No abstract

This Campbell systematic review examines why the implementation of preventive interventions to reduce youth involvement in gangs and gang crime may fail or succeed low and middle‐income countries. The review summarises findings from four studies conducted in Latin America and the Caribbean. These include findings from field observations and interviews with 63 former gang members in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, 940 respondents in three Jamaican communities, 24 participants in Nicaragua and 25 participants in Peru. It is not possible to make any conclusions regarding the effectiveness of preventive interventions. Four factors may be important for intervention design and implementation: Having a range of programme components that appeal to youth such as arts and sports. Active engagement of youths and gang leaders in forming and implementing the programme. Ensuring continuity of social ties outside the gang which are fragile and may not be preserved after short‐term interventions. Ongoing violence and gang involvement limits successful implementation so needs to be addressed. Plain Language Summary BackgroundYouth gang membership and the crime that it generates is a serious problem in low‐and middle‐income countries, involving many thousands of young people and resulting in billions of dollars of crime, loss of life, and social disruption. This review assessed the evidence on preventive interventions that focus on increasing social capacity to reduce gang membership or rehabilitate gang members outside of the criminal justice system. ApproachWe conducted an extensive search of the published and unpublished academic literature, as well as government and non‐government organization reports to identify studies assessing the effects of preventive youth gang interventions in low‐and middle‐income countries. We also included studies assessing the reasons for success or failure of such interventions and conducted a thematic synthesis of overarching themes identified across the studies. ResultsWe did not identify any studies assessing the effect of preventive gang interventions in LMICs using an experimental or quasi‐experimental design. Four studies evaluating the reasons for implementation success or failure were included. The limited number of studies included in the review suggests that the findings identified here should provide a direction for future research, rather than any substantive or generalizable claim to best practice. Specifically, the synthesis of reasons for implementation success or failure identified five factors that may be important for intervention design and implementation. Preventive gang interventions may be more likely to be successfully implemented when they include: a range of program components that appeal to youth, active engagement of youth, where their agency is embraced and leadership is offered, programs that offer continuity of social ties outside of the gang, and a focus on demobilization and reconciliation. ImplicationsThe lack of evidence prevents us from making any conclusion...

This review is externally funded by USAID through 3ie (International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, Inc.) (SR/1117). The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of USAID or 3ie or its members.Funding for the broader database searching (Murray et al., 2013) was provided by the Wellcome Trust [089963/Z/09/Z]

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 selfconfidence. 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.

Late in 2016, Melbourne experienced what was referred to in the media as the Moomba ‘riot’. This event led to a racialised political and media campaign regarding the problem of ‘African gangs’. Despite no evidence of actual gang activity, the backlash against black migrants in Melbourne was consequential with increases in reported racism and institutionalised forms of discrimination. In this study, we examine the neighbourhood context of exclusion against African Australians following the Moomba ‘riot’. Using census and crime data integrated with survey data from 2400 residents living in 150 urban neighbourhoods, we interrogate the relationship between sentiments (measured as anger) towards Africans and perceptions of neighbourhood crime and disorder. We further consider whether quality contact with Africans and neighbourhood cohesion mediates this relationship. We conclude with reflections on the significant and deleterious effects of the ‘black and criminal’ association on understandings of ‘Africanness’ in Australia.