Ecuador legalized gangs and murder rates plummeted | Hacker News Reader

Ecuador legalized gangs and murder rates plummeted

vox.com

160 pointsnwatson69 comments

From Terry Pratchett's "Guards, Guards" [1]

"One of the Patrician’s greatest contributions to the reliable operation of Ankh-Morpork had been, very early in his administration, the legalising of the ancient Guild of Thieves. Crime was always with us, he reasoned, and therefore, if you were going to have crime, it at least should be organised crime.

And so the Guild had been encouraged to come out of the shadows and build a big Guildhouse, take their place at civic banquets, and set up their training college with day-release courses and City and Guilds certificates and everything. In exchange for the winding down of the Watch, they agreed, while trying to keep their faces straight, to keep crime levels to a level to be determined annually. That way, everyone could plan ahead, said Lord Vetinari, and part of the uncertainty had been removed from the chaos that is life.

And then, a little while later, the Patrician summoned the leading thieves again and said, oh, by the way, there was something else. What was it, now? Oh, yes…

I know who you are, he said. I know where you live. I know what kind of horse you ride. I know where your wife has her hair done. I know where your lovely children, how old are they now, my, doesn’t time fly, I know where they play. So you won’t forget about what we agreed, will you? And he smiled.

So did they, after a fashion."

[1] https://discworldquotes.tumblr.com/post/150983136815/one-of-...

I came here for this. He unmade my education and actually taught me to think... :-)

Excerpt: "And when you hang out for a while, you see how differently they respond to conflicts now. For example, they [the Latin Kings] put on one of the biggest hip hop concerts ever, and they worked with other previously antagonistic gangs on the project."

If this is true, then I nominate David Brotherton for a Nobel Prize...

Also, I found this quote interesting: "...basically, when you want to stop a behavior, the worst thing you can do is prohibit it. Social inclusion is the most productive means of social control."

Interesting...

Seems to be accepting the counter culture as part of the wider culture.

This very much makes me think of the distinction between motorcycle clubs and motorcycle gangs. The choice of word states if they are a group to be socially ostracized or a group expected to participate as part of the wider community.

Counter culture? Working a 9-5 and living in the suburbs is counter to tens of thousands of years of humanity organizing itself in tribes which compete (often violently) for resources.

It seems fairly obvious that "legalizing" these groups and incorporating them into the political process allows them to gain resources without violence.

>[the Latin Kings] put on one of the biggest hip hop concerts ever

Afrika Bambaataa also used this tactic to reduce gang violence in late 70s/early 80s New York.

> basically, when you want to stop a behavior, the worst thing you can do is prohibit it.

The results certainly sound encouraging.

I'm curious though how people from those communities who tried to do the "right thing" and not get involved with gangs feel about this leniency.

I'd imagine there's a tipping point where too much forgiveness and inclusion for too many criminals leads to a lack of trust in the rule of law.

Another example: Drug legalization in Portugal [1]

[1]: http://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization...

Makes me think of Portugal's move of legalizing drugs, so now people have medical problems, that they can get help with.

portugal did not legalize drugs, it decriminalized possession within certain limits ("ten-days supply").

It's pretty far from true legalization, but certainly better than 100% criminalized possession.

I agree, there's room for improvement, it's good some kid getting caught with a gram of weed isn't given a life changing- permanant felony.

Could we also say - now criminals kill less each other, hence there are more criminals in the streets?

And we could also say that they use their influence and legality to spread their criminal identity through the use of art (like rap, graffiti, etc).

If additions to the biggest music genre, and a massive art genre, is the negative results of doing this then they should be doing a lot more of it.

You could say the same thing about Frank Sinatra

If there's a fixed supply of "criminals", sure, but there's not. People change. In the right circumstances people who might otherwise be law-abiding commit crimes, and vice versa.

What is important, the number of criminals, or the number and nature of crimes ?

I think the goal is to reduce the later, attacking the former was just a way to try to do that.

Ecuador strat seems to work toward the second goal, just without tackling the first.

Let's see if how this goes.

What do you call someone who doesn't commit crimes any more?

I submit that "criminal" is the wrong word, certainly when your focus is public order in the present day.

Killing less or not killing at all (anymore) doesn't automatically make someone non-criminal - there are lots of other types of crimes.

>Also, I found this quote interesting: "...basically, when you want to stop a behavior, the worst thing you can do is prohibit it. Social inclusion is the most productive means of social control."

So what happens when the behavior is the inherent wrong?

People want to stop gangs not because being in the gang is inherently wrong, but because of the violence and crime that normally surrounds membership in a gang. The same somewhat applies to drugs as well, as many people don't see the drug itself as being something bad as long as adults reasonably use it, but the problems drugs normally cause as the reason for banning them.

But what about actions that are bad in and of themselves. Should we socially include NAMBLA and stop prohibiting what they wish to legalize? I seriously question the wisdom of such a move.

"Social inclusion is the most productive means of social control."

Excellent quote. There's a lot of truth here. Social exclusion is at the heart of a lot of behavioural pathologies.

Can you start a behavior by prohibiting it too then?

Another commenter posted it[0], but it's more likely that the banning of leaded gasoline in 1997 precipitated a drop in violent crime 15 years later.

Reductions in lead pollution => a drop in crime ~15 years later is a pretty consistent pattern around the world, regardless of what other approaches the nation's took to combat rising crime.

[0] https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/03/ecuador-phase...

“The bottom line, as Drum points out, is that “even moderately high levels of lead exposure are associated with aggressivity, impulsivity, ADHD, and lower IQ. And right there, you’ve practically defined the profile of a violent young offender.” [0]

Have never heard of this research/correlation, but pretty interesting how it holds across models.

[0] https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur...

I was a long time supporter of the Levitt & Dubner theory of abortion legalization, but leaded gasoline is more consistent and empirical.

I wonder sometimes how this has effected our current politics also. With everyone born from post-WWII until the 1980 experiencing some level of lead poisoning.

Roll it back to the start of the 20th century.

Probably paints a pretty telling picture.

But since 1980 haven't the amount of other toxins grown? Like hormone altering plastic hardeners?

Claiming generational pollution works both ways.

Not all toxins cause violence though probably. Maybe other problems.

Hmmm, this article might be a clickbait, this is super normal to do in latin America

Is not about legalizing gangs, most latin america countries have been using culture/cultural movements and even sport to drive gangs members into the society.

Hiphop, street art, basketball, etc, are just easy and cheap methods to fight the delinquency problem, same as in the US.

You can go to any place filled with gangs, and follow the basic recipe: build a basketball court, build some cultural center and have it filled with organized neighborhood vigilance and in few yours you pretty much removed a big part of the problem, you will end up with some famous basketball players and some famous rap artists emerging from this community.

It's almost like if people have better to do with their life, they don't seek destroying the system that holds it.

You might get less people killing each other, and you might get a small amount of famous athletes or artists, but are you significantly improving the lives of those people and preparing them to work in a modern economy? Midnight basketball and street art might merely be bread and circuses, a way to keep that demographic quiet and avoid troubling more privileged levels of society.

... Yes, you are. Less killing significantly improved lives.

I'd say that lowering the rate of murder is significantly improving the lives of the people it applies to. Not to mention the sense of belonging people get from a cultural center. This methodology works because people are happier. There can be no downside to that.

I suspect in any other context the idea that kids are playing more basketball or doing more art while growing up would be looked at as a huge positive.

However, because a lot of kids from “bad areas” are looked at as criminals by virtue of the place they were born and raised, their playing sports and doing art is looked upon negatively, because they are “not being prepared to work in a modern economy”.

As an aside, Id argue that in a modern economy it’s impossible to prepare kids anyways, because it moves so fast that we don’t know what it will look like by the time they are adults. As a result, a well rounded education, which includes sports and arts is the only way to prepare children for a modern economy, even if we are ignoring the mental and physical health related benefits.

"Less people killing each other" is a perfectly valid end in itself, obviously. It improves the lives of the people who don't get killed, the people who don't go to prison for murder, and all their families and friends.

Maybe they could do more beyond that. But being cynical about a big drop in murders is kinda weird.

The cultural center, much like schools, can become a means to invest in the education of a community. Build a computer lab, hire tutors, and then... Oh crud, all the poor people cant afford to live there anymore.

Also of note, we can also draw a similar analogy to Motorcycle clubs in the US, though such demands more wealth from each individual than community centers.

This "all the poor people cant afford to live there anymore" doesn't apply to latin america, most (only chile misses this) the countries have free education at every level, the budget for a school is the same no matter if its a poor or a rich area.

Well it’s from Vox so clickbait headline is a definite, regardless of the quality of the article that follows.

Why basketball and rap though? Is this a cultural thing I'm missing from Latin American countries?

I cannot talk from all Latin America, but at least in my city gangs imported a lot of the pop culture from the American ghettos, everyone has a sibling, cousin or friend who emigrated to the US, when they come back to their cities either because they were deported, or because they simply wanted to come back, they dress differently, they like new things and they share their experiences. Also American movies, TV and music make a big influence not only in Latin America but the whole world.

You don't need to take lessons to rap, you "learn it on the streets", you don't need an instrument.

Same goes for basketball, all you need is a Ball and a basket and some 5x5 space, football can be the next cheapest sport but it kinda needs alot of spaces plus alot of maintance to the field (expensive)

I would say, these are just the cheapest options.

For the basketball part, part of it is likely that it is the mainstream team sport which requires the least equipment and space.

After reading the article, I still do not know what is actually meant by "legalizing" gangs. Exactly in which way was the mere existence of a gang, compared to maybe the crimes it did perform, illegal before in Ecuador?

The only specifics the article gets into sound more like increased money for streetworkers.

Does anybody have any details on the situation there?

I would assume it was a paragraph about membership itself being prosecuted. Parts of the US seem to have a similar concept https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/gang-affiliat...

>Gang Participation: Some states, such as Georgia and Texas, make it unlawful for anyone to form, associate with, or profit from a street gang.

Germany has such a thing with membership in a criminal or terrorist organization in §129 stgb. Being part of such an organization is in itself a crime. So individual members dont have to commit any crimes them self to be prosecuted. How ever I only know of the paragraph being used against terrorists, as well as outlawed political associations.

Well shucks. From my jaded point of view it seems that Ecuador had in place a system that denied Freedom of Association among the young to the Orwellian extent of frisking and institutionalized profiling (not merely rogue, discouraged and depends-where-you-live variable, as in the US). Yeah just like brown people in the Old South.

And then they stopped doing it. What a bloody miracle.

Belonging to a criminal organisation is commonly defined as an offence in laws all around the world. There is not such thing as "freedom of association to a criminal band", neither in international nor in national or local laws. If you are aware of one single country when citizens have the legal right to enter in a mafia, would be interesting to know about it

https://knoema.es/atlas/Ecuador/Tasa-de-Homicidios

The plot shows that the crime rates sinked mainly in the big scam period. Accelerating from 2010 onwards. The "post-economic war" among europeans caused eventually the firing and return to Ecuador to many ecuatorian entrepreneurs that were working hard in Europe. Really nice and determined people. Therefore, another possibility to explain the decrease in rate crime is that the gangs diluted and lose influence by the arrival of lots of relatively rich people buying houses, acting as a better model of success for youngsters, and creating new job opportunities in Ecuador.

Another possible cause was the government of Correa increasing sharply the money spent in education and sustaining it in time

https://knoema.es/atlas/Ecuador/Gasto-p%c3%bablico-en-eduaci...

Actually, I think the returning affulent people only caused the rate of home invasions to shoot up, which although only anecdotally, have risen sharply since 2010 - which also coincedes with Ecuador being rated the #1 place to retire so also saw an influx of rich (actual and relative) foreigners coming in, buying land and building (actual and relative) mansions.

Having lived in Ecuador for 10 years, I have not heard any anecdotal evidence of this report (in fact the counter). But that is mostly from middle class inlaws. Perhaps the reduction is in the barrios, which would not be felt / known nor reported

> Yeah just like brown people in the Old South.

Black people.

Asians both East and South, Black people and Native Americans have all laboured under state sanctioned and legalised discrimination and violence in the US, “brown people” did not.

The Old South was quite violently racist and systematically so to black people. No other group suffered anything like their treatment, not the Japanese, internment included, or Native Americans.

Black people suffered in the American South, not “brown people”.

Precisely that. You'd think that the Klu Klux Klan kept the peace down there, it just wasn't everyone's peace.

Kevin Drum is banging his "It's the lead, stupid" drum on this:

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/03/ecuador-phase...

It probably is. Lead seriously messes with humans. It likely crashed Rome, and the pattern of "ban leaded fuels => crime rate falls 15 years later" has been demonstrated in multiple nations.

Kevin Deum has made a really solid argument for his lead hypothesis. He points to a solid bank of data, as well as peer reviewed sources. Further, I haven’t seen anyone point to studies refuting the hypothesis.

What I don’t understand is why Drum is the only one who seems to believe this theory? Is it just because I’m missing the research that has pretty much disproven it?

I'm curious about how this has impacted non-murder crimes like racketeering. It's not like gangs were just honest, persecuted businesses that were being oppressed for no reason.

Right. I live in Ecuador and crime is booming. I’m not sure it is related but anyways, this policy is not an anti-crime panacea.

Same. Not even a noticed reduction in murder rates, unless it is happening in areas that don't get much reporting

The article says murders are down but what about the other crimes? What is happening to arrest rates for gang members?

Are the gangs just taking some of their profits from crime and investing in legitimate businesses? Is the opportunity that the government is offering them so large that they've agreed on territories thus reducing the murder rate?

As I just posted in another comment, I live in Ecuador and crime is booming everywhere. Narco-related crimes are a serious problem too.

I believe this policy helped former president secure votes in zones where this gangs operated, but definitely it is not a crime solving solution.

For anyone curious about what was meant by "legalizing gangs" as policy, here's the relevant snippet:

> The country allowed the gangs to remake themselves as cultural associations that could register with the government, which in turn allowed them to qualify for grants and benefit from social programming, just like everybody else.

Turns out offering people money and the opportunity to make a difference makes them want to fight less.

> There was a job training grant, and a grant to set up a community center. The Catholic University of Quito paid for 15 Latin Queens to study to become nurses.

Great. Now onto drugs next. That's the main way to reduce violence, get addicts help, and save a ton of money on wasteful police resources.

Ecuador in fact went the other. They did try and decriminalise small amounts for personal use. But then there was an explosion in "micro traffikers". So rather than a traffiker dealer moving 100grams, they would now go in a group of 10, each carrying 10 grams and not have a problem (the numbers of not accurate, but you get the idea).

So the government went the other way and say anyway found with tiny amounts would be classed as a traffickers.

Results, drugs are still everywhere, same price, same quality. More arrests, more people in prison though.

Just legalise them all already and solve the problem. Everyone who wants drugs can get them. No one who hasn't used them yet, is going to think "oh, I will start smoking crack for breakfast". Regulate, register and control their distribution and remove the main source of funding from the blackmarket

Related work in this area includes Scotland's "violence reduction unit", similarly effective by using social inclusion; and de Soto's book "The Other Path" about bringing land ownership and small businesses into legality in order to reduce the power of Shining Path's Maoist guerillas.

This should really come as no surprise when you consider that gangs are often made up of people from the lower and marginalized classes using it as an opportunity to either replace a family they never had, earn money in ways that allowed you to rise out of poverty or serve as an outlet for any other issues.

In America, our solution is to continue taking away opportunity, thereby driving more people to join gangs. Our prison system enables this and so does our selective enforcement of laws. Turns out that if you give people opportunity to grow and/or contribute to the community in a positive manner, they'll take it.

If we promote the Aryan Brotherhood race relations will improve.

One could argue that the world has already legalized gangs and called them corporations. The result is that those corporations have tremendous lobbying and political power.

Hold up, there's a problem here.

A "gang" is not where some folks get together and decide to have a club together with a hang out. A gang is a club where they practice criminal enterprise as an organization.

There are plenty of "legal" gangs in America. They're called clubs. Country club, MOPAR Club, Gun club, etc. Even motorcycle clubs are perfectly, absolutely legal. Hell, technically they're 501.3cs. Most organized clubs are non-profits. Even the small ones (like 10 or so people). What makes a difference between a VFW MC and the Mongrels is one rides around, drinks and does scholarship rallies for disadvantage yutes. The other rides around, drinks and sells heroin. One doesn't do illegal things. The other does illegal things. One gets considered a club still while the other... say it with me class... becomes a gang because they do illegal shit.

Hell, the Polish-American club or Mopar club I'm with can very, very easily become a gang. All we have to do is start running guns or drugs. Maybe some prostitution. A little racketeering. Holy shit, we're a gang now. How is that? I don't understand? Oh wait, it's because we did something illegal as an organization! Actually, the Polish-American club can become a gang pretty easy. Just smuggle a bunch of Kinder Eggs into the country (for those that don't know, real Kinder Eggs are illegal to import into the US... and they're delicious & fun...even as an adult). That's all we need would need to do to be labeled a gang. Why? Because we did illegal shit as an organization. That's why there are RICO laws too. Mostly to take the head off the snake of said organizations though.

You want to start a club, then buy some abandoned building, fix it up, have a place for all of y'all to hang out. Then as a club y'all decide to do a bake sale of cakes, cookies or even start a car repair shop to raise funds for the club. Y'all do well and decide "Hey, let's have a concert for everyone in town to enjoy. You know what, we need a new skate park for the yutes. Let's build a skate park for the yutes." No one can legally stop you or shut down your club currently in the USA. That is roughly the story of one group here locally to me. The moment you decide, "Let's sell meth to build a skate park." That's where it becomes a "gang". Or you killed the old guy who owned the abandoned building and put a gun to his wife's head to sign it over to the club. That's pretty illegal too.

TLDR: no difference between a club and a gang, except one does illegal shit and the other has cookie bake sales. Make a club. Join a club. Who cares. No one does... except the queen of england. You can't have secret clubs in england if I remember right. But on the freedom side of the pond, you can't do illegal shit as part of your club. Bake some fucking bread and sell it as a way to fund your club. No one cares. Except the IRS. Makes sure to declare that shit. Just don't bake meth. Hold car shows. Don't do drive by shootings. Rescue women from abusive relationships. Don't do prostitution. Start a low cost building repair services for homes and businesses in the area. Don't do extortion. I'm trying to figure out how this is so fucking difficult to understand. Read an actual law book. They're free at your local library. Stop being stupid. Yes, gangs should be illegal. For very good fucking reason. Clubs are not illegal in the USA.

"Clubs" are not 501(c)(3) organizations. They are typically 501(c)(7), 501(c)(8), or 501(c)(10) organizations--the latter two covering fraternal lodges. So, mainly 501(c)(7).

If you register your recreational club as a 501(c)(3), then congratulations, you're now a gang of tax code violators.

That’s right, that’s my bad.

This is why my business partner handles paperwork.

You can register your recreational club as a 501(c)(3) if you are careful about what the club does.

I know of one club that is a 501(3)(c). They exist for purposes of running a local antique show. When the group has meetings many motions are shot down because it isn't allowed under their status.

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