Gangs in Central America

By Chris Hershberger Esh, MCC’s Context Analyst for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Mexico City.

In Central America, Evangelical churches are similar to gangs, Robert Brenneman explained to a group of MCC partners at a conference in Bogota. The participants, from a variety of community organizations and churches around Colombia, reacted with surprised laughter.

Brenneman went on to explain himself. Young people join gangs looking for a sense of identity. They submit themselves to the rules and orders of the gang in exchange for a feeling of belonging. The gang has a tight hierarchy and takes precedent over all other commitments in the gang member’s life.

Evangelical churches in Central America may be the opposite in lifestyle and morals, but they are parallel in structure. Churches offer congregants a tight community, strict rules, a sense of belonging, and regular meetings. Leaving a gang is incredibly difficult, but gang members that successfully leave primarily do so through an evangelical church.

This concept was central to Brenneman’s doctoral thesis, which was later published as a book, Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America. Brenneman, a sociologist at St. Michaels College in Vermont, shared his research at a three-day encuentro on responses to urban violence for MCC partners in Colombia.

He opened the conference with an explanation of the structural, social and individual factors that draw people into gangs, and what evangelical and catholic churches have done to help get people out. Following his presentation, a half dozen MCC partners shared about their programs encouraging alternatives to violence in urban and rural areas of Colombia.

In Central America, some people attribute high rates of gang membership and violence to poverty.  While most gang members do indeed come from poor barrios, comparing homicide rates and per capita income tells a different story.

Honduras has the highest homicide rate in Central America, followed by El Salvador, Guatemala and, far below the rest, Nicaragua. Despite being the poorest of these four, Nicaragua has the lowest homicide rate. El Salvador, with the highest per capita income of the four, has the second highest homicide rate.

Brenneman theorizes that it’s not absolute poverty that drives gang violence but relative poverty, or inequality.  Nicaragua has the lowest rate of inequality, whereas Honduras or El Salvador have the highest (depending on what measure of inequality is used).  Being poor in a poor village creates a lot less collective shame than living in a poor barrio next to a wealthy, gated community.

Brenneman’s thesis is based on interviews with 63 ex-gang members. Almost all of the participants experienced rejection or abuse from their families, and eventually found a new “family” in a gang. When reflecting on their early days in the gang, many of the interviewees talked about the wonderful feeling of belonging, identity and importance that they experienced for the first time in their lives. Violence and power became an outlet for their shame.

But while violence may temporarily reduce shame, once the adrenaline wears off and the praise from fellow gang members dies down, the perpetrator is hit with a new wave of shame. Hurting others and being feared by your family and community creates further shame. Eventually, many gang members just get sick and tired of the violent lifestyle of the gang.

Leaving a gang is not easy, however. Many of the ex-gang members Brenneman interviewed cited “the morgue rule,” i.e. that the only path out of a gang was death. Primarily this is because gangs fear that deserters will start their own splinter gangs or share valuable information with rivals.

But there is one other choice for deserters that some gang leaders have found acceptable: membership in an evangelical church. Most gangs have a latent religiosity. If a convert is sincere, gangs tend to avoid “messing with God.”

Evangelical churches in Central American barrios tend to have very strict moral codes: no drinking, gambling, dancing, drugs, etc. Women don’t cut their hair or wear pants. There are events almost every night, including worship services, prayer groups, and bible studies.

In short, it is easy for gangs to verify whether ex-gang members are sincere in their conversion. Brenneman told the story of a ex-gang member who joined an evangelical church, but was spotted smoking marijuana. The gang pulled him out of church one day and shot him.

The evangelical churches of the barrio are theologically conservative, and are much more interested in saving people than addressing social issues. They see the issue with gangs as an individual spiritual problem, but, Brenneman points out, this is not a way to wash their hands of the gang problem. On the contrary it is a way to say, “This is our problem” in their language and worldview.

It’s a strange relationship, no doubt, but the small, charismatic evangelical churches of the barrio may be the only exit other than death for gang members.

Check out this fascinating New York Times article, “Making a Deal With Murders,” on El Salvador’s temporary success at reducing gang violence, published October 6, 2013.