative depravation is a perceived sense that a group is experiencing an unjust shortfall between their value expectations (the way things “should be”) and their value capacity (their actual condition).[16] Gurr was writing in a zeitgeist of communist insurgency, when groups were using terrorism and guerrilla warfare to topple what they perceived were oppressive regimes. These groups desired a better life and perceived that the government was holding them back. MS-13, the scion of 3G2s, demonstrates how criminal insurgency is motivated by similar factors.

MS-13’s membership was built among the diaspora of the civil war in El Salvador who fled to the United States. The development of ethnic gangs among immigrant populations is a common protection mechanism, and the lack of licit opportunities for the Salvadorian ex-pats became reason for the group to turn to illicit activities.[17],[18] This phenomenology was exacerbated by the fact that many of the Salvadorians were already trained in guerilla warfare and military operations.[19] These skillsets are congruent with criminal enterprise and it was a simple conversion to begin building violent, militant gangs.

When U.S. immigration policy changed in 1994, thousands of MS-13 gang-members were shipped back to El Salvador.[20] At that point, relative deprivation of the MS-13 community increased. Being an up-and-coming gangster in L.A. is a far better life than the slums of Honduras and El Salvador, and criminal skill sets that had been honed in competition with other gangs and a savvy Los Angeles police force were now unleashed upon weak states. In addition, the diaspora linkages that MS-13 could maintain between Central America and the United States gave them an illicit avenue to achieve efficacy that was impossible through legal mechanisms or socially “normal” conduct. Gangsters who remained in the United States could send resources south, and those same exchange networks could be plied in reverse to generate revenue.

In a normal criminal syndicate, organized crime (OC) is able to generate wealth, but the efficacy achieved through OC outfits familiar to the American social consciousness is only a incremental advantage over the non-criminal lifestyle. Television mobster Tony Soprano lives in a large house in an upper-class neighborhood, but that’s generally no better than a law-abiding upper-class citizen. As 3G2 quickly discovered, the efficacy potential of illicit wealth is massively magnified by the impoverished conditions of the communities that they home-base in. One estimate of the Mexican drug cartels is that for every dollar of pure profit they achieve, $2-3 is pumped back into the Mexican economy.[21] Considering that illicit proceeds from narcotics alone accounts for over 7% of the GDP of Mexico—exceeding the budget of Mexico’s federal government—it is no wonder that the cartels are able to achieve such impressive power.[22],[23] The criminal insurgency of 3G2 is giving them more power than the government, negating their need to wage a political insurgency to achieve political efficacy. The wealth can also give them popular appeal, despite the fact that the bling is obviously paid for thru ill-gotten gains.[24]

The fact that 3G2s are circumscribing political insurgencies via criminal insurgencies seems to be an oblique nod to the decline of Westphalean states into “security states.”[25] Since states have abdicated more and more instruments of political efficacy to market forces, insurgents have less need to topple governments. Whereas Castro’s Foconistas had to topple the political structure of Cuba to gain control over the Cuban economy, governments have since been shedding control over social commerce and value structures in favor of holding onto their sovereign capacity for inter-state violence.[26] This has meant that the criminal insurgent, who can extort the value potential of a society directly, has little need to topple the government. Many 3G2 are actually better served by co-opting government sovereignty to protect their business.

To be clear, there is a difference between good governance and political efficacy. Good governance implies a functionally effective social structure that can apportion limited resources among the unlimited desires of an entire population. 3G2s in many countries are enjoying some popular assent because they are able to regulate the disorder that was either endemic to the gangs home-base, or that their own lawless and violent activities incited. This is similar to the way Castro incited crisis in the Cuban population near his guerilla stronghold of Sierra Maestra in order to look like a public benefactor when he “restored” order.[27] The ability to regulate disorder is not governance, but it is a rudimentary structure for political efficacy.

Political efficacy is an unbounded desire to live on “one’s own terms.”[28] Groups will come together in order to increase their political efficacy, and groups with power that exceeds legal restraints on efficacy will normally exert extra-legal power. Thus, the tendency towards criminal insurgency can be seen as an aspirational form of political expression. The stronger the relative depravation, particularly acute in the segregated ethnic communities in which 3G2 thrive, the more likely the group will turn to Gurr’s “rebellious means.” The fact that many of these gangs home-base in areas where the government has marginal capacity to enhance the efficacy of the people means that the government is vulnerable to an insurgency.[29]

The fact that globalization has reduced the government’s control over access to efficacy means that the economy, rather than the government is likely to be the target of the insurgent. In the case of 3G2, they are using their power to live on their own terms by extorting markets and networks that are governed by laws of economics and nature—rather than the laws of states. The key take-away is that the degree of relative depravation (RD) in a group sets conditions where it will take social action to increase its efficacy. When RD clears a critical threshold, an insurgency is likely to occur. The format for the insurgency depends upon social factors. Globalization is a social factor that has massively altered how RD is felt, and the means available to achieve efficacy. As the power of governments dwindles relative to the efficacy capacity of criminals, insurgents are more likely to corner power criminally, rather than politically.

Globalization has opened markets in an unprecedented way. Whereas it is common to speak of a licit “white market” and an illicit “black market,” they are flip-sides of the same coin.[30] Where globalization has spread the one, it inevitably spreads the other. Also, these markets are less beholden to the laws of states than they are to the fundamental laws of economics; of which the most important is that demand generates supply.[31] In affluent nations with demand for narcotics, the price consumers can support obviously exceeds the supplier’s cost and risk threshold to enter the market. The $10T global black market is fueled to a huge extent by the value proposition between rich nations who demand illicit goods, and poor nations who demand wealth.[32] In both cases, the market participants are achieving efficacy. As an expanded marketplace improves individuals’ ability to achieve efficacy regardless of congruence with governmental regulations, the power of market participants grows relative to the government. With the trade in illicit goods managed by 3G2s often exceeding the value of the entire budget of host governments, licit “forces of control” cannot compete with the power, and hence efficacy, of criminal groups.[33],[34] Boyd said that individuals submit to groups who can best assure their efficacy—as this capacity shifts from a political to economic market it is natural that insurgents go from being political to criminal.[35]

The next contributing factor is the self-perpetuating role of self-interested networks. All of the 3G2 authors discuss their impressive exploitation of networked architectures. In fact, one of the discriminating factors of 3G2s is that their loose, non-hierarchical networks are often less vulnerable to intrusion and “top-down” law enforcement solutions.[36] Much of this literature seems to tout the fact that 3G2s exploit a loose network of specialists and affiliates to keep a very flat organization rather than the vertical structure of second-generation mafias.[37] The explanatory factor is, again, that the structure of societies has changed due to globalization.

Individuals with specialized skills, such as ex-military, law-enforcement, legal or transportation expertise are all now enabled to be self-interested market participants. All of these skill-sets can now be plied by 3G2 to perform guerilla tactics, counter-surveillance, “lawfare” and learning to use licit logistics networks for illicit purposes.[38] Skills which used to be restricted to government run or government affiliated groups (such as militaries, police departments, law schools or port authorities) are now run by “for profit” agencies. This has had three important effects. First, it has increased the number of market participants. Second, it has increased the profit-seeking motive of market participants. Third; combined with the ubiquity of international currency exchange; it has increased the amount of value shedding which the network is able to sustain, enhancing the ability of networks to be dynamically resilient.

Value shedding makes flat organizations possible. When networks have high risks, or require complex trust structures, they tend to organize vertically. Early European banks tended to be built upon familial or ethnic ties. The Sicilian Cosa Nostra (LCN) mirrored this structure since mafia operations tended to be high risk, have long lulls between payoff, and required the use of laundering to dissociate profits from crime.[39] As economies have commoditized transactions, reduced arbitrage barriers and made more “off the books” transactions possible, less scrutiny—and hence trust —is required by organizations. 3G2 are not so much innovators who have discovered a new way to make criminal networks more robust; but are rather simply beneficiaries of the fact that globalization has made flatter organizations possible.[40]

The fact that licit networks have more links and nodes means that there are more links and nodes that illicit networks can also use. The fact that the devolution of skill-sets has made criminal networks flatter and more robust; all fueled by communication technology and ubiquitous/reliable global currency structure; simply means that criminals can exploit the same value potentials made possible by globalization. Just as licit markets have been able to realize the dynamic resiliency of a global network that adds value to the exchange of licit goods at each node of the network; illicit trade sheds fungible value at many nodes, greasing the network and motivating continued illicit trade.

So the fact that 3G2s are using complex network structures simply means they are enjoying the same advantages of globalization as the rest of the licit world. Networked structure therefore seems to be a poor definitional characteristic for 3G2s. In the same vein, using “internationalization” seems to be a meaningless characteristic because it is hard to find an entity that is not becoming more international in the era of globalization. What really seems to make 3G2s unique is that they are criminal insurgencies. The initial goal may have simply been profit, but as the efficacy achieved through profit reaches a certain point, the gangs seek the efficacy itself. The case of the FARC in Colombia is instructive. While the FARC originally sought efficacy through a political insurgency, it eventually became fixated upon criminal activity. Dismissing this transition as simple greed without examining the sociological motives of the shift may blind observers to an important case study. The FARC is an insurgency that spanned globalization. Perhaps its evolution is illustrative of how globalization changed the nature of insurgency.

A counter argument to the idea of 3G2s as criminal insurgencies would be to point out the fact that there are still plenty of plain old political insurgencies in the world. There are cultural schemas likely to create ideological barriers to seeking efficacy through a criminal insurgency. For instance, a nexus between criminal insurgencies and Muslim insurgencies seems unlikely. [41] Globalization is not driving all insurgencies to criminal, rather than political dimensions; but it does seem to be a new way for a group to achieve efficacy.

Ultimately, 3G2s deserve far more study. Study of the FARC in particular would probably be extremely productive. Rather than considering their transition to criminality as a “failure” of their ideology, it may simply be an evolution of their format. If anything, the fact that 3G2s pose a serious threat to the fabric of Westphalean sovereignty means that counterinsurgent techniques, in addition to law-enforcement techniques, may be required to contain them as a threat.

[1] Brands, 2.

[2] Sullivan’s use of the term “third-generation gangs” in 1997 is the original use of the term in context (Sullivan, 1997: 95); but literature on the evolution of gangs with similar attributes can be found for the Maras in El Salvador in the 1980s, the Italian community in New York in the 1930s, and the Irish Community in Boston at the turn of the century.

[3] Brands, 2; Manwaring, 1.

[4] Sullivan, 1997, 100.

[5] Ibid., 104.

[6] Brands, 1.

[7] Sullivan and Elkus.

[8] Wiles.

[9] Delbrück, 4.

[10] Ibid., 104.

[10] Brands, 1.

[11] Sullivan and Elkus.

[11] Wiles.

[13] Brands, 3.

[14] Sullivan, 1997, 100.

[15] Gurr, 54.

[16] Ibid, 7.

[17] Spergel, 172.

[18] Gordon, 72; Portez and Fernandez-Kelley, 12.

[19] Manwaring, 3.

[20] Rogers, 25.

[21] Sierra.

[22] Trading Exonomics, “Mexico Government Budget,” http://www.tradingeconomics.com/mexico/government-budget (accessed May 8, 2012).

[23] “Drug Cartels Stealing Billions of Dollars of Mexico’s Oil,” Reuters Wire, July 25, 2011, http://rbo2.com/2011/07/25/drug-cartels-stealing-billions-of-dollars-of-mexicos-oil/ (accessed May 8, 2012).

[24] Gordon.

[25] Rotberg, 2.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Hampsey, 25.

[28] Boyd, 2.

[29] Rotberg, 8.

[30] Wechsler, 45.

[31] Smith, 74.

[32] Neuwirth.

[33] Ibid.

[34] “Forces of Control” from Skocpol, 269.

[35] Boyd, 2.

[36] Rogers, 20.

[37] Friman.

[38] “Lawfare” is the use of a nation’s laws against them. This is a new aspect of an asymmetric strategy where a weaker force exploits non-traditional form of conflict to achieve their goals. Benjamin Wittes of Harvard Law and the Brookings Project on Law and National Security maintains an active blob about this developing forum of conflict.

[39] FBI, LCN overview, http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/italian_mafia (accessed May 8, 2012).

[40] Friedman, 410.

[41] Rogers, 20.

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