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21 November 2002
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Terrorist Organizations
And Criminal Street Gangs
An argument for an analogy
Contacts:
Jessica Glicken Turnley (jgturnley@aol.com)
Julienne Smrcka (jsmrcka@salud.unm.edu)
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Terrorist Organizations and Criminal Street Gangs
An Argument for an Analogy
1
Introduction
The events of September 11, 2001, were horrific not just in the number of lives lost but in, the loss
of our sense of security as a nation. As one observer said, our failure was not an intelligence failure
but a failure of imagination. It seemed at the time inconceivable that such an attack could be made
on such powerful symbols.
Our efforts to understand what prompted the violence are hampered by a lack of knowledge about
terrorists, their motivations, and their potential for action. This lack of knowledge, to a large degree,
stems from a lack of data on terrorists. Such primary data that we have generally comes from
interviews of terrorists conducted under conditions of significant power imbalance (they are
prisoners). As a result, the results are highly suspect. Intelligence data, another important source,
generally is highly indirect and requires conclusion by inference.
To address the absence of data as we move forward with efforts to model terrorist groups and
activities, we have turned to the literature on criminal street gangs as an analog. Street gangs have
been studied for years by the behavioral and social science communities. There is much empirical
data available. Furthermore, the violence of the battles between gangs such as the Crips and the
Bloods in Los Angeles, for example, combined with the lessons learned from much of the empirically
based research, has led to successful trust-building campaigns and significant reductions in violent
behavior.
This essay is an exploration of the validity of the analogy between street gangs and terrorists. We
explore the theoretical approaches that have emerged from the data on gangs, and note similarities
to work done in the field of terrorism which has been developing theories based on little empirical
data. We conclude with a short position statement, stating our belief in the validity of the analogy
and describing a theoretical approach for our work.
General Background
Both street gangs and terrorist groups are non-corporate groups. They are not organized as formal
(legal) entities, so group leaders operate in different environments and with different kinds of
authority than do those in charge of corporate legal actor. As a different type of actor, street gangs
and terrorists also have different sets of actions available to them. Both terrorist groups and street
gangs often are self-identified, that is, legitimacy and identity are not conferred upon them by some
external body (they do not need to be ‘recognized’ by a larger community in order to act) but rather
are self-proclaimed. Membership in both gangs and terrorist organizations is an active proposition.
One does not become a member by virtue of (e.g.) birth, ethnicity, or residency, although there may
be exclusionary criteria (that is, there may be criteria which determine [in]eligibility for membership).
Rather, one becomes a member through some voluntary act, some act of choice. Both types of
groups (gangs and terrorist organizations) engage in criminal and, often, violent behavior. They thus
operate in an extra-legal environment and maintain an adversarial relationship with peace-keeping
interests.
Four general theoretical explanatory frameworks have emerged from empirical studies of gangs.
These theoretical frames also appear within the literature on terrorists and terrorist groups. They
have been applied to the more anecdotal and sparse body of data on terrorists and terrorist
Terrorist Organizations and Criminal Street Gangs
An Argument for an Analogy
2
organizations in ways similar to their application to the more empirical data found underpinning the
research on gangs. This discussion will review the approaches from the standpoint of the research
on gangs, and then reference leading writings in the field of terrorist research that correspond to
each set of groups.
We label our four approaches psychological, sociological, communicative, and power-based. The
later two (communicative and power-based) are instrumental in nature, that is, they see gangs as a
means to an end. The two former approaches (psychological and sociological) are causal and
explanatory frames, seeking to understand why these types of groups emerge and the forces that
keep them functioning as groups. It is important to realize that the more powerful treatments of
gangs use elements from both the instrumental and causal camps, and from both approaches within
each.
Psychological approach
The psychological approach focuses on the individual (the gang member). The research has looked
for a particular personality constellation or composite of psychological factors that characterize the
gang member such as self-esteem, family constellation, level of aggression, level of depression, and
level of impulse control. The underlying hypothesis is that gang members are psychologically
deviant, and exhibit psychopathological or sociopathological tendencies which cause them to join
these extra-legal, violent groups.
There has been a great deal of work in this arena, comparing early initiates in gangs to their nongang
peer groups. The research generally concludes that potential gang members do not differ in
significant ways from their peers in terms of psychological makeup. The percent of pathological
individuals in gangs seems to be roughly similar to that in the general population. It is important to
note, however, that psychological profiles will change with tenure in a gang. Long-term members
show greater tendencies toward pathologies.
Motivations for joining gangs often involve the development and/or expression of primary selfidentification.
Gang members usually do not belong to ‘mainstream society’ but rather to socially
marginal or economically disadvantaged groups. These marginal and/or disadvantaged groups are
usually defined by race or ethnicity, and occasionally by religion. As social success or ‘the good life’
is generally defined in terms of the dominant society rather than marginal groups, access to rewards
and the positive self-identification that comes with them is missing for the disadvantaged groups.
Potential gang members have few legitimate sources for positive self-validation and self-definition.
The gang, through its development of measures of success that are attainable for these individuals,
provides these opportunities. The gang also provides members with a sense of both individual
power and protection that is otherwise missing for them. It also provides members with a strong
code of morals. This is particularly apparent in gangs defined by religion or strongly identified with
religion that are characterized by religious iconography and rituals; however, the moral code is
present in all gangs and is often verbally affirmed by members. Note that these complexes of
behavior described above are particularly important for adolescents and young adults who are at a
stage where identity formation occurs.
Terrorist Organizations and Criminal Street Gangs
An Argument for an Analogy
3
In this explanatory frame, a gang member trades loyalty to the group for social and moral security
and the chance of success. His membership in the group is communicated by tangible marks such as
clothes, tattoos, and jewelry, and by performance marks such as vocabulary or speaking style,
participation in various rituals, and adherence to clearly defined and morally grounded codes of
behavior. Rites of passage provide explicit markers of status.
The terrorist literature parallels the street gang findings. The few interviews that have been
conducted with terrorists show that the terrorists also are low on the psychopathology scale. In the
rare cases where interviews have been conducted, terrorists state that their membership in the
terrorist group represented the first time in their lives that they have experienced a sense of
belonging. Literature on fundamentalist religious movements (the basis of the Middle Eastern
groups) supports this finding, suggesting that these types of fundamentalist movements gain
adherents in situations of rapid social change in which moral structures become unclear or
ambiguous, and the sense of community and the behavioral codes communities provide tends to
disintegrate. Terrorist interviews also reveal a propensity for the same type of black-and-white
thinking that characterizes the (usually adolescent) members of gangs.
Jerrold Post has been one of the strongest proponents of the psychological approaches to terrorism.
He has worked over many years to develop a complex of traits to characterize the terrorist, and in
particular, the terrorist leader. While there appears to be forensic value in this approach, there is a
great deal of dispute over the claim that he has developed anything that can be broadly applied in
the explanatory or causal arena.
Sociological approach
This moves us to the second theoretical frame, the sociological. This approach considers gangs as
social phenomena, and focuses not on individual members but on groups. It investigates the
environment from which members are recruited, looking for differences between that social milieu
and those which do not spawn gangs. It also is interested in the organization and structure of the
groups themselves. This research again is concerned with the marginalized or disadvantaged nature
of the populations from which gangs emerge. It is primarily concerned with understanding that
milieu and its effects on organization formation and operation.
Research on gangs has identified dysfunctional families, failed schools, and non-existent community
structures as hallmarks of the milieu in which gangs are found. This research reinforces the
importance of the marginal or disadvantaged nature of the populations from which gang members
are drawn. In this case, the interest is in the influence of these social environments on the formation
of groups rather than individual psyches. These social environments communicate messages of
success in terms that are inaccessible to the populations in these environments. This integrates well
with the psychological approach described above. If the macro-community marginalizes a group of
individuals or causes them to feel powerless, they will seek structures within which they can exercise
power and create such structures if they do not exist. If mainstream society offers no road to
success, it will be sought (or created) through alternative communities such as gangs.
This approach also offers some explanations for the use of violence by these groups. Law
enforcement or peace-keeping groups are often the most tangible representation of the forbidden
Terrorist Organizations and Criminal Street Gangs
An Argument for an Analogy
4
society with which gang members deal. They thus become a threat rather than a source of
reassurance, stability, or structure, hence the criminal or extra-legal nature of gangs. Furthermore,
gang members often come from environments where they have witnessed a high level of violence
(families and/or communities) and seen the success of violence as a coping strategy. Research has
also shown that access to weapons or the means of violence will increase the propensity for
violence.
This explanatory frame translates well to the Middle Eastern terrorist groups. The macroenvironment,
defined in this case by the ‘failed states’ of the Middle East, is unable to provide many
social services, including law and order, or physical or social infrastructures such as communications
or banking. However, opportunity is defined in Western terms (which require these services and
infrastructures) and is achieved through participation in a global community. Individuals feel set up
for failure. Islam (particularly fundamentalist Islam) and associated groups provide an alternative
vocabulary for success and an alternative mechanism for achieving it. Recall that religious
fundamentalism tends to arise among dislocated populations, offering community and structure in
an otherwise chaotic and animistic world. The integration of church and state offered by Islam
allows Islamic fundamentalism to attract members with the additional promise of a world more
amenable to social/political self-actualization than that offered by the current political regime. Note
that the mechanisms for social actualization offered by these types of groups are explicitly counter to
those offered by the ‘failed state,’ and hence are extra-legal and therefore deemed criminal.
Instrumental approaches
Instrumental approaches also focus on the group rather than the individual as the primary actor.
Both communicative explanations and power-oriented instrumentalism seek to explain why groups
use violence to achieve certain ends. Both approaches argue that individuals join groups such as
gangs because they feel that they are unheard as single voices, or lack the power as individuals to
achieve certain ends. To some extent, this does take us back to the individual actor and does engage
the psychological approach—but the primary explanatory power of these approaches is focused on
the power of the group vis-à-vis individuals, rather than on the type of individual that seeks to fill
some specified need or resource requirement. The instrumental approaches also draw heavily on the
sociological approach, for they begin from the premise that the group has no legal or legitimate
means to achieve its end and so must resort to extra-legal activities.
Communicative approach
Communicative explanations see violence as ‘theater.’ This approach is also called ‘performance
violence,’ where the goal is as much to have the act witnessed as it is to harm the victim. These types
of violent acts on the part of gangs often are scripted, and are carefully planned. The audience may
be other members of the perpetrator’s gang, members of a rival gang, or non-gang members of
society. Explanatory deconstructions of these types focus on discovering the ‘message’ behind the
performance. Note, again, that while the act may be performed by an individual, it is always
performed within the context of the group. It uses group-defined symbology, may be scripted, and is
always acknowledged. Mark Juergensmeyer and others have adopted similar approaches with
Terrorist Organizations and Criminal Street Gangs
An Argument for an Analogy
5
reference to terrorism, noting that the goal is not to harm the greatest number of individuals but to
have the violence witnessed by the greatest number. The media has become a key actor in these
scenarios
Power-oriented instrumentalism
Power-oriented instrumentalism grows out of the world of realpolitik, or realist politics. In this
environment, the world is seen as a collection of actors (which historically have been nation-states)
engaged in struggles for power. In a realm of failed communities (whether they be states or the city
of Los Angeles), there emerges a whole class of people who feel that they have no voice or power in
the competition for resources, however large or small the terms of that competition are written. In
those instances, non-corporate actors emerge…gangs, or terrorist organizations, which act on behalf
of these non-represented people. They use various tools, including violence, to attempt to redress
real or perceived grievances. Performance violence has an obvious role here. Martha Crenshaw has
made strong contributions to this approach.
Power-oriented instrumentalism takes us quickly back to the sociological approach. We need to
understand the environments that spawn large groups of disenfranchised peoples and how these
people get together to seek access to resources and so become players in the games of power.
Conclusions
Given the above similarities between the environments within which they arise, the structure of
organizations, and the motivations of individuals to join them, we argue that gangs are a legitimate
analog for terrorist and terrorist-like groups. The formation of both of these groups is stimulated by
the belief in a lack of opportunity for self-realization, a search for structure and moral order in what
appears to be a chaotic world, and the associated felt devaluation of self-identity. The groups
become a means to define that self, and to provide the resources and share the responsibility for acts
that will create a world within which these individuals can see hope and opportunity. In order for
that world to be created, the creators (the groups) must speak to someone, must have an audience
for their cause. Hence, violence as theater. Furthermore, because the individual is disenfranchised
and powerless in the world of the dominant culture, and because participation in the group allows
for the diffusion of responsibility for extra-legal acts, it is groups, not individuals, that wield power
and have legitimacy.
We believe that the most robust approach is one which combines elements from both types of
approaches (explanatory/causal and instrumental) and all dimensions of these. We thus subscribe
neither to ‘great man’ theories nor to ‘great times’ theories. Rather we are working with the concept
of socially embedded actors who use organizations as vehicles to achieve social and psychologically
driven ends. This is the approach that will be instantiated in the ‘Seldon’ computational model.
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