Honduran and Nicaraguan Youths’ Reasoning About Gang-Related Violence as a Threat to Trust Within Communities

• In Event: 3-187 - Trust and Youth Development in Latin America: Findings from Colombia, Honduras, and Nicaragua

Integrative Statement

One major threat to the security of people is violence, which can weaken social bonds and trust within a community (Seelke, 2016). Arguably, specific risks to individuals’ sense of security and experiences of trust may also vary considerably across development. For example, whereas adults in Honduras have cited economic instability and corruption as primary causes of insecurity (IUDPAS, 2014), children identified violence perpetrated by adults, gangs, peers and the police as major sources (CASA Alianza, 2014). A concern among policy-makers and prevention practitioners is that these threats of violence to the trust and security of children in Honduras will lead to further social instability, inasmuch as children will replicate the violence that they have experienced and witnessed (Ransford et al., 2016; USAID, 2014).

This study examined how children and adolescents judge and explain gang-related violence that is linked to the erosion of security within their communities. The sample included 80 participants (females n= 40), divided into groups of 10-11 and 14-15-year-olds. Youth were recruited from neighborhoods in San Pedro Sula, Honduras marked by high levels of gang-enforced borders and extortion (Seelke, 2016), and from comparison neighborhoods in Managua, Nicaragua with no gang-enforced borders (InSight Crime, 2015). Both countries are similar in dominant language and levels of poverty and education (United Nations Development Program, 2016). In individual interviews, participants were asked to judge and reason about violence in general, and also within vignettes depicting gang-enforced borders and extortion.

Results indicated that children and adolescents in both countries did not accept violence in general; 99% of participants judged that it was wrong to hurt others, when a particular context was not specified. However, differences in judgments of violence associated with gangs were found as a function of age and exposure. For instance, males from Honduras [M = 1.70; SD= 0.92] judged hitting a gang member for crossing into the rival gang’s territory as more acceptable compared to all of the other groups of youth [Ms = 2.45-2.60]. Furthermore, 10-11-year-olds from Honduras [M= 1.84; SD= 1.01] were more accepting of physically harming a rival gang member if directed by parents, as compared to all other groups of youth [Ms = 2.601-2.749]. Youths’ responses also revealed variations in their understandings of gang-related violence. For instance, males in Honduras accepted physically harming a rival gang member when crossing into another’s territory for reasons including protecting members of the neighborhood, suggesting that they perceive these acts of provocation as a salient threat to the wellbeing of the neighborhood residents. Reasons given for why a gang enforces the border of a territory ranged from protecting the community from robbery or killings by the rival gang, to avoiding being killed themselves, to gang members’ enjoyment of hurting others. Overall, the findings suggest that children and adolescents’ thinking about intersections between violence and the preservation of security and trust within their communities is nuanced, taking into consideration many social factors, functions of violence, and concerns for wellbeing—and not simply replicating the violence that they have experienced.

Author

• Franklin Moreno, University of California, Berkeley
  Presenting Author