Global cities – global gangs opendemocracy.net /opensecurity/john-p-sullivan-adam-elkus/global-cities-%E2%80%93-global- gangs John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus Global cities linking global economic circuits are also home to transnational criminals and global gangs. This essay examines the policy implications of gangs in the global city. Gangs, like death, war, and taxes, have always been with us. They are likely to remain a feature of everyday life. For the most part, gangs have been rather low priority in terms of domestic policy. In America in particular, gangs and other street-level criminal organizations have oscillated between objects of benign neglect and sensationalized panic over criminal ‘super-predators’. The global and foreign policy implications of gangs have been rarely considered. However, a rise in newer, networked ‘third generation gangs’ in increasingly ‘global’ cities means that the street gang is becoming an aspect of foreign policy warranting attention and combined domestic and international cooperation. New criminological theories are also focusing on gangs not as simple products of youthful rebellion or social disorganization but social actors, social bandits, and networked sovereign agents in the global system. New perspectives in criminology Traditional criminology has focused on street gangs in the granular, turf-gang model. However, in recent years criminologists have recognized that gangs have become global enterprises. In 2007, prominent criminologist John Hagedorn released a seminal compilation titled Gangs in the Global City (See John Hagedorn, Gangs in the Global City: Alternatives to Traditional Criminology) . Utilizing the ‘global city’ framework developed earlier by Saskia Sassen, Hagedorn and his colleagues argued three points diverging from traditional criminology: gangs are institutionalized in social environments, gangs are globalized and can be found in increasingly globalized urban spaces, and gangs are ‘social actors’ whose identities are formed by identity-based repression, participation in the underground economy, and constructions of gender. Hagedorn challenges traditional criminologists who brand gangs an American phenomenon, primarily adolescent in nature, and solely mute products of social disorganization (see, for example, Malcolm Klein, The American Street Gang, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Rather, he turns his attention to larger influences not seen in analysis that primarily focuses on their commercial activities. These analyses dovetail with a recent emphasis on globalization’s morphing of gang networks and reach by Sullivan, ‘global guerrillas’ by John Robb, as well as work by theorists such as Max Manwaring. Third generation gangs Third Generation gangs differ from First Generation gangs, which are essentially turf organizations that engage in opportunistic crimes, and the more market-focused Second Generation gangs that sometimes operate on a national level. The small but growing number of third generation (3 GEN) gangs are internationalized, networked, and complicated structures that sometimes evolve political aims (for an example, see John P. Sullivan, “Transnational Gangs: The Impact of Third Generation Gangs in Central America,” Air and Space Power Journal Spanish edition, July 2008). The most obvious third generation examples are MS-13 and M-18, which conduct business internationally