Does the Aggravated Sentencing Regime under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act 121 of 1998 Violate Freedom of Association? A Constitutional and Comparative Analysis

In terms of section 10(3) of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act 121 of 1998 (“POCA”), a court may impose an aggravated sentence on a criminal offender if the offender was a gang member at the time of the commission of a crime. The court is entitled to apply section 10(3) to the sentencing of any common-law or statutory offence, save for the gang-related offences in Chapter 4 of POCA. As aggravated punishment is attached directly to a person’s status as a gang member, one must question whether such aggravated punishment does not violate the right to freedom of association in section 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. Section 18 is an unqualified right and subject only to the limitations clause under section 36 of the Constitution. The purpose of this contribution is to investigate whether the associational freedom guaranteed by the Constitution may be limited in light of considerations under international law (such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) as well as foreign law (specifically the United States and Germany). The consensus is, broadly speaking, that persons are nondeserving of associational protection where the conduct connected to such an association is criminal in nature. Increased criminal consequences are justifiable where a person’s unlawful conduct is also connected to their status and activity as a member of a criminal organisation. However, increased criminal consequences based merely on a person’s membership of a criminal organisation, as is the case in terms of section 10(3) of POCA, is considered arbitrary and irrational. The conclusion is that section 10(3) of POCA should be amended so that it applies only to crimes that are related to a convicted person’s gang-related activities.

Regional differences in gang member identification methods among law enforcement jurisdictions in the United States

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to compare gang member identification methods across regions in the United States as reported by law enforcement.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected through surveys with various law enforcement jurisdictions in both urban and rural communities across the United States. Methods of gang member identification were compared across the United States. Region through the use of Ordinal Logistic Regression and Multiple Imputation.FindingsThe results reveal that there are systematic variations in methods of gang member identification across regions in the United States. Specifically, the West is significantly more likely to identify gang members through associations or arrests with known gang members, symbols and self-nomination compared to other regions. The South, Northeast and Midwest regions are significantly more likely to identify gang members through a reliable informant compared to the West.Originality/valueResearch has not compared gang member identification methods across region in the United States or examined how variations in gang member identification methods potentially impact the accuracy of reported gang problems and prevalence.

The National Death Index as a Source of Homicide Data: A Methodological Exposition of Promises and Pitfalls for Criminologists

Criminologists largely rely on national deidentified data sources to study homicide in the United States. The National Death Index (NDI), a comprehensive and well-established database compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, is an untapped source of homicide data that offers identifiable linkages to other data sources while retaining national coverage. This study’s five aims follow. First, we review the data sources in articles published in Homicide Studies over the past decade. Second, we describe the NDI, including its origins, procedures, and uses. Third, we outline the procedures for linking a police gang intelligence database to the NDI. Fourth, we introduce the St. Louis Gang Member-Linked Mortality Files database, which is composed of 3,120 police-identified male gang members in the St. Louis area linked to NDI records. Finally, we report on preliminary cause-of-death findings. We conclude by outlining the benefits and drawbacks of the NDI as a source of homicide data for criminologists.

Street Gang Member Characteristics

The socio-demographic characteristics of gang-involved youth are a focal concern of contemporary gang researchers; policy analysts; politicians; and, in many cases, the general public. A broad overview of gang member characteristics is a critical and natural precursor for any policy response to gangs, a task that has historically included widely used socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., race or ethnicity, age, urban or rural residence, gender, and sex) and various forms of illegal and illicit behavior. Similar lists of individual and collective characteristics such as these have shaped public policy responses to youth gangs in the United States, Western Europe, and indeed around the globe. Furthermore, given the attention paid to “illegal” migration trends at the end of the 21st century’s second decade, policymakers, law enforcement officials, and others often tie immigrant status to gang membership, including immigrants’ alleged involvement in violent forms of delinquency. The following image of street gang members emerges: (a) gangs include girls as well as boys; (b) the sex composition of the gang affects the level of delinquency of gang members; (c) gang members reflect the racial or ethnic composition of the community in which they exist; (d) gang members are not disproportionately members of immigrant groups; (e) youth age in and out of gangs during early- to mid-adolescence; and (f) while in the gang, youth commit significantly more crime than their non-gang peers.

Our Lady of the Assassins and Levinas’s Ethics as First Philosophy

This chapter explores Barbet Schroeder’s violent and romantic Spanish-language Colombian drama Our Lady of the Assassins (2000). The film, based on the 1994 novel by Fernando Vallejo, tells the story of the love affair between a disillusioned middle-aged writer and a teenage gang member. Their relationship plays out against a backdrop of violence and tension in Medellín, Colombia. Schroeder’s approach to the subject stresses the normality of the relationship and the ordinariness of the violence. The result is a film that embraces a non-judgmental take on a type of relationship that movies are not accustomed to portraying. I argue that Schroeder’s work is akin to Emmanuel Levinas’s positioning of ethics as ‘first philosophy’, namely, that we are ethical before we are anything else. I draw in particular on Levinas scholar Adriaan T. Peperzak’s work to explore the implications of this, relating it to Schroeder’s film style in Our Lady of the Assassins.

The Gang Member Stands Out: Stigma as a Residual Consequence of Gang Involvement

The topic of stigma and discrimination has been explored among various criminal justice populations; however, few studies have examined the stigma associated with being a former gang member. This study explores the stigmatic experiences among a sample of 30 self-identified former gang members to highlight the ongoing discrimination they experience in the time following involvement. Using grounded theory, results indicate that two thirds of study participants either anticipated or directly experienced stigma on behalf of the police or general public in the time since gang exit. These experiences were believed to impede future avenues of success and social integration. In addition to highlighting the frequency of anticipated and experienced stigma, we describe the sources of stigma that indicate former gang involvement. The sources of stigma include aspects of voluntary self-presentation such as tattoos and style of dress as well as official sources of gang intelligence that is most closely associated with gang databases. We conclude by discussing potential avenues for addressing reintegration and adjustment strategies among former gang members.