Title Registration for a Systematic Review: Predictors of Youth Gang Membership in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review

BACKGROUND Youth gangs are identified internationally with increased rates of delinquency and violent crime (Howell, 1997; Klein, 2002; White, 2002), including trafficking in arms, drugs and (increasingly) humans (Organisation of American States [OAS], 2007). Gang members are disproportionately involved with serious and violent offences compared to non-gang delinquent youth (Howell, 1998). This suggests that something about gang membership encourages violence over and above the correlation between having delinquent friends and a previous delinquent history (Battin, Hill, Abbott, Catalano, & Hawkins, 1998)..

Title Registration for a Systematic Review: Preventive Interventions to Reduce Youth Gang Violence in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review

BACKGROUND Youth gang violence is a problem that is widespread throughout the developing world. Research suggests that over 85,000 people are members of gangs in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras (Seelke, 2013) and that gang activities – and particularly those of youth gangs – contribute significantly to the violent crime problem in low- and middle-income countries. The cost of violence in Latin America is estimated at approximately 14.2 per cent of GDP – almost three times the proportion of GDP reported in industrialised countries (Seelke, 2013). Gang violence makes up a significant proportion of this cost: the annual cost of violent crime in El Salvador is reported at US$ 1.7 billion, with gang violence accounting for 60 per cent (Seelke, 2013)..

Protocol: Predictors of youth gang membership in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

BACKGROUND The Problem There is evidence of gang violence in low- and middle-income countries in Africa and Asia, and the prevalence of gangs is particularly well documented throughout Central and South America (Decker & Pyrooz, 2010; Gatti et al., 2011). Official estimates of gang membership in Central America estimate approximately 69,000 members, while academic estimates believe this figure to be closer to 200,000 (UNODC, 2007). Some estimates are as high as 500,000 gang members in the region including South America and the Caribbean, and gangs have been identified as “the primary threat to regional stability and security” (Muggah & Aguirre, 2013). While reporting and recording issues make it difficult to estimate rates of gang violence, the homicide rate in Colombia, Brazil, El Salvador and Guatemala are substantially higher than those of European and North American countries (Decker & Pyrooz, 2010; UNODC, 2007). Gangs are also active in South Africa, with an estimate of 100,000 members in Western Cape alone (Reckson & Becker, cited in Decker & Pyrooz, 2010); however, to date, there is limited research examining gangs in Africa and Asia..

The neighborhood context of hate crime: a comparison of violent and property offenses using rare events modeling

Many studies into the antecedents of hate crime in the neighborhood combine offense categories, meaning that it is unclear whether or not there are distinct contextual factors associated with violent and property hate offenses. This study uses rare events modeling to examine the household and neighborhood factors associated with violent and property offenses. Using the Australian Community Capacity Study, the study focuses on the neighborhood characteristics influencing self-reported violent and property hate crime for 4,396 residents in Brisbane. Findings demonstrate important differences between the offense types. Violence is predicted by household renting and non-English language, whereas property offenses are predicted by household non-English language, neighborhood median income, and change in non-English-speaking residents. In both offense types, neighborhood place attachment acts as a protective factor. These findings highlight the theoretical implications of combining distinct hate crime types for methodological reasons

The harms of hate: comparing the neighbouring practices and interactions of hate crime victims, non-hate crime victims and non-victims

Studies have demonstrated that hate crime victimisation has harmful effects for individuals. Victims of hate crime report anger, nervousness, feeling unsafe, poor concentration and loss of self-confidence. While victims of non-hate crimes report similar feelings, harm is intensified for hate crime victims due to the targeted nature of the incident. While there is some evidence that experiencing or even witnessing hate crime may have a detrimental effect on residents’ community life, the effects of being victim of a hate crime inside one’s own neighbourhood remain unstudied. Using census data combined with survey data from 4396 residents living across 148 neighbourhoods in Brisbane, Australia, this study examines whether residents who report hate crime within their own neighbourhood differ in their participation in community life when compared to victims of non-hate crime or those who have not been victimised. This is the first study to focus on victims’ views on: how welcoming their neighbourhood is to ethnic diversity; their attachment to their neighbourhood; their frequency of social interactions with neighbours; their number of friends and acquaintances in the neighbourhood; and their fear of crime. Results from propensity score matching (PSM) indicate that there are important differences in patterns of neighbourhood participation across these three groups

The effect of ethnic diversity on collective efficacy in Australia

Ethnic diversity is portrayed in the literature as a threat to a community’s ability to regulate the behaviour of its members. While there is no shortage of studies examining the effects of ethnic diversity on the social processes important for crime control, findings are inconclusive across national contexts. Further, definitional issues associated with ‘ethnicity’ make cross-cultural comparisons difficult. Using Australian Community Capacity Study survey data from 4091 respondents in 147 Brisbane suburbs, combined with census and police incident data, multivariate regression techniques are utilised to determine the extent to which ethnic diversity influences collective efficacy once we control for other known correlates; and which aspect of diversity ‘matters most’ to levels of collective efficacy. Specifically, we consider the relationship between the diversity or concentration of language, religion and country of birth and collective efficacy. Results indicate that the presence of language diversity and indigeneity in the community are most detrimental to collective efficacy

Ethnic hate crime in Australia: diversity and change in the neighbourhood context

Ecological theories of racially or ethnically motivated hate crime are largely derived from the United States, where racial segregation is highly pronounced. The extent to which these theories explain hate crime in more ethnically integrated countries is presently unclear. We focus on the neighbourhood characteristics influencing self-reported hate crime for 4,396 residents in a city experiencing growing ethnic diversity. We find that the neighbourhood antecedents of hate crime in the Australian context differ from those seen in the United States. While residents speaking a language other than English is a powerful predictor of incidents, neither residential mobility nor increases in in-migration are associated with hate victimization, and neighbourhood place attachment decreases the likelihood of victimization. Our findings suggest that ecological theories of hate crime derived from the United States may be limited in their applicability in multi-ethnic settings