🛡️ The paradox of street gangs

When young delinquents are asked why they joined a street gang, many answer that they were seeking protection.

This response is surprising when we know that, according to several studies, members of street gangs and those affiliated with these groups are at higher risk of being victims of violent acts. This paradox intrigued Yanick Charette, a professor at the School of Social Work and Criminology, who sought to better understand the dynamics of violence within these criminalized groups.


In an article published in the Journal of Criminal Justice, he presents the findings of research he conducted using police records. By examining reports related to violent acts committed by or against 1,587 Haitian street gang members or individuals affiliated with these gangs over a 20-year period in Montreal, Yanick Charette was able to show that gangs are composed of different relational cores and that violence is concentrated in certain ones.

Being a victim of a violent act is rarely random

Several factors influence the risk of being a victim of such an act, including individual characteristics such as gender, age, ethnicity, or education level. According to a U.S. study, young Black men are 12 times more likely than the general population to be victims of violent acts. The principle of the victim-offender overlap also explains that individuals who have already committed a violent offense are more likely to become victims of violence themselves. Finally, violent crimes are generally perpetrated by an acquaintance or by an acquaintance of an acquaintance.

"In most cases, there is a link between the perpetrator of a violent act and the victim. This is true for domestic violence and sexual violence, and it is also true for armed violence. This link can be positive or negative—meaning the acquaintance can be an ally or a rival. And the link can be direct or indirect. In other words, if Paul knows George who knows Albert, there is a link between Paul and Albert, even if they don't know each other," explains Yanick Charette.

Violence cores and protection cores

Previous research has shown that the risk of being a victim of violence is about 5 times higher in a street gang than in the general population. However, these studies did not examine the risk for an individual based on their position within the group. "These groups are heterogeneous and composed of several differently structured microcosms. Our hypothesis was that the risk was not evenly distributed within a gang and depended on the network of relationships an individual maintains with other members of a criminalized group," reports Professor Charette.

The results of his research support this. They reveal a strong correlation between microcosms that use violence and those that suffer from it. "Thus, there is no hierarchy between groups that would be aggressors and others that would be victims. On the contrary, groups with a high concentration of aggressors also have a high concentration of victims," says Yanick Charette. Forming relationships with violent criminals or victims of criminal acts therefore increases the risk of becoming a victim of violence oneself. This increased risk persists up to 3 degrees of separation—meaning the link between oneself and the acquaintance of an acquaintance of an acquaintance. Beyond that, the effects diminish significantly. "We observe that retaliations between street gangs rarely exceed these 3 degrees of separation," notes Yanick Charette.


Another finding is that it is not just the presence of a connection between peers that influences risk, but also how these connections are formed. "In a street gang, not all members commit violent acts. For example, there are offenders who do not participate in armed altercations but only deal with drug trafficking. Their risk of being victims of violence may decrease depending on the density of their connections within the network," explains the researcher.

Within a group, interrelations can be described as open or closed. It only takes three people who know each other to form a closed node, called a triad. "The more triads there are in a microcosm," he says, "the denser the relational network." Being part of a network with multiple triads provides a certain level of social protection.

An explainable paradox

The motivation to join a gang for protection no longer seems as absurd and paradoxical as it might initially appear. Protection—or at least a much less precarious situation than the one mistakenly believed to be widespread—does indeed seem to emerge from non-violent microcosms within street gangs. It is likely this relational dynamic that explains the paradox and encourages some individuals to affiliate with these groups.

Better understanding the dynamics of violence within street gangs helps identify individuals within these gangs who would be most likely to renounce violent offenses, thereby reducing the escalation of violence. Following these findings and those of other similar studies, violence prevention interventions have been implemented in Quebec.

The study by Yanick Charette and Ilvy Goossens from the research center at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton was published in the Journal of Criminal Justice.