Urban poverty is deemed a primary reason why Belizean youth join gangs
An estimated 900 to 1,400 people in Belize were part of street gangs as of 2019, with some three dozen gangs active in the country. These gangs were formed in the 1980s in Southside Belize City, as offshoots of the American Bloods and Crips gangs. Most gangs in Belize remain based in the Southside, and retain at least loose affiliation with Bloods or Crips. They are widely deemed primarily responsible for sustained waves of violent, gun, and organised crime in the country since the 1990s, still unabated as of today (the 2020s).
In the 1960s, the economic devastation wrought by Hurricane Hattie (especially in Belize City) prompted scores of Belizeans to emigrate to America, resulting in a sizeable overseas diaspora (especially in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York).[n 1] Belizean emigrants to LA were there embraced by the budding Bloods and Crips street gangs, and subsequently spread them to Belize during holidays back home, or upon their deportation.[n 2]
Locals promptly took to the novel American gangs, ostensibly due to media influence.[1] The local 1970s premiere of The Wild Bunch, for instance, was credited as Belize's "first exposure to criminal street gang activities" by Home Affairs personnel.[2] A group of impressionable youths allegedly began "cop[ying] the behaviour [they had] seen in the movie", dubbing themselves the Wild Bunch.[n 3] The 1980s introduction of television (especially American programming) and premiere of Colors are also cited as inspiring locals to embrace street gangs.[n 4]
In addition to priming via media, the rise of gangs is further attributed to increased arrivals of US deportees from LA, and US-instigated eradication of cannabis farms, both in the 1980s.[n 5] The deportee-gang members founded the country's first Bloods (George Street) and Crips (Majestic Alley) gangs, while the eradication programme forced a switch to imported cocaine.[n 6] As a result, by the late 1980s and early 1990s the said street gangs were well-established, with "youths claiming to be members of the Crips and the Bloods [and] fighting over colours and turf".[n 7]
Initially, the official line by authorities was dismissive, claiming self-identified Bloods and Crips were "not real gang members, but only [people who] use the name".[3] As gang violence became more violent and visible, however, police (and even soldiers) were forced to act despite this official denialism.[4] The 1990 muggings and beatings of school children who had failed to pay protection money, for instance, prompted increased patrols and periodic sweeps, though these provided only brief respite, with said sweeps (like Operation Thunder) being "from a civil rights standpoint, highly questionable".[n 8] Similarly, the 1991 drive-by shooting and murder of a student (alleged Crip) at Excelsior High in Port Loyola (in addition to a string of other notorious crimes) prompted a joint BPD-BDF operation "to take back the city streets" (the country's first deployment of military for domestic law enforcement) and a commission of inquiry (the Crimes Commission).[n 9]
Outbreak of gang-banging
The "most visible initial event" portending the coming gang warfare came in 1992, with the murder of Derek Itza Brown (Crips leader) at the National Stadium in Belize City, and retaliatory murder of Lyndon Tunan Arnold (Bloods leader) in New York City.[5] The ensuing violence spurred a quick about-face by authorities, prompting the country's earliest parliamentary response to gangs (Crime Control & Criminal Justice Act 1992) and first gang truce (1995 Bird's Isle agreement).[n 10]
By the 2000s, efforts in Colombia and elsewhere had largely succeeded in blocking maritime cocaine traffic through the Caribbean Sea, leaving Central America (including Belize) as the only viable route to the US.[n 11] Gang activity in Belize thus ramped up, and grew even more visible and violent.[n 12] For instance, 2008 alone saw both the Putt Putt mass shooting (most casualties) and Mayflower grenade attack (first such). By 2009, the country's murder rate had doubled from the already-dizzying 16 per 100,000 rate in 2000.[6]
The worsening situation in the 2000s now necessitated serious, concerted effort by authorities.[n 13] Various attempts were then made to understand and address the problem of gang violence, including studies (Crooks, Gayle), preventative and rehabilitative programmes (Kolbe, Youth Cadets, YFF, CYDP, RESTORE Belize), policing reforms and operations (various), and parliamentary, judicial, and governmental measures (various).[7] Nevertheless, the spiralling crime wave continued into the 2010s and 2020s unabated, despite several attempts to address it, including three further gang truces.[8] By 2023, "comprehensive and long-term intervention continue[d] to elude public and private efforts".[9]
Types and activities
The earliest "gangs" (like the Wild Bunch) were small crews or posses of mostly lower and working class Creolebaseboys who appropriated bases (street corners, alleyways, playgrounds) in Belize City for the sale or use of ganja (cannabis) and for petty crime.[n 14]
With the arrival of the Bloods and Crips, these disparate crews were purportedly coopted and consolidated into two large gangs, now properly street gangs composed of wanna-bes (baseboys) and true gang-bangers (experienced gang members).[10] By the early 1990s, these street gangs were seemingly being coopted by foreign drug traffickers to facilitate cocaine transshipment to America in exchange for arms (short arms and high-powered rifles) and a portion of the cargo (for local production, sale, and use of crack-cocaine).[n 15] They were also engaging in extortion, for instance, by demanding protection money from locals, including school children.[n 16] Further activities included assaults, robberies, kidnappings, stabbings, shootings, homicides.[11] There have even been allegations of gangs doing the illicit bidding of local corrupt politicians.[n 17]
When the first street gangs began to splinter, the offshoots originally retained strong allegiances to (and so strong rivalries with) Bloods or Crips. By the turn of the century, however, gang fragmentation accelerated, and rivalries no longer seemed to follow the old Bloods versus Crips line.[n 18] And so "a new generation of gangs emerged" in the 2000s which were neither (or only nominally) Bloods or Crips.[12] By the 2010s, the new gangs "look[ed] less to US gangsta iconography and more to Jamaican rude boy identities and music".[13]
Recruitment
Poor, urban, six to twenty-four year old boys not in schooling nor employment are thought to form gangs' core recruits.[14] These boys are especially found in Southside Belize City.[15] Their vulnerability to existing gang violence, poverty, and romanticisation of gangs, in addition to poor deterrence by authorities, have been cited as the primary reasons why youth join gangs, with the Gayle Report finding "boys join gangs because of the failings of the state and civil society".[16] Thus, gangs remain (in fact and fiction) these boys' only recourse for much-needed safety and welfare.[17]
Demographics
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, street gangs were a mix of inexperienced wanna-bes and experienced gang-bangers.[18] The former were mostly lower and working class Creole boys, aged twelve to early twenties, many with no or little secondary schooling, and with emigrant parents.[19]In 1989, one scholar estimated Bloods at some 300 and Crips at some 1,000 members, though the official Home Affairs estimate at the time was circa 75 members total.[n 19]
In the 2000s, official (Home Affairs) estimates found street gangs averaged 10 to 15 members, were concentrated in Southside Belize City, and were deemed responsible for a majority of the country's shootings and gun homicides.[20] Their members were predominantly 14 to 30 year old males, mostly from underprivileged or dysfunctional homes, with some being deportees themselves or else influenced by deportees.[21] Also, "limited numbers" of Mestizos were found to be associated with MS 13 or 18th Street.[22] The Gayle Report found gangs were predominantly present in Southside, with their ethnic makeup fairly reflecting that of the area (three-quarters Creole or Garifuna, and a quarter Mestizo, East Indian, or Maya).[23] They further found most members were not employable, had relatives in gangs, and could be classed into shottas or greens or soldiers (inexperienced members in their teens or 20s) and dons or bosses or generals (experienced members in their 30s or older).[24] They conservatively estimated the tally of gangs at "just under 30", with 10 to 30 "hard core members" each.[25]
Today (2020s), there are an estimated 900 to 1,400 gang members across some three dozen gangs, nearly all in Southside.[26] A 2023 snowball sample study found gang members were disproportionately school drop outs (despite overwhelmingly positive views towards education), were parents with generally positive views on the importance of parenting, had accumulated relatively little material wealth, and felt unjustly treated by law enforcement and the judiciary (but nonetheless viewed the institutions themselves as necessary for society).[27]
Legacy
The most immediate effect of gang activity has been an unabated boom in violent crime, which has surpassed levels deemed epidemic by WHO.[n 20] Further notable impacts include a similarly unrelenting wave of organised crime, the corrosion of social and state institutions, negative health and education outcomes, and economic losses, among others.[28]
Scholarly attention to Belizean gangs has been relatively sparse (compared to Jamaican, Mexican, and Northern Triangle groups), but has nonetheless picked up since the 2010s.[29] The 2010 Gayle Report, by anthropologist Herbert Gayle, is deemed the earliest study to be based on primary data from gang members themselves, followed by a 2016 book (Like Bush Fire) based on the report, and a 2019 paper by ethnographer Adam Baird for Men and Masculinities.[30]
Terrence Rhaburn (30) killed (and four others injured) in drive-by shooting of mechanic shop (for youth escaping gang life) on Partridge Street Extension.
George Junie Balls McKenzie Jr (33; Majestic Alley leader) murdered by lone gunman on North Front Street, allegedly by Jungle, and allegedly with police aid.
The accent, the jargon, the mixture of bravado and nihilism, the talk of gangs, street fights, drugs and muggings [of/by Big Russian, LA deportee and local Bloods member] -- all recalled the mean streets and troubled neighborhoods of Los Angeles. But the scene was this sleepy Caribbean port city [Belize City] in a country that has been a bastion of tranquility through years of war, economic dislocation and social unrest in the rest of Central America. "Bloods," "Crips" and crack cocaine have come to Belize, and authorities seem powerless to do much about it.
While Belize exports people to Los Angeles, it imports Bloods and Crips. Some Belizeans become gang members in Los Angeles, then return home in their new colors. They become a new "family" option for many street youth whose parents have gone to Southern California. Some act as couriers for cocaine flown from Colombia to Los Angeles. Crack cocaine addiction is prevalent for the first time. Guns are shipped from Los Angeles to the streets of Belize City. Shootouts and funerals follow, unprecedented in Belizean history.
↑Home Affairs 2007, p.4. They eventually assaulted and seriously injured a law enforcement officer, resulting in their prosecution and subsequent incarceration or emigration (Home Affairs 2007, p.4). Basketball icon Clinton Lightburn noted, "there was a thin line between basketball and being a gang member because I grew up [in the 70s] in the streets with one of the first gangs, called the Wild Bunch" (News 5 2025a).
I had my aunty here [...] in Majestic Alley. First we were selling weed; crack-cocaine hadn't even touched Belize. I started selling and just hustling, whatever, just to make a buck. There weren't gangs then, just guys who hung out and tried to hustle. There weren't really any guns; we used to chase our enemies with stick and machete [...] Only the big people would have guns. The cocaine came in [about 19]85. [...] Then men came to trade guns for crack, guns for weed. [...] My friend started acting [like a] real gangster, the way America does it. He's the one that decided that Majestic Alley would be blue [Crips], and anything over the Swing Bridge [would be] red [Bloods] in [19]87–88. We used to fight at the local disco; if you [were] from over the bridge, we'd pick a fight with you, with knife and machete. They were serious fights, but not really with guns.
—Angel (first local Crips leader; deported from LA in 1981), Brotherton 2021, p.388
↑Rotenberg 1993, p.117. In 1990, 64 percent of Belize City households surveyed had experienced a robbery or some form of violent assault against one of their own that year, per a UCB poll (Rotenberg 1993, p.119). By 1993, the prison population had so overwhelmed Central Prison that it had to be relocated from Belize City to its barely-completed site in Hattieville (Gayle 2010a, p.145). On the other hand, by the 1980s, baseboys were already "being hassled" by Babylon boops (police) (Rotenberg 1993, p.115). And by the 2000s, police were already infamous for their corruption, abuses, brutality, and alleged unlawful killings, with the Gayle Report noting they "operate like gangs", and circa 90 percent of complaints to the Ombudsman regarding police (Gayle 2010a, pp.136–137). According to the same, police had so brutalised urban youth that by the late 2000s the latter "really want[ed] an outright war with them like in Jamaica – even if we lose", and yet interviewed gang members deemed police gangs' "best friends", given their corruptibility (Gayle 2010a, pp.136–137, 320–324). These findings still held in the 2020s in Young 2023b, pp.11–13.
↑Rotenberg 1993, p.120; Brotherton 2021, p.391; Smith 1998, p.270. Police also started being militarised. For instance, still by 1991, "police carr[ied] only billy clubs unless assigned to potentially dangerous raids" (Otis 1991). Now (2020s), guns are standard issue.
↑Gayle 2010a, pp.47–48, 309. By 2006, an estimated 90 percent of US-bound South American cocaine transited Central America (Gayle 2010a, p.47). By 2009, the isthmus ranked as the most violent region in the world (Gayle 2010a, p.46).
↑Home Affairs 2007, pp.9–10. Gayle 2010a further claim it grew more organised upon the arrival of 27 Rolling 30s members from NYC (arrested 1997, served prison time, then deported; p. 309). Home Affairs 2007 state "they [Rolling 30s] quickly established their bases [upon arrival in Belize] and introduced new subcultural behaviours among their associates" (p. 5). But Brotherton 2021 find gang activity grew less organised (and thus more violent) in the 2000s as gangs rapidly fragmented (pp. 386, 391–393).
↑By 2007, Home Affairs deemed gangs a "threat to national security" (Home Affairs 2007, pp.9, 11).
↑Home Affairs 2007, p.10; Rotenberg 1993, p.117; Amandala 2007a; Gayle 2010a, pp.309, 311, 314–315, 318–319; Warnecke 2019, pp.213–214; Branigin 1989; Otis 1991. Of 703 murders in 2002–2009 in Belize, 357 (51 percent) had been by firearms (which had become "a core indicator of gang violence"), versus 211 (30 percent) by knife or machete (Gayle 2010a, p.284). By 2020, the portion of murders by firearm stood at circa two-thirds (Wallace 2022, p.212). A 1990s gang leader noted "[in 19]85–86 [things] started to get worse, we started getting guns [and] Belize just got out of hand" (Duran 2024, p.22). By 2023, a question on how difficult it was to acquire firearms was met "with derision and looks of amusement" by interviewed gang members, all of whom said it was "very easy" (Young 2023b, p.13). On the other hand, Brotherton 2021 found gangs had been largely passed over by foreign traffickers by the mid 2010s (in favour of other local actors), though gangs still found other sources of arms and drugs (p. 392). Similarly, in 1991 Otis 1991 reported local cocaine traffickers were "mainly based in Orange Walk", but their activity nevertheless "led to a sharp rise in drug use and street crime in Belize City".
↑Pyrooz 2024, p.360; Brotherton 2021, p.389; Warnecke 2019, pp.226–227. Amandala 2007a attributed "a period of crisis" in 2003 (when Crips began "to step on us [Amandala], me [the publisher] specifically") to influence "by a powerful faction of the ruling PUP" who wished to bring the paper "under manners". And Gayle 2010a noted, "it is very clear that some politicians who have symbiotic links with gangs [illicitly exert undue influence in favour of the latter]" (pp. 138–139, 144–145, 315–318). Further, some interviewees in Duran 2024 claimed "politicians used gangs for garnering votes and participating in electoral rallies" (p. 26).
↑Amandala 2007a; Brotherton 2021, pp.386, 391–393; Warnecke 2019, pp.210, 220; Janowitz 2021. Gayle 2010a found "the turf war is usually between Crips and Bloods but occasionally, depending on the stimulus, intra-group factions occur" (p. 310). Brotherton 2021 found "homicide rates rose most dramatically as violence became less organised when the Bloods and Crips structures began to fragment" (p. 386). But Warnecke 2019 claim "Crips and Bloods gang identity never became hegemonic in the sense of co-opting existing base identities and forming two larger gang blocks" (p. 215).
↑Rotenberg 1993, p.117; Branigin 1989. Rotenberg 1993 note the former "are nearly impossible to confirm, however, and do not distinguish between hard-core members and supporters", whereas for the latter, "one only has to observe an all-too-frequent procession for a gang member's funeral to realise that the numbers are far higher than the total of seventy-five" (p. 117).
↑Duran 2024, pp.15–16; Pyrooz 2024, pp.360–361; Young 2023b, pp.1, 3–4, 14; Wallace 2022, pp.211–212; Brotherton 2021, pp.386, 396. Brotherton 2021 thus dub Belize "the forgotten fourth corner of the [Northern] triangle" (p. 387). But Warnecke 2019 point out that spikes in violent crime are not novel to Belize post-gangs, noting homicides for 1945–2015 peaked in 1983 and "already fluctuated well above" 20 per 100,000 in the 1950s (pp. 5–6). They nonetheless deem gangs "primary violent actors" who introduced "new forms of violence" (namely, urban, public, with guns, in positive feedback loops of escalating power struggles) (Warnecke 2019, pp.209–210, 214–217).
Rotenberg R, McDonogh G, eds. (1993). The Cultural Meaning of Urban Space. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey. ISBN0-89789-319-0. LCCN92-32179.
Wilk RR (1993). "'It's Destroying a Whole Generation': Television and Moral Discourse in Belize". Visual Anthropology. 5 (3–4): 229–244. doi:10.1080/08949468.1993.9966591.
Bunker RJ, ed. (2013). Criminal Insurgencies in Mexico and the Americas: The Gangs and Cartels Wage War. London: Routledge. ISBN978-0-415-53375-1. LCCN2016438196.
Muhammad N (2015). Insights into Gang Culture in Belize. Sandhill, Belize: Reynolds Desktop Publishing. ISBN9789769556331. LCCN2016485679.
Gayle H, Hampton V, Mortis N (2016). Like Bush Fire. Benque Viejo, Belize: Cubola. ISBN978-976-8161-47-5.
Baird A (2019). "'Man a Kill a Man for Nutin': Gang Transnationalism, Masculinities, and Violence in Belize City". Men and Masculinities. 24 (3): 411–431. doi:10.1177/1097184X19872787.
Wallace WC, ed. (2022). Guns, Gun Violence and Gun Homicides: Perspectives from the Caribbean, Global South and Beyond. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-84518-6. ISBN978-3-030-84518-6.
Baird A (2024). From South Central to Southside: Gang Transnationalism, Masculinity, and Disorganized Violence in Belize City. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press. ISBN9781439923351. LCCN2023059602.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
