Criminal Governance in Latin America in Comparative Perspective: Introduction to the Special Issue

Organizers: Benjamin Lessing (UChicago, USA), Joana Monteiro (FGV, Brazil), and Michel Misse (UFRJ, Brazil

Gobierno criminal en Medellín: panorama general del fenómeno y evidencia empírica sobre cómo enfrentarlo

En muchas ciudades del mundo, los grupos de crimen organizado representan una amenaza creciente para la paz y el desarrollo. Estos gru- pos generan altos niveles de violencia, operan economías ilegales y corrompen diferentes niveles de la política y la administración pública. En muchos casos, los mencionados grupos ejercen además funciones similares a las de los Estados, entre las que se incluyen resolver disputas y problemas de las comunidades, imponer reglas de comportamiento, prestar se- guridad, administrar justicia y cobrar impuestos. Al ejercicio de estas funciones se le conoce en la literatura como gobierno criminal. Medellín no es ajena a lo anterior. Los principales problemas de seguridad ciudadana que tiene la ciudad están íntimamente relacionados con una compleja y sofisticada estructura de grupos criminales que no solo controlan la actividad delincuencial, sino que gobiernan numerosas comunidades. En otras palabras, la mayoría de las expresiones delictivas de Medellín no están asociadas con actores individuales y lógicas de oportunidad o violencia expresiva. Al contrario, la mayor parte del crimen de la ciudad es ins- trumental y organizado. Entre los problemas generados por el crimen organizado en la ciudad se encuentran el homicidio, la extorsión, la venta de drogas, el reclutamiento de niños, niñas y adolescentes, y el gobierno criminal de cientos de habitantes de barrios de ingreso bajo y medio-bajo. Con el objetivo de comprender el funcionamie nto de los grupos de crimen organizado de Medellín y evaluar intervenciones de política pública dirigidas a reducir el gobierno criminal ejercido por ellos, desde finales de 2016 dife- rentes investigadores de Innovations for Po- verty Action (IPA), la Universidad de Chicago y la Universidad EAFIT hemos venido recogiendo información sobre ellos2. Esto lo hemos hecho a través de entrevistas con integrantes de diferen- tes grupos de crimen organizado, así como con expertos, funcionarios públicos y habitantes y líderes de diferentes barrios de la ciudad. Ade- más, con el objetivo de medir algunos de los problemas asociados con el crimen organizado, a finales de 2019 realizamos una encuesta sobre gobierno criminal en la que participaron 6.977 encuestados (4.868 hogares y 2.109 negocios). La encuesta fue realizada en los barrios de Me- dellín en donde el estrato predominante es 1, 2, 3 o 4, así como en 8 barrios de Bello e Itagüí que comparten frontera con Medellín. En total, la en- cuesta cubrió 232 barrios y su representatividad fue tanto a nivel de comuna como de barrio. Los principales temas abordados en ella fueron las funciones de gobierno ejercidas por los grupos criminales, la extorsión y los préstamos gota a gota o paga diario. Además de ofrecer información sobre un fenómeno que no había sido medido antes de manera sis- temática, la encuesta nos permitió realizar dos evaluaciones de impacto dirigidas a estudiar cómo se puede reducir el gobierno criminal. La primera evaluación analizó el efecto de aumentar la distancia entre los ciudadanos y los equipamientos urbanos en los que el gobierno local de la ciudad ofrece algunos servicios de resolución de conflictos y de policía. La segunda evaluación estimó el efecto de una intervención implementada por la Secretaría de Seguridad y Convivencia de la Alcaldía de Medellín entre 2018 y 2019, cuyo propósito fue desplazar a los grupos de crimen organizado de sus funciones de gobierno. Entre los hallazgos principales descritos en este documento se encuentran los siguientes: En Medellín existen alrededor de 350 combos, la mayoría de los cuales están subordinados a una de las entre 15 y 20 bandas que existen en la ciudad • En muchos barrios de la ciudad los combos ejercen gobierno criminal, por ejemplo, a través de la prestación de servicios relaciona- dos con la gestión de problemas cotidianos. Algunos de los servicios más comunes se relacionan con la gestión de problemas de seguridad y el no pago de deudas. • Los niveles de gobierno criminal varían mucho a lo largo de la ciudad. En algunos barrios los combos son la autoridad, pues, con motivo de algunos tipos de problemas, ejercen más funciones de gobierno que el Estado. • Los combos y el Estado no son sustitutos a la hora de ejercer funciones de gobierno. Muchos ciudadanos parecen ver a los com- bos como un complemento del Estado. • El gobierno criminal está correlacionado con la extorsión y los préstamos gota a gota, incluso al controlar por ingreso y otros facto- res. Esto sugiere que la extracción de rentas ilegales es uno de los motivos por los que los combos gobiernan. • Los niveles reales de gobierno criminal y otros fenómenos asociados como la ex- torsión son mucho más altos que los estima- dos por las autoridades en las encuestas de victimización y percepción de seguridad. • Contrariamente a lo esperado, incrementar el gobierno del Estado puede aumentar el gobi- erno criminal. Esto puede ser consecuencia de la decepción de los ciudadanos frente a los fallos del Estado, del ejercicio de ventajas comparativas por parte de los grupos crimi- nales o de la captura del Estado por parte de éstos. • A pesar de lo anterior, es posible reducir el gobierno criminal mediante el aumento del gobierno del Estado. Para lograrlo son nece- sarias intervenciones innovadoras que an- ticipen las posibles formas como los grupos criminales reaccionarán ante dicho aumento. Con base en los anteriores hallazgos, este documento plantea las siguientes recomendaciones: - No volver a implementar la Intervención Microterritorial bajo el esquema previamente utilizado, un esquema incapaz de suminis- trar servicios en una medida cercana a las expectativas ciudadanas. - Poner en marcha un proceso para diseñar e implementar intervenciones innovadoras, dirigidas a enfrentar el gobierno criminal, la extorsión y otros fenómenos asociados con el crimen organizado.Universidad EAFIT Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) The University of Chicago Proantioqui

The Influence of Manga on the Graphic Novel

This material has been published in The Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel edited by Jan Baetens, Hugo Frey, Stephen E. Tabachnick. This version is free to view and download for personal use only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © Cambridge University PressProviding a range of cogent examples, this chapter describes the influences of the Manga genre of comics strip on the Graphic Novel genre, over the last 35 years, considering the functions of domestication, foreignisation and transmedia on readers, markets and forms

As facções cariocas em perspectiva comparativa

Entre os especialistas em segurança pública, tornou-se lugar-comum a idéia de que a guerra do tráfico no Rio de Janeiro é totalmente única no Brasil. Porém, essa afirmação é imprecisa. Organizações de narcotráfico em muitos aspectos comparáveis às facções cariocas existem em outros contextos urbanos. O que as diferencia é menos a capacidade de estabelecer o monopólio local sobre o comércio de drogas do que a resiliência da sua estrutura interna e, portanto, a duração da sua existência e dominação. Durante uma pesquisa de campo em nove comunidades de periferia de três cidades, observei não apenas uma alta variação nos graus de concentração entre os mercados locais de drogas, mas também de variação com o tempo dentro da mesma comunidade. Desta perspectiva, a estabilidade do mercado de drogas altamente concentrado do Rio de Janeiro pode ser visto como um equilíbrio único, no qual as forças de fragmentação operantes em outras cidades são neutralizadas por características específicas das facções cariocas. O meu argumento é o de que tais características decorrem do domínio exercido pelas facções sobre o sistema penitenciário desde antes do início da sua expansão para o comércio de drogas

The Logic of Violence in Criminal War: Cartel-State Conflict in Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil

Why do drug cartels fight states? Episodes of armed conflict between drug cartels and states in Colombia, Brazil and Mexico have demonstrated that `criminal wars' can be just as destructive as civil wars. Yet insurgents in civil wars stand a reasonable chance of winning formal concessions of territory or outright victory. Why fight the state if, like drug cartels, you seek neither to topple nor secede from it?Equally puzzling are the divergent effects of state crackdowns. Mexico's militarized crackdown in 2006 was intended to quickly break up the cartels and curtail incipient inter-cartel and anti-state violence; five years later, splintered cartels are an order of magnitude more violent, with over 16,000 homicides and 600 of attacks on army troops in 2011 alone. Conversely, in Rio de Janeiro, a massive November 2010 invasion by state forces of a key urban zone that had been under cartel dominion for a generation failed to produce the grisly bloodbath that even the government's defenders predicted. Instead, it heralded what appears to be a decisive shift by cartels away from confrontation. Why do some crackdowns lead to violent blowback, while others successfully curtail cartel-state conflict?The key to both puzzles lies in a fundamental difference between cartel-state conflict and civil war. Cartels turn to anti-state violence, not, as in civil war, in hopes of conquering mutually prized territory or resources, but to influence state policy. Like many interest groups, cartels expend resources to influence policy, usually acting at the level of policy enforcement, through corruption, but sometimes also at the level of policy formation, through lobbying. Yet licit interest groups are not targeted for destruction by the state, and generally possess no means of physical coercion. Cartels always face some level of state repression, but fighting back usually provokes even greater repression. Often, this leads them to `hide' rather than `fight', using anonymity and bribes to minimize confrontation; under certain conditions, though, violence may seem the best pathway to policy influence. The decision to turn to violent forms of policy influence is thus highly sensitive to what the state is doing; shifts in state policy, especially crackdowns, can trigger sharp variation in cartel-state conflict.This study first distinguishes the logics of violent corruption and violent lobbying, as well as dynamics deriving from turf war among cartels, then identifies the conditions that make each logic operative. Violent corruption---epitomized by drug lord Pablo Escobar's infamous phrase "plata o plomo?" (bribe or bullet?)---is central; it occurs, in all three cases, prior to and with greater consistency than violent lobbying or other mechanisms. States face a dilemma: they cannot crack down on traffickers without inadvertently giving corrupt enforcers (police, judges, etc.) additional leverage to extract bribes. A formal model of bribe negotiation illustrates the cartel's choice: simply pay the larger bribe, or use the threat of violence to intimidate enforcers and reduce the equilibrium bribe demand. The central finding is that blanket crackdowns in a context of widespread corruption can increase cartels' incentives to fight back, whereas more focused crackdowns that hinge on cartel behavior induce non-violent strategies. Conditionality of repression--the degree to which repressive force is applied in proportion to the amount of violence used by cartels--is thus a critical factor behind the divergent response of cartels to crackdowns across cases. A move toward conditional crackdowns occurred both in Colombia, after Escobar's demise and the fragmenting of the drug market, and in Rio de Janeiro, with its innovative `pacification' strategy. In both cases, cartels have shifted away from confrontation and toward non-violent `hiding' strategies. In Mexico, by contrast, the state has insisted on pursuing all cartels without distinction, leading to sharp increases in cartel-state violence.Other, less central logics help explain contrasting modalities of cartel violence. 'Violent lobbying', in the form of narco-terrorism and direct negotiation with state leaders, is dramatic and chilling, but only makes strategic sense when there is an open policy question that cartels can realistically hope to influence. Moreover, if the benefits of policy change are 'public' or non-excludable, violent lobbying is subject to the free-rider problem, and only likely to occur if cartels can cooperate. Thus violent lobbying has been intense in Colombia, where cartels were initially united and extradition remained an open policy question for a decade; occasional in Brazil where a dominant cartel uses it to influence carceral policy, and relatively rare in Mexico, where cartels are fragmented and the president's high-profile `ownership' of his crackdown creates overwhelming audience costs to policy change.Inter-cartel turf war is far more intense in Mexico than elsewhere, driving logics of reputation-building and false-flag attacks, and contributing to the prominence of `propagandistic' violence like mutilation and `narco-messages'. These turf-war dynamics are reinforced by the government's kingpin strategy and its splintering of the cartels. Moreover, fragmentation has a general-equilibrium effect on the maximum pressure the state can apply to any one cartel, given its unconditional approach. This further reduces the sanction cartels face for using violence, and drives the escalatory spiral presently gripping Mexico.The study concludes by asking why leaders do or do not adopt conditional strategies. Even when leaders would like to do so, they face both 'logistical constraints' arising from low capacity and fragmented security institutions, and 'acceptability constraints' deriving from the negative optics of `going easy' on less violent cartels (a necessary component of conditional repression). Case evidence helps identify political circumstances that minimize these constraints. Coalitions or partisan hegemony can mitigate institutional fragmentation, while the 'Nixon-Goes-to-China' effect allows leaders perceived as hardliners to overcome acceptability constraints, particularly if they present conditionality as a tactical, operational imperative

Governança Criminal na América Latina em Perspectiva Comparada: Apresentação à edição especial

Organizadores: Benjamin Lessing (UChicago, EUA), Joana Monteiro (FGV, Brasil) e Michel Misse (UFRJ, Brasil

Replication Data for: Legitimacy in Criminal Governance: Managing a Drug Empire from Behind Bars

Abstract: States, rebels, and mafias all provide governance beyond their core membership; increasingly, so do prison gangs. U.S. gangs leverage control over prison life to govern street-level drug markets. Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) gang goes further, orchestrating paralyzing attacks on urban targets, while imposing a social order throughout slums that sharply reduces homicides. We analyze hundreds of seized PCC documents detailing its drug business and internal disciplinary system. Descriptively, we find: vast, consignment-based trafficking operations whose profits fund collective benefits for members’ families; elaborate bureaucratic procedures and recordkeeping; and overwhelmingly nonviolent punishments for debt-nonpayment and misconduct. These features, we argue, reflect a deliberate strategy of creating rational-bureaucratic legitimacy in criminal governance. The PCC’s collectivist norms, fair procedures, and meticulous “criminal criminal records” facilitate community stigmatization of infractors, giving mild sanctions punitive heft and inducin

Legitimacy in Criminal Governance: Managing a Drug Empire from Behind Bars

States, rebels, and mafias all provide governance beyond their core membership; increasingly, so do prison gangs. U.S. gangs leverage control over prison life to govern street-level drug markets. Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) gang goes further, orchestrating paralyzing attacks on urban targets, while imposing a social order throughout slums that sharply reduces homicides. We analyze hundreds of seized PCC documents detailing its drug business and internal disciplinary system. Descriptively, we find: vast, consignment-based trafficking operations whose profits fund collective benefits for members’ families; elaborate bureaucratic procedures and recordkeeping; and overwhelmingly nonviolent punishments for debt-nonpayment and misconduct. These features, we argue, reflect a deliberate strategy of creating rational-bureaucratic legitimacy in criminal governance. The PCC’s collectivist norms, fair procedures, and meticulous “criminal criminal records” facilitate community stigmatization of infractors, giving mild sanctions punitive heft and inducing widespread voluntary compliance without excessive coercion. This has aided the PCC’s rapid expansion across Brazil.We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Social Science Research Council/Open Society Foundations, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, the Center for International Social Science Research and the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflict at the University of Chicago, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Benjamin Lessing received additional support from award W911-NF-1710044 from the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Army Research Office/Army Research Laboratory under the Minerva Research Initiative. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to any of these agencies or foundations

Panel de expertos: Tendencias actuales del crimen transnacional organizado en las Américas

¿Cómo ha evolucionado el crimen organizado en las Américas durante 2018? ¿Cuáles son las principales tendencias, actores y economías criminales que han sido dominantes durante el año? En este panel analizaremos estos temas e identificaremos los principales acontecimientos criminales del año