Mapping the Situational Crime i - Astalo Garcia

Astalo Garcia
Mapping the Situational Crime in a Region of Northern Mexico.
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Astalo Garcia
Mapping the Situational Crime in a Region of Northern Mexico.
A Gender and Masculinities Approach.
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Mapping the Situational Crime in a Region of Northern Mexico.
A Gender and Masculinities Approach.
Astalo Garcia
Colectivo Hombres Nuevos de La Laguna, Torreón, Coahuila,
Mexico – 2022
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Table of Contents
Pages
Abstract____________________________________________ 7
Keywords__________________________________________ 7
Definitions_________________________________________ 7
Aknowledgements___________________________________ 7
1)INTRODUCTION__________________________________ 11
2)STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM____________________ 14
3)PROPOSAL_______________________________________ 22
4)CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK______________________ 23
5)METHODOLOGY_________________________________ 35
6)CONFRONTING OUR EXPERIENCES WITH THEORY__ 46
7)NEW PERSPECTIVES_____________________________ 52
Summary and Conclusions_____________________________ 60
References__________________________________________ 65
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“When power is not questioned and is not questioned
really deep, the only thing you do is camouflage yourself”
Abstract
This document discusses a model to analyze the extent to which crime and
fear of crime are embedded within same framework and argues that crime
prevention through environmental design represents a planning tool to
assist in the development of Security and Protection Programs.
In recent years in Mexico, individual and collective forms of violence have
increased and diversified, in the north of the country, in the region of La
Laguna, the modality of drug trafficking established specific forms of
criminal violence in times, places and concrete spaces that negatively
impacted its inhabitants.
This book, therefore, tries to record some of the experiences that allow a
situational analysis of crime, provide some clues in the field of crime
prevention, especially this one aimed at attention, punishment, prevention
and eradication of violence and the femicides of women and girls, with the
idea also that it be useful to the community of La Laguna in northern
Mexico.
Keywords
situational crime prevention, fear of crime, drug trafficking, liberating and
libertarian masculinities, routine activities, comunalidades, buen vivir,
oligarchic elites.
Definitions
Routine activities: Refer to the set patterns of behavior within the spatial environment of three kinds of
social actors: a) motivated offenders, b) capable guardians of persons or property and c) suitable targets of
criminal victimization (targets may be persons or places).
Situational crime prevention: Is based in the belief that crime can be deterred by making strategic
changes to an environment. It does this by focusing on how (rather than why) crime happens—and
therefore, how it can be prevented. Situational crime prevention focuses on the settings where crime
occurs, rather than on those committing specific criminal acts. The emphasis is on managerial and
environmental change that reduces opportunities for crimes to occur (Clarke, 1997).
Serious crime: Any criminal offense classified as a felony under the laws of the Mexico, any state or any
foreign country where the crime occurred.
Privilege: The advantages that come from being a member of a dominant group (based on gender, race,
class, ability, or sexuality). Invisibility of privilege is the idea that those who are dominant in a society
may not be aware of their dominance or special status. The invisibility of privilege results in people being
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unaware of the extent of discrimination and as a result, may become angry when confronted with
evidence or assertions of racism, classism, sexism, etc.
Gender: There’s a distinction between gender and the sex we are assigned at birth. Gender is based on
“socially constructed rules and roles that exist to define what it means to be masculine or feminine.” In
other words, gender is not a ‘thing’ that one possesses but rather a set of activities that one does. Because
our ideas about what is ‘masculine’ and what is ‘feminine’ are socially constructed, they can and do
change.
Context(s): Physical environments, which include anything you can touch, see, smell or hear (e.g.,
buildings, objects, uniforms, lighting, décor, etc.) and sociocultural environments, which include anything
that is socially constructed or transmitted (e.g., social norms and networks, processes, organizational
structures, symbols, social sanctions/rewards, policies, procedures, etc.). ‘Context’ is also sometimes used
to indicate a specific situation (e.g., becoming a father).
Feminist theory: A theory that supports a structural and gendered analysis of power in order to aid
efforts to end sexism, sexual exploitation, and gender-based violence and oppression.
Gender-based ciolence (GBV): Violence that is directed against a person because of their gender. All
genders experience gender-based violence, but the majority of GBV victims around the world are women
and girls. Gender-based violence includes the perpetration of physical, sexual, psychological, emotional,
spiritual, technological, and economic harm against women and girls
.
Gender equality: A situation in which people of all genders experience the same access to, and control
over “social, economic and political resources, including protection under the law (such as health
services, education and voting rights). It is also known as equality of opportunity, or formal equality.
Gender equality is often used interchangeably with gender equity, but the two refer to different,
complementary strategies that are needed to reduce gender-based health inequities.
Gender transformative approaches: “Practices, programs, and/or interventions that reshape gender
relations to be more gender equitable, largely through approaches that free both women and men from the
impact of destructive gender and sexual norms.
Masculinities: The development of masculinity-related beliefs, attitudes and norms that promote gender
equality, non-violence, and social and emotional competencies. Developing healthy masculinities
involves: 1) expanding traditional notions of masculinity to include a wider range of human qualities and
experiences (e.g., nurturing, care-taking, being vulnerable), and 2) challenging aspects of traditionallydefined
masculinities that reinforce existing power dynamics and limit the potential for gender equality.
Militarized masculinities: These are a combination of hyper-masculine, hegemonic, and violent traits
and attitudes associated primarily with military personnel and other military institutions (such as the
police, private security, and border patrols).
Liberating and libertarian masculinity: The liberating and libertarian masculinity puts the work of
liberating masculinities, as a political exercise, activist in social mobilization in favor of an antipatriarchal,
anti-capitalist reality.
Power: The ability to create or withstand change. In a social context, power means the “ability to make
decisions about one’s life and the capacity to influence and/or effect desired goals. All relationships are
affected by the exercise of power, which in turn is profoundly shaped by social identities, including
gender, race, class, sexual orientation, age, religion, nationality, etc.”
Patriarchy: A system that values the masculine over the feminine in virtually every sphere (i.e., social,
economic, physical security, sexual and reproductive rights, etc.). Patriarchy offers men a tremendous and
disproportionate amount of power and privilege (although not all men benefit equally, and some men
have very little power compared to other men).
Hegemonic masculinity: A dominant and socially legitimized form of masculinity that confers greater
status, power and control on those who practice it, effectively subordinating women (as well as other men
and other genders) who don’t fit and/or identify with that particular version of masculinity.
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Social networks: A grouping of individuals, organizations, or systems that are connected to one another
through different kinds of interactions and relationships.
Healthy relationships: Interpersonal “connections that increase well-being, are mutually enjoyable, and
enhance or maintain each individual’s positive self-concept.”338 .“Healthy relationships are based on the
belief that everyone has value and is equal, and that power in a relationship is shared. Characteristics of a
healthy relationship include mutual respect, trust, support, accountability, honesty, shared responsibility,
fairness, and non-threatening behaviour.” When conflict (i.e., a disagreement of opinion or interest
between people) occurs, it is “resolved through negotiation rather than the misuse of power”.
Interpersonal violence: Violence occurring between individuals (either known or unknown to one
another). It is distinguished from collective violence (violence involving larger groups of people),
structural violence (harm that is perpetrated through social structures and institutions), and self-directed
violence (e.g., suicide, self-mutilation).
Structural violence: The “avoidable limitations that society places on groups of people that constrain
them from meeting their basic needs and achieving the quality of life that would otherwise be possible.
These limitations, which can be political, economic, religious, cultural, or legal in nature, usually
originate in institutions that exercise power over particular subjects.”
Key influencer: Someone who influences the norms, attitudes, and behaviours of others within a specific
setting. Key influencers can be formal or informal, and sometimes are both. A formal influencer is
someone in a leadership role with decision-making power within the organization, group,
system/institution, or community (e.g., CEO, politician, coach). An informal influencer is someone who
others consciously or unconsciously look to as a source of information about how to think, behave, and
interact within a particular setting or group.
Male-oriented settings: Settings that are biased towards, dominated by, and/or designed for men.
Micro-interventions: Small actions and/or reactions designed to create positive change. In a Changing
Contexts approach, micro-interventions are intended to contribute to more gender equitable and prosocial
norms, attitudes, and behaviours within a particular network or setting.
Nudge: Small contextual shifts that have the potential to change behaviour without changing the choices
available (i.e., nudges are suggestive, not coercive). The term comes from the idea that “when individuals
are thinking automatically, a mere ‘nudge’ may change their behavior.”
Nudge theory: A “concept in behavioral science, political theory and behavioral economics which
proposes positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions as ways to influence the behavior and decision
making of groups or individuals. Nudging contrasts with other ways to achieve compliance, such as
education, legislation or enforcement.
Communality: A way of living that can provide clues to build emancipation alternatives before the
excluding and predatory logics of neoliberal capitalism, and in this sense it is constituted as a utopian
horizon.
Oligarchic elites: The very idea of “elites”, suggests qualities of “agency”, “exclusivity”, ”power” and an
apparent separation from “mass society” – concepts that , in different ways, oblige us to consider related
themes of stratification, hierarchy, brokers and causal agents behind events. Elites thus “represent a way
of conceiving power in society and attributing responsibility to persons rather than to impersonal
structures”. (Marcus, 1983).
HIGLEY and BURTON (2006) define elites in terms of the capacity of small groups “who are able, by
virtue of their strategic positions in powerful organisations and movements, to affect political outcomes
regularly and substantially”. Wealth is the power resource that defines oligarchs and sets in motion the
politics and processes of oligarchy. Material power resources provide the foundation on which oligarchs
stand as formidable political actors.
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Acknowledgments
I thank all the people who contributed to the realization of this book,
especially to the men and women and their children of the groups of the
Colectivo Hombres Nuevos de La Laguna (Mexico), Jesus C. Borrego,
Sergio Garza, Gabriel Peña, Francisco Blanco, Luis Dominguez, Lucio,
Antonio. To my colleagues, John Bayron Ochoa, Trabajador Social,
Magister en Investigacion social, Docente, Facultad de Educacion y
Ciencias Sociales del Tecnologico de Antioquia (Colombia), Maria Eva
Sanz, Lic. En Trabajo Social, Especialista en Violencia Intrafamiliar de La
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Presidenta de la Asociacion Mutual “grupo
buenos ayres” y Coordinadora Nacional de la Red Argentina por Buenas
Masculinidades (Argentina) both from Red Iniciativas de Trabajo en
Masculinidades (RIMA). Javier Omar Ruiz, Jose Manuel Hernandez -
Colectivo Hombres y Masculinidades, (Colombia), Leon Huarancca from
Grupo de Masculinidades, Ica, (Peru), Miguel Angel Gomez, from
Movimiento Sur Masculino (Colombia).
For my wife Elvia Garcia and my children Elvia Paola, Esli and Ricardo...
my colleagues and friends Maria Elena Calderon, Luz Elena Martinez,
Maria Evangelina Velazquez, Claudia Murillo (Torreon, Coahuila,
Mexico)…
All they who gave us their time, trust and solidarity,
East work is for you.
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Mapping the Situational Crime in a Region of Northern Mexico.
A Gender and Masculinities Approach.
1)INTRODUCTION
In Mexico, delinquency, organized crime, insecurity, homicides, femicide,
violence and drug use have grown rapidly in recent years and currently
represents priority issues for the three levels of government in the country,
this fact generates the need to elaborate studies that, from different
perspectives, It lay the foundations for the construction of alternatives.
Insecurity and violence remain the same or higher than before. The
variations in the level of violence in states, regions or municipalities have
nothing to do with the "social prevention of crime", but above all with the
calculations and decisions of criminal groups and their struggles.
Between 2006 and 2014, the Laguna region in Northern Mexico was the
scene of a war between the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas. The brutality of
the latter was the trigger that made them the number one target of the
authorities. In this context of extreme violence, the reaction movements
that give rise to what the researchers consider a "reconquest" are recorded.
In studies from 2017, there is talk of a reconfiguration of the map of
violence, since it was more accentuated in municipalities in the Pacific
region of the country.
But in 2018 the map was reconfigured again and the highlight of this
reconfiguration is that for the first time the state of Guanajuato, Salamanca,
Salvatierra, Irapuato, Pénjamo, Silao and Celaya appeared in the top of the
20 most violent municipalities. This increase in violence in these
municipalities is the result of the struggle between criminal groups and the
triggering of fuel theft in the center of the country.
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In recent years (2019-2022), the states and municipalities with the highest
crime rates and perception of insecurity are Fresnillo, (96.8%), Ciudad
Obregón (95%), Naulcalpan de Juarez (92.1%), Zacatecas (89.4%) ,
Irapuato (89%) and Uruapan (86%).
Even when La Laguna experienced the ravages of extreme violence during
the years from 2006 to 2014, the impact was such that a perception of fear
and insecurity still persists in these populations. When mistreatment, abuse
and violence occur in an intimate relationship with a partner, threats, fear
and terror are also present, no matter that the aggressor is no longer present,
fear, terror and insecurity in intimate and public spaces remain. The same
happens in collective criminal violence, the perpetrators move to other
places, to other contexts and with other people, but the perception of fear
and insecurity remains in the inhabitants.
This book is made up of seventh sections that deal with the same
problematic, interpersonal, collective and structural violence, emphasizing
violence against women and girls.
The first section Introduction, deals with the environment and the context
in which the problem of extreme violence is developed in a specific period
of time and space, from 2006 to 2014.
The second, Statement of the problem section, It raises the alarming
increase in violence and deaths of women and girls in La Laguna, inside
their homes and in public places by nearby men, known as well as
unknown. This being a widespread problem throughout the country.
The third section Proposal, proposes an alternative analysis of the problem
of violence and the high rates of femicide in La Laguna, based on the
experience of more than two decades of work with men who exercise
violence, specifically the experiences that I have individually and
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collectively as part of the Colectivo Hombres Nuevos had in Mexico,
Nicaragua, El Salvador and Colombia.
Fourth section, Conceptual framework, describes the various approaches
that support the work of analyzing the realities experienced in a context of
crime, violence, fear and terror as it was in La Laguna and its subsequent
impact that still persists.
The fifth section, Methodology, provides the instruments applied to obtain
inputs that allowed the generation of new knowledge from the experience
on the topic of the situational perspective of crime.
Confronting our experiences with theory, is the sixth section, it presents the
reflections that took greater sense when contrasted with some of the
concepts that have emerged as a product of research the subject of violence
and crime. The need arises to understand how victims suffer a series of
damages, losses and abrupt transformations that dramatically affect its
stability, security and ability to decide and influence over their lives,
generating emotional suffering and serious deterioration of their physical
and mental health.
The seventh section, New Perspectives, It addresses how the process of
experiences is cumulative and extends over a period of time, so that many
of the meaning schemes change over time and culminate in a
transformation of perspective, it also postulates that the transformation of
life perspectives can take place on a personal, individual, group and
collective level, as occurs in movements.
Last, presents the products obtained from the analysis made on the situation
of extreme violence and crime, fear and insecurity experienced in the most
critical period (2010-2012) and a current assessment of the routine
activities of citizenship against the perception of fear and insecurity.
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2)STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
2.1 Background
At the end of 2006, began the so-called "war on drug trafficking", to
consist of the restructuring of corporations municipal, state and federal
police forces, and in parallel a frontal combat was carried out towards the
criminal organizations.
The Armed Forces took control of the cities with increased presence of
drug trafficking, in the midst of a process that unleashed unusual violence
at the national level with serious social consequences.
The Comarca Lagunera, also known as La Laguna, is a region located in
north central Mexico. La Laguna is made up of ten municipalities of the
state of Durango (Gómez Palacio, Lerdo, Tlahualilo, Mapimí, San Pedro
del Gallo, San Luis Cordero, Rodeo, Nazas, San Juan de Guadalupe and
Simón Bolívar) and five from Coahuila (Torreón, Matamoros, San Pedro
de las Colonias, Fco. I Madero and Viesca) has become very important in
this regard.
Your geographic location positioned it as one of the most coveted areas by
gangs of drug traffickers, since it is located in the middle part of the socalled
Route of the Center in the national map of the illegal traffic of drugs.
The dispute between the cartels for control of the territory has propitiated
an unprecedented phenomenon of violence after the continuous
establishment and removal of organized crime groups.
Narcopolitic in Torreón, Coahuila, there were signs that drug traffickers
were infiltrating the political group that governed Coahuila, while the
presence of drug traffickers in La Laguna grew, the rise of businesses such
as hotels, entertainment centers, restaurants, American franchises and gas
stations is also visible. During a tour of Independence Boulevard, for
example, large buildings can be seen, and some of them are about to be
inaugurated as foreign car dealerships, such as BMW, Seat, among others.
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2.2 The Colectivo Hombres Nuevos de La Laguna
"...As a man I think that I am the one who received violence from my partner, not her, genderbased
violence until recently when I heard my daughters express their fears of some men in certain
spaces, that is how I realize the violence suffered by women and girls by men..." (Testimony).
The Colectivo Hombres Nuevos de La Laguna emerged as a result of the
effort and reflection of several men also with the support and
encouragement of many women to form in the region of La Laguna in the
state of Coahuila, at north of Mexico, an alternative movement that was
congruent and supportive with the new changes that women are making
and sensitive to the serious problems of family, sexual and gender violence;
the abuses of power mostly committed by men, mainly against women's.
Form educational groups and male reflection with a perspective of gender,
implies developing methodologies for proactive self-criticism patriarchal
forms of abuse of power through control and domination that historically
we men tend to exercise in our relationships.
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The development of the collective through more than two decades has been
in four phases: I Birth of the Organization, ll Setting, III Consolidation, IV
Expansion and Development.
The colective decided to settle in the city of Torreón, Coahuila, one of the
cities that make up the region known as "Región de La Laguna" or
"Comarca Lagunera" together with other important cities of the state of
Durango, such as Gómez Palacio and Lerdo City.
From 2009 to 2013, a period of transition in the life of the group, marked
by local and national contextual scenarios that have demanded a reflection
in greater depth on what was being done, make systematization of the
experiences that would allow obtaining inputs for design new strategies to
respond to new demands presented by a population concerned about the
conditions of crime, violence and violations of the rights of the people and
especially of the most vulnerable groups, such as women, girls and boys,
young people and groups of sexual, ethnic, religious and political diversity
(GARCIA C. Adriana 2014).
Fortunately, this scenary also led to the need to seek alliances and
international links that allow learning and obtaining tools for strengthening
the organization and its members. Incorporation into networks, collectives
and groups in Central America, South America, the United States and
Europe, has allowed rethinking the actions of the Colectivo Hombres
Nuevos de La Laguna as a group and the social commitments and
challenges before new realities (GARCIA, 2011).
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An international network, made up of people; men and
women with diversity in their life experiences, professional and academic
training, who are in the individual and collective will to promote the
inclusion of men as subjects and groups, aware and active in the realization
of egalitarian societies for the full exercise of Human Rights, responding to
particular conditions and situations for reasons of gender, age, ethnic
identity, social class, gender identity and sexual orientation.
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2.3 The problem
Regarding the issue related to the drug trafficking system already in 2004
and 2005, our Colectivo Hombres Nuevos had an experience of working
two years in a Rehabilitation Social Center (imprisonment) with men who
met a ten-year sentence for health crimes, men related with activities crime,
related to drug trafficking bonding with men who attended the Program of
Men Renouncing their Violence (PHRSV in spanish) installing a program
for men at interior of the prison (GARCIA, 2008).
2010, a year in which the country becomes more complex situation of
violence and crime linked to the drug trafficking system and our region
began to convulse, crimes increased, collective deaths, various scenarios,
clashes between security elements public and military, between assassins
from different cartels, mass dismissals of police officers, high-ranking
officers executed, reported corruption of officials, kidnappings and a
hyper-vigilance on the streets day and night by local, state and local police
forces federal and military in increasing numbers.
The region, furthermore, not only suffers extreme violence due to
homicides, the great majority caused for other criminal activities and
mainly for the drug trafficking, but also many other facts everyday and
common crimes such as robberies with violence, kidnappings, sexual
abuse, criminal youth gang activity or domestic violence.
GOTTFREDSON and HIRSCHI (1987) made a classic distinction between
crime (an event) and criminality, which they defined as "stable
differences between individuals in the propensity to commit criminal (or
equivalent) acts".
There are some dominant paradigms about crime, as well as emerging
perspectives on crime. The intent is to offer a perspective on the field of
criminology, while avoiding neglect of gender subordination, violent
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white-collar crime, family violence, organized crime, and other socially
damaging behavior which are often excluded.
During the period of time in which extreme violence was installed in La
Laguna, violence against women was identified using the concept of
domestic violence, as drug violence increased, this concept ceased to be
mentioned, the media and the only institutions spoke of crimes.
In recent years it has been possible to specify this violence against women
and girls, defining it as gender violence, intimate violence or femicide.
This change in concepts has made it possible to make visible the various
types of violence suffered specifically by women inside and outside their
homes, by people who are generally men, known or unknown, close or
distant.
2.4 Understanding the context
Although the high levels of chronic violence in Latin America are mainly
carried out by poor youth and most of them cost the lives of poor youth, the
conditions for its reproduction are generated by the masculine logic of elite
power and wealth accumulation.
It is necessary to discuss why it makes sense to use the term “oligarchic
elites” to analyze both the lack of investment in the rule of law and the
elites' preference for a fragmented security state whose permeability
facilitates influence peddling.
Latin America’s history of social action against violences– not least
disappearances, femicide, forced displacement, and state torture – should
extend to de-sanctioning violence as a phenomenon. This could open up
spaces for social and political participation to create the conditions of social
justice which reduce violence (PEARCE 2018).
In the region of La Laguna the Industrialization strongly affected
agriculture, which constituted one of the main sources of economic income;
it was lived a situation similar to that of the whole country, a significant
amount of population is forced to leave their place of origin, mainly rural
municipalities, specifically migrating to the city of Torreon, which was
undergoing an accelerated process of industrialization.
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Generated a gradual process of expansion of drug trafficking markets at the
national level, which gave rise to specific areas that concentrated a greater
demand for narcotic drugs for the beginning of the 2000s, since although
Mexico has been considered only as a country of passage to the US market
and consumption of drugs is still considerably lower in relation to United
States, it has been growing.
Thus, in 2006 a wave of confrontations began between groups of drug
traffickers for the control of zones and routes, mainly in the cities of the
north of the country, which supposes according to BOLIO (2010), an
increase in the exercise of violence to remove competitors and, through
coercion, gain some control and protection from political power.
La Laguna is located in the middle northern part of the so-called Central
Route, on the national traffic map illegal drug trade, in which a large part
of the territory of Coahuila is in dispute for dominance of the passage
routes, creating a violent phenomenon of continuous implantation and
removal of organized groups that runs through a good part of the social
fabric, rural and urban.
The contexts, the routines, the schedules, the relations of the population
were affected, the spaces that previously had been spaces for the
construction of citizenship, socialization among the inhabitants were
disappearing, recreation places for young people were closed. Violations of
all kinds arose, but above all any violation of human rights, the right to live
a life free of violence, people had to leave their studies, their jobs, even
their places of home.
The "toque de queda" was established, which means establishing
a time limit to remain in public spaces and stay in their houses. Urban
violence has settled in all its magnitude.
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“Organized crime”- Most of the countries faces a phenomenon of profound
impact: organized crime linked mainly to drug trafficking, money
laundering, arms trafficking, trafficking in persons, commercial sexual
exploitation and kidnapping, among other crimes. Its importance and
seriousness is such that, in some states of the region, have developed areas
considered “redoubts of impunity”, in which the presence of the State is
being replaced by the power and influence of these criminal groups.
The increase in drug use, the easy acquisition of firearms, the use of
modern systems of communication and banking for criminal purposes, the
presence of porous borders, the weakness of the system of criminal justice,
the high levels of corruption are some of the possible factors that explain
increased presence of organized crime in the region.
Particularly in the city of Torreón, during 2007-2008 drug-related
homicides increased and clashes with firearms between criminal groups
and against the security forces. In an ascending process, experienced the
highest peaks of violence in 2010-2012 (Observatory National Citizen,
2012).
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3)PROPOSAL
3.1 Coordinated Community Response Model
The Coordinated Community Response Model (CCR model) works
with communities to develop more effective responses to the crime and
other domestic violence. It brings advocacy programs, law enforcement,
criminal justice, human service and other agencies together to
coordinate their responses, integrating best practices into the
infrastructure of case processing, so that victims and their children are
safer, offenders are held more accountable and the responsibility for
ending the violence is shifted from the victim to the community.
A Coordinated Community Response (CCR) team joins multidisciplinary
community partners to provide interagency, coordinated responses to
crime and violence. Collaboration meets the needs of victims/survivors
and more effectively holds offenders accountable.
A coordinated community response involves police, prosecutors, probation
officers, battered women's advocates, counselors, and judges in developing
and implementing polices and procedures that improve interagency
coordination and lead to more uniform responses to domestic violence
cases.
Components of a Coordinated Response are: pro-arrest or mandatory arrest
policies, advocacy for victims, aggressive and prompt prosecution,
monitoring individual cases, batterer rehabilitation programs, strengthening
civil protection and a system-wide monitoring.
In Mexico, one of the most important efforts to value and make visible the
knowledge of non-hegemonic and silenced groups took place in the
communities of the Sierra Norte in Oaxaca. Here the thought of
communality was born, the product of processes of struggle and collective
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reflection in which many people participated since the end of the seventies,
and whose main theorists are Jaime Martinez Luna and Floriberto Diaz
(AQUINO, 2013).
3.2 "Buen Vivir" (Good Living) a logic from southern thinking
The Good Living in Mexico as in some Andean countries such as Ecuador
and Bolivia, is part of the life of the original peoples, of a “past life”,
founded on a present collective memory.
However, as a result of more than five hundred years of domination and
colonial and capitalist subjugation, that living, based on a logic and
rationality different from that of the West, emerging from other matrices
civilizations, has been disrupted. However, from a permanent confrontation
and class struggle, the peoples “insist” on defending their world views and
world experiences as part of that “Other” living that implies the good for
all, including men, women, plants, animals, earth, water, wind, mountains,
dead, sun, moon, among many others. Because they are all complementary
and necessary in a universe made up of a complex diversity (universediverse).
4)CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
4.1 Situational theory
Situational Action Theory (SAT) is a general, dynamic and mechanismbased
theory of crime and its causes that analyses crime as moral actions.
SAT proposes to explain all kinds of acts crime (hence, general), stresses
the importance of analysing the person-environment interaction and its
changes (hence, dynamic), and focuses on identifying key basic
explanatory processes involved in crime causation (hence, mechanistic).
Two important principles in SAT concerning the interaction between
morality and controls in the process of choice is the principle of moral
correspondence and the principle of the conditional relevance of controls
(e.g., WIKSTRÖM, 2010). The principle of moral correspondence state
that if there is a close correspondence between a person’s personal morals
and the moral norms of the setting in which they take part they are likely to
act in accordance with this (which depending on the content of the rule-
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guidance may either encourage or discourage getting involved in an act of
crime).
A core argument of SAT is that the role of macro-social factors such as
inequality and segregation in crime causation are best analysed as potential
causes of the causes (e.g., WIKSTRÖM, 2011) and in terms of processes of
social selection that influences how different kinds of people are exposed to
different kinds of places. SAT proposes that one major source of variation
in crime involvement between people, and categories of people, for
example, by gender, ethnicity and social class, is due to differences in
social selection. Some people are more often than others exposed to
criminogenic settings (WIKSTRÖM et. al., 2012).
Other key components of Opportunity perspectives for the crime are:
Rutine Activities, Environmental Criminology and Situational Crime
Prevention. These factors allow for crime are concentred at Micro Level
places, such as street segments, there is variability from street segment to
street segment in opportunity characteristics which supports the exploration
of crime at micro-level spaces and also a disorganized place is present.
CLARKE and WEISBURD, offered a theoretical and descriptive
elaboration on the broader concepts known as “benefit diffusion”. Defined
as the “unexpected reduction in crimes not directly subject to
preventive action”, and encompassing a wide range of possible forms, that
is, (space, time, type of crime, method and objective), the diffusion of
benefits can be considered as the opposite of crime displacement.
Crime displacement is “the relocation of crime (or criminals) as a
result of police crime prevention efforts”. Crime displacement has been
linked to problem oriented policing, but it may occur at other levels and for
other reasons.
In La Laguna, organized crime groups have used both the spread of
benefits and displacement to other states of the country.
This mobility that the cartels have crosses the various types of structural
and collective violence.
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Collective Violence
Criminologists divide violence into two major types: individual violence
and collective violence. Individual (or personal) violence is injurious force
directed by one person against others. It includes making physical attacks
and destroying another’s property. In contrast, collective violence consists
of a number of persons directing injurious force against others. Acts of
collective violence do not spring from madness, perversion, or intentional
criminality; they spring from everyday life and mundane issues, and the
people who commit these acts are normal people who become convinced
that the time has come to take matters into their own hands.
Generally speaking, collective violence can be divided into three
categories:
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1. Situational collective violence is unplanned and spontaneous. Something
in the immediate situational environment triggers a group to violent action.
For example, in a barroom brawl, one group of patrons interprets messages
sent by another group as a form of disrespect and feels it necessary to
retaliate physically.
2. Organized collective violence is planned violent behaviour. It is also
unauthorized or unofficial and lacks government approval. Lynching is an
example of organized collective violence.
3. Institutional collective violence is carried out under the direction of
legally constituted officials. Examples include a country fighting a war, a
state’s national guard putting down a riot.
Within the context of collective behaviour, situational collective violence
can be understood as spontaneous behaviour, and organized collective
violence and institutional collective violence can be combined into the
category of organized collective behaviour.
The most elementary form of collective violence is referred to as “social
unrest.” The significance of social unrest is that it represents a breakdown
of established routines and behaviours and substitutes a preparation
for new collective action. Social unrest is not a new phenomenon; it is
most likely a characteristic of urban society. Often, tensions exist in any
given social environment.
When groups of people become dissatisfied and frustrated with existing
economic and political institutions, there may come a point when the
breakdown of law and order is preferred to their preservation. During the
chaos of a riot, many emergent forms of behaviour occur that might not
occur otherwise. Acts of violence take on new meaning; they are now
viewed as legitimate by the performers and the active witnesses.
Structural Violence
The phrase “structural violence” was coined by Johan Galtung in his pathbreaking
1969 article, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research”. Galtung
conceived this form of violence as a pervasive form of violence that is
“built into” structures, institutions, ideologies, and histories. Many authors
that followed Gultung all agree that structural violence is a form of
26

violence, which “shapes and reshapes our experiences that cannot be
accounted for by liability-based models of agency and force”
4.2 Oligarchic Elites and Crime
Even though the privileged sectors of society monopolize the media’s
attention and impose the violence of regimes of distance and proximity, it
is the poor who make up most of the victims, as well as most of the
aggressors.
A large part of the urban violence which wounds and kills members of the
lower strata comes out of those strata themselves: due to poverty,
discontent, frustrated expectations, making war to survive by holding on to
a small-scale drug market, or because people do not know how to
successfully resolve a dispute with a neighbour in an environment in which
there is no law enforcement.
There is a long history of debate on how to conceptualise the concentration
of power and wealth in the hands of the “few” and whether this is
inevitable, as classical elite theorists notably argued (Mosca, Pareto and
Michels) (BOLIVAR M. 2002).
Referring to political elites in liberal democracies, HIGLEY and BURTON
(2006) define elites in terms of the capacity of small groups “who are able,
by virtue of their strategic positions in powerful organisations and
27

movements, to affect political outcomes regularly and substantially”.
Wealth is the power resource that defines oligarchs and sets in motion the
politics and processes of oligarchy. Material power resources provide the
foundation on which oligarchs stand as formidable political actors.
The very idea of “elites”, suggests qualities of “agency”, “exclusivity”,
”power” and an apparent separation from “mass society” – concepts that ,
in different ways, oblige us to consider related themes of stratification,
hierarchy, brokers and causal agents behind events. Elites thus “represent
a way of conceiving power in society and attributing responsibility to
persons rather than to impersonal structures” (Marcus, 1983).
The character of oligarchy is inseparable from the nature of the property
defence regime. When property rights are weak and threats to property
claims are high, oligarchy becomes more visible because oligarchs engage
directly and personally in the coercion needed to defeat threats to their
fortunes.
WINTERS highlights the different character of oligarchy under conditions
where fortunes are highly secure and defended institutionally by a state that
maintains a: permanently organised apparatus for violence and holds a
reliable monopoly on the means of coercion. This shift in the locus of
property defence from wealthy individuals to an external guarantor
dramatically changes the character of oligarchy, but does not eliminate
oligarchs or oligarchy itself.
A cohesive state apparatus is likely to reduce the visibility of violence
because it makes state protection more reliable or enforcement more
efficient. By contrast, a fragmented security apparatus is likely to increase
the visibility of violence because it makes protection less predictable or
enforcement less effective.
These elites are also approached by Ruth Segato, when she refers to
corporate masculinities or corporate power and the pedagogy of terror by
the media, favoring the installation of chronic fear of crime in the
population.
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4.3 Communality and Good Living
Hegemonic theoretical perspectives, by definition, are one-dimensional and
exclusive, since they have validated a single form of science, of knowledge
and, therefore, of thinking and being, by carrying out what Boaventura de
Sousa Santos has called cognitive injustice, and even epistemicide, against
conquered peoples and colonized (Escobar 2011, Santos 2009).
In response there have been numerous theories and currents of thought that
seek to account for the processes of coloniality of knowledge through
which we not only decipher and understand the world, but we also define
ourselves as subjects and as peoples.
In this context of critical emancipatory reflections, the concept of
communality as a proposal arising from the dialogue between indigenous
communities from northern Oaxaca, systematized by Jaime Martínez Luna
and Floriberto Díaz, anthropologists of that region, and whose construction
continues today (AQUINO 2013).
In Mexico, the notion of communality is currently being appropriated and
claimed by indigenous peoples and movements beyond the Oaxacan
territory in the south of the country, as is the case of Cherán.
The reflection on communality arises in the Mixe and Zapotec peoples
before the tired of feeling defined "by the other", and in the very heart of
their struggles against dispossession of their natural resources, in defense of
self-determination and improvement of their living conditions.
Commonality theorists posit three basic strategies:
a. Assuming that given the continuity of racism and colonialism, it is
necessary make visible the colonial legacy in relations between indigenous
peoples, the state and current society;
b. Critically distance oneself from the concepts produced within the
framework of colonial domination, to access the production of counterhegemonic
categories to think and reflect on the native peoples, produce
own categories, showing the limits of the hegemonic categories and in
consequence,
c. Do not give up producing knowledge for emancipation (AQUINO 2013).
The most important thing, as Aquino points out, is to conceive
communality as way of living that can provide clues to build
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emancipation alternatives before the excluding and predatory logics of
neoliberal capitalism, and in this sense it is constituted as a utopian
horizon. These tracks can be synthesized on some key stakes of
communality versus lifestyle prevailing (AQUINO 2013):
• Faced with the "ornamental and symbolic" multiculturalism of the State,
self-determination community;
• Faced with the state model of partisan democracy, characterized by
corruption, fraud, vote-buying, the collection of onerous salaries, a
government model based on the idea of service and commitment to the
community;
• Faced with a precarious labor market, the search for self-sufficiency food;
• In the face of exacerbated consumerism, valuing one's own and thinking
about styles of more environmentally friendly life;
• Faced with the prevailing individualism, community work as the basis of
common benefit.
Given the failure of development policies in most of the global South, these
peoples have actively tried to demonstrate, by example, that “It is possible
to satisfy most of the basic needs from the resources offered by the
community, with respect for the environment and with autonomy of a labor
market to which they could only be integrated at the bottom (AQUINO
2013. In this sense, communality is connected with a philosophy or
broader paradigm, also of indigenous roots, which in general terms, it is
known as rich is known as 'good living' or 'living well', and that it is being
claimed by Andean cultures in South America.
To understand what Buen Vivir (Good Living) is, you must first get rid of
any idea related to the concept of well-being from Western thought, and
rather be open to other ways of understanding the world from the
worldviews of the Andean indigenous peoples.
Good Living is at the same time an end and a means, it guides
transformations that are necessary for the urgent change that the world
needs and is totally linked to diversity (LEON, 2010). The improvement of
society, from Andean indigenous thought, has to do with a construction and
reconstruction of life itself, where the material aspect is not the only
element in this process, but also knowledge, ethical and spiritual behaviors.
between members of society and with nature, values, among others
(ACOSTA, 2008).
The center of his attention is life and living (as an end), from where other
dimensions such as economy, culture and nature are connected; therefore,
everything is related (as a means) (LEON, 2010); so that, in this
perspective, there is no linear transition process of societies from one state
to another, so the premise of underdevelopment to be left behind or of
30

development to be achieved is not incorporated, nor is the idea of poverty
as lack of material goods or wealth from abundance (ACOSTA, 2008).
The dominant Western culture has imposed a world of relationships that
threatens life, ours and that of the entire planet: Priority is given to the good
individual, capital, consumption and the destruction of nature for the
benefit of human beings, bring consequences for all species and forms of
life.
Starting from the definitions and the main stakes of communality and of
good living referred to above, in particular, It is interesting to me,
analyzing whether the presence or deliberate reconstitution of these
dimensions of communality and good living can be related directly or
indirectly with a stop to violence.
However, the worldview of the orginaries indigenous peoples
teaches us that we can live the “Sumak Kawsay”, to live “a full life”, life in
a state is splendorous, beautiful and harmonious life for se beef humans and
Mother Nature.
What is Sumak Kawsay? It is a conception of life of the peoples
Kichwas. To understand it, let's start of what these two words mean: Sumak
is the full, the splendid, the beautiful, while Kawsay means lifetime. You
have to understand, yes, that for the Kichwas, life beats in all beings:
stones, rivers, hills, plants, people…So, Sumak Kawsay means life full, life
in a splendid state, life beautiful and harmonious for human beings and
Mother Nature. The Tayta Luis Macas, historical leader of the Ecuatorian
indigenous movement, points out that "the Sumak Kawsay is the state of
fullness of the entire vital community.
In Ecuador, from the indigenous peoples, the concept of Sumak Kawsay
jumped to the Constitution valid since 2008.
Principles of Sumak Kawsay.- Principle of Vitality: for the Indigenous
people , we are all part of life, without no exclusions. Therefore, in the
stones, the hills, the air, the water, the earth and more things, normally
considered inert, also life shines. Nina Pakari, a wise Otavalo woman,
teaches that “all beings in nature are invested of energy that is the Samai
and, consequently, are beings that have life: a stone, a river (water), the
mountain, the sun, the plants, in short, all beings have life and they also
enjoy a family, joys and sadness, just like the human being”.
Principle of Relationality and Vitality: all beings, all things, all events are
related, in a visible way or an invisible way. the planet is a wonder cobweb:
what happens to a part influences the whole and the whole influences the
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parts. Nina Pakari teaches us that "every one of these beings relate to each
other. We are all part of a whole”.
Under the principles of vitality and relationality, the way we relate to our
fellow men. By internalizing the principle of vitality, we become able to
see the same life that is in us in others, without discriminating for physical,
cultural or any other reasons. By internalizing the principle of relationality,
we feel the sweet experience of needing each other. to others in the
struggles, efforts or daily games and to share the dream of a full life for all
mankind.
4.4 Liberating and Libertarian Masculinities
"We come from libertarian histories.
In freedom we want to be and libertarianly think"
Javier Omar Ruiz A.
SEGATO expressed as the “mandate of masculinity”, a concept which
identifies men’s perceived obligation of domination in order to belong to a
“masculine brotherhood” whose principal condition is the exercising of
territorial control over women’s bodies.
SEGATO takes apart what might seem obvious in this thesis, and argues
that the first victims of this mandate aren’t women, but men. “The
‘mandate of masculinity’ enslaves them and submits them to an early
death, to suffering because they can’t develop the full range of human
emotional connections and ways of behaving, nor experience the various
ways of living together that are such a pleasure and that we, as women, are
able to enjoy”.
RATELE grapples with ideologies and social structures that influence the
different models and understandings of manhood. He states quite early in
the book that by exploring issues related to this theme, he hopes to
advocate for critical engagements that will contribute towards the
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development of progressive models of manhood, and consequently liberate
men from dominant ideas and ideologies of masculinities. When he
working with and through theory, he constantly acknowledges how factors
such as culture, economics and local and global politics (all intertwined
with the legacies of colonialism and capitalism) play a role in shaping how
men become men, as well as how men relate to other men, their societies
and themselves. Ratele argues that hierarchies of masculinities signal a
contestation and struggle amongst different forms of masculinities, and
how this struggle can play out as intra-male group rivalries, all of which
can result in violent deaths men whom he identifies as a vulnerable group.
Ratele offers a perspective that goes against the grain by reading the
practices of men as traditional. He boldly states that “there are no
masculinities without tradition” (2016). He also offers an insightful critique
of how critical gender scholars have engaged with hegemonic masculinity
in such a way that they associate dominant masculinity with “traditional”
masculinity and how, in doing so, they have unintentionally boosted
patriarchal heterosexual masculine dominance.
Research, pedagogy, politics, regulations, gender analyses, they thought
with these thoughts, in coloniality, while they stripped us of the ideas and
feelings from where we have been territory. From where we knew we
knew. They largely succeeded.
However, with the many resistances, from remote and today, we have been
opening the field to exist from our capacity to create knowledge. we are reexisting
through popular education, philosophy and liberation theology,
Latin American psychology, libertarian theater, revolutionary music, the
ethics of mutual care, popular feminisms, student, worker and
neighborhood movement, Good Living projects… They are not all, but
some criteria such as those that follow, they are a good way of opening the
field to my own feelings-thinking, from where also nurture Liberating and
Libertarian Masculinities (RUIZ A. 2020).
33

4.5 Fear of crime
“Instead of identifying my fear, my
fear is that something will happen to my family,
. to my children…
It really scares me
what is happening in the streets…”. Are
expressions allowed to identify
male socialization patterns
have to do with the mandates of
have to be the protectors of our
family and not having the skills to
be able to do it…” (testimony)
A few years ago, at the II International Colloquium on studies on men and
masculinities, Violence: The man's game? carried out in Guadalajara
Jalisco, Mexico in 2006, friends and colleagues from Colectivo Hombres
Nuevos de La Laguna that attended to the colloquium we talked with the
English sociologist Victor Seidler, on the issue of urban violence, youth
and masculinities, presented us with a then-new concept for us “urban fear
or terror” referring to this not only to the fear of victimization or crime,
but to a series of factors such as the lack of access to basic health services,
food and the lack of credibility in the public institutions in charge of
provide security. Concepts such as risk, trauma, Insecurities, uncertainty,
loss, fear and terror, globalized terror, in addition to Young Masculinities,
all are terms dealt with by Seidler (SEIDLER, 2007).
Upon our return to the place of residence within our program for men who
exercise violence towards their partners at home, we begin to identify in the
speech of some men who attended, characteristics similar to those
described by Seidler, I remember two of they who shared with us live in
great fear, to such a degree of having altered their work and coexistence
routines familiar…one of them lasted months without leaving his house
and even without going down from his bedroom to eat his food making the
decision to go up to where he was and try to talk to him and establish a
minimum of commitment to talk, supported by his family.
After some attempts we managed to establish some periodic conversations
in which the experience of having witnessed the explosion of a grenade and
shooting in a house where he was doing a specific job related with the
construction of electric gates…having to find a way to hide, so little by
little they were appearing more elements that were related afraid of being
identified by people allegedly linked to drug trafficking activities
(GARCIA, 2011).
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Fear gradually set in, fear and a feeling of insecurity both in the men who
attend program and in the general population. The decrease in crime does
not imply a similar tendency on the part of the citizen perception; for this
reason, there are situations in which, even though decreased the levels of
victimization, what does not happen same with fear.
5)METHODOLOGY
The data for this book was obtained through some experiences with the
men who attend the reflection groups of the Colectivo Hombres Nuevos,
game pedagogy (ludopedagogía), in-depth interviews, experiential
workshops and Bibliographic review in the media.
5.1 Mapping as abstraction of reality
Mapping context-specific dynamics: You’ll need some way to capture the
dynamics that you are identifying – that’s where mapping comes in.
Mapping is a way of making your ideas explicit by representing them in
some way. It’s an important step in articulating, clarifying, and extending
your understanding of the context. By representing the dynamics in ways
that can be shared, you also create opportunities for people in the setting to
verify or challenge your ideas of how things work in their context.
While it can seem intimidating on the surface, the mapping process can
start off with something as simple as writing down your impressions and
explaining how you think the context functions. Try doing this with your
core group at various points throughout your work with them. Your
impressions will probably be fuzzy and very incomplete at the beginning,
but that’s okay. Mapping is an iterative process, and you have to start
somewhere. By using multiple inquiry methods, checking your ideas with
others, and actively looking for evidence that confirms or disconfirms your
theories, your map will evolve into something that is increasingly more
accurate and comprehensive.
The types of dynamics that we will ultimately need to understand include:
- Dynamics related to gender equality and violence, including power
dynamics, gender performance, gender discrimination, relationship
dynamics, etc.
-Cultural dynamics, including norms, habits, paradigms, worldviews, etc.
35

-Dynamics related to creating change in this setting, including
champions, influencers, pockets of resistance, history of change efforts,
needs, priorities, etc
Theoretical perspectives
Two of the more compelling theoretical perspectives deal with Routine
Activities (COHEN and FELSON, 1979; FELSON,1998) and Criminal
Spatial Behavior (BRANTINGHAM and BRANTINGHAM, 1984).
In the Routine Activities interpretation, crimes are seen as needing three
ingredients: a likely offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a
guardian capable of preventing the criminal act.
Guardian is broadly interpreted to mean anyone capable of discouraging, if
only through his or her mere presence, or interceding in, criminal acts.
There are many likely offenders and suitable targets. On the other hand,
surveillance is plentiful, and criminal acts in public spaces are likely to be
observed by others, who, however unwittingly, take on the role of
guardians.
Crime can be prevented or reduced by making people less likely to offend
(by increasing guilt and fostering development of the “inner policeman”
who tames criminal impulses), by making targets less available, and by
making guardians more numerous or effective. The process of making
targets less available in various ways has become known by the generic
term situational crime prevention (CLARKE, 1992).
Putting the routine activities approach and the situational crime prevention,
into a geographic context involves asking how each element is distributed
in geographic space. Where are the likely offenders? (What is the
geography of the youthful male population?) Where are the suitable
targets? (What is the geography of convenience stores, malls, automated
teller machines, poorly illuminated pedestrian areas?) Where are the
guardians?
(What is the potential for surveillance, both formal and informal, of targets
or areas that may contain targets? Where are the public or quasi-public
spaces that lack surveillance and are ripe for graffiti and other incivilities?)
The perspective that focuses on Criminal Spatial Behavior develops a
scenario in which the motivated (potential) criminal uses cues, or
36

environmental signals, to assess victims or targets. Cues, or clusters of
cues, and sequences of cues relating to the social and physical aspects of
the environment are seen as a template that the offender uses to evaluate
victims or targets. Intimately tied to this process is the concept of activity
space, the area in which the offender customarily moves about and that is
familiar to him or her (BRANTINGHAM and BRANTINGHAM, 1984).
At the micro level of analysis, this concept is useful in that it is known that
activity spaces vary with demographics.
For example, younger persons tend to have constricted activity spaces.
They do not usually have the resources to travel far. Historically, women
have had more geographically limited activity spaces than men due to the
higher probability that men would work farther from home and that their
jobs would be more likely to give them greater mobility. This is less true
today but is still valid to some degree.
What resources can be brought to bear to better understand the social and
other environmental dynamics in an area of interest as La Laguna region?
(see the following map).
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The situational perspective to crime events
Routine activities theory is a subsidiary of rational choice theory.
Developed by COHEN and FELSON (1979), routine activities theory
requires three elements be present for a crime to occur: a motivated
offender with criminal intentions and the ability to act on these inclinations,
a suitable victim or target, and the absence of a capable guardian who can
prevent the crime from happening. These three elements must converge in
time and space for a crime to occur.
Routine activities theory focuses primarily on victims rather than offenders,
assuming simply that motivated offenders always exist. While such an
assumption is likely true, it is nonetheless important to understand criminal
motivation in order to explain criminal behavior. Routine activities theory
also implies that the more a person stays at home, the lower that person’s
chances of becoming a crime victim. While this assumption has some
common-sense appeal, it may be true only for males. Females are more
likely to be victimized by people they know in their own homes than by
strangers in public places.
Routine activities theory provides a macro perspective on crime in that it
predicts how changes in social and economic conditions influence the
overall crime and victimization rate. FELSON and COHEN (1980)
postulate that criminal activities are a “structurally significant
phenomenon,” meaning that violations are neither random nor trivial events
Routine activity theory shifted focus from criminal motivations to the
criminal event (FELSON and COHEN, 1979). For the first time this
approach considered the spatial and temporal aspect of crime together. It
appreciated how different activities varied not only with place but also by
hour, “in where people are, what they are doing, and what happens to them
as a result” (CLARKE and FELSON, 1993). It considered the larger system
of activities, and understood a crime event as something which takes place
within its context.
The development of situational crime prevention, which aims to stop crime
opportunities by introducing changes to the environment arose from
acknowledgment of the power of the immediate context in offender’s
decisions to undertake crime.
Situational methods focus on the crime event itself, emphasizing the
fundamental distinction between criminality- a longer term, multistage,
complex thing- and criminal events which are the (mostly) shorter
processes relating to the immediate circumstance and situation of the crime
that occurs.
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Revisiting the Crime trilogy:
a) Influenced and motivated offender
Starting in 2008, different factors that intervene as consequent propitiators
of acts of violence exercised by men were visualized, in order to consider
these factors in the analysis of the experiences of violence expressed by
men who attend the Intervention Program for Men. Exercising Violence
Against their Partner (PIHEVP) and considering them for a substantial
change in violent behavior, literature reviews and training on issues related
to collective violence, institutional and state violence were necessary.
Gradually, a new approach emerged that allows us to go beyond the first
approach to violence as a personal, individual matter of those who exercise
it, then as a community, collective responsibility, in the contexts in which
violence occurs and later take taking into account the situational aspects
that intervene in the relationship that exists between the men who exercise
violence and their environment or context, allowing to account for the
Moral Action, Perception and Choice at the time of making the decision
to commit violence (GARCIA, 2021).
Rational choice is premised on a utilitarian belief that actions are based on
a conscious evaluation of the utility of acting in a certain way. This
perspective assumes that crime is a personal choice, the result of individual
decision-making processes. This means that individuals are responsible for
their choices and thus individual offenders are subject to blame for their
criminality. In terms of offending, rational choice posits that offenders
weigh the potential benefits and consequences associated with committing
an offence and then make a rational choice on the basis of this evaluation.
Therefore, before committing a crime, the reasoning criminal weighs the
chances of getting caught, the severity of the expected penalty and the
value to be gained by committing the act. This means that if offenders
perceive the costs to be too high, the act to be too risky, or the payoff to be
too small, they will choose to not engage in the act.
There are two main types of application of moral rules: those that originate
from within the person (self-control) and those that originate from outside
the person (deterrence). Self control comes into play when there is a
conflict between a person's motivation to act and their morality. For
example, if a person is provoked by someone and motivated to hit them,
but thinks and feels that hitting someone is wrong, the outcome will depend
on the strength of the factors influencing the actor's ability to exercise selfcontrol.
Self-control is defined as "the inhibition of perceived action and
39

alternatives or the interruption of a course of action, which conflicts with
the agent's own morality" (WIKSTRÖM and TREIBER).
Deterrence is the main causal mechanism through which formal and
informal social controls (external interventions) influence a person's moral
actions. Deterrence is defined as "The concern or fear of consequences
felt when considering breaking a moral rule or committing a criminal
act."
There are two main types of application of moral rules: those that originate
from within the person (self-control) and those that originate from
outside the person (deterrence). Self control comes into play when there
is a conflict between a person's motivation to act and their morality. For
example, if a person is provoked by someone and motivated to hit them,
but thinks and feels that hitting someone is wrong, the outcome will depend
on the strength of the factors influencing the actor's ability to exercise selfcontrol.
Self-control is defined as "the inhibition of perceived action and
alternatives or the interruption of a course of action, which conflicts with
the agent's own morality" (WIKSTRÖM and TREIBER).
Motivation (defined as goal-directed attention) is a situational concept.
People have particular desires (wants, needs, and commitments), and when
they find an opportunity to fulfill a desire or honor a commitment, they are
likely to be tempted to do so (i.e., focus their attention on the possibility of
acting to satisfy a desire). or honor a commitment). Temptation can be
considered as an important form of motivators.
People also face friction (unwanted interference) which, depending on a
person's sensitivity, can lead to provocation (feelings of discomfort or
anger directed at the perceived source of the friction). Interference can
be physical (eg, getting in someone's way) or verbal (eg, calling someone
names). Provocations can be considered as another important class of
motivators.
Temptations and provocations may not be the only motivators, but they
are some of the most important, if not the most important classes of
motivators in moral action. While temptations originate from within
(beginning when desires and commitments are connected to an
opportunity), provocations originate from without (being initiated by
unwanted outside interference). Acts of violence can be motivated by
temptations or provocations. A person may hit a stranger to obtain an item
desired by a rival gang member to honor an engagement (not necessarily
because he/she wants it) or a peer who insults his/her partner (an
interference).
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However, people can and do commonly use alternatives to violence to deal
with their motivations. The crucial question is why some people respond
violently to motivation while others do not.
b) Guardianship and accesibility
Felson revisited the guardianship concept in later works. He defined the
role of a guardian as follows: ―A guardian keeps an eye on the potential
target of crime. This includes anybody passing by, or anybody assigned to
look after people or property. This usually refers to ordinary citizens, not
police or private guards…Usually we think of guardians as looking after
specific persons and property that could be targeted. The fundamental
assumption underlying Felson‘s work is that the most important tasks for
guardians are availability and monitoring. It is the idea that someone is
watching and could detect untoward behaviors that deters the likely
offender from committing a criminal act. The most recent and extensive
discussion of the guardianship definition appears in Felson‘s latest work
whereby he defines guardianship as ―someone whose mere presence
serves as a gentle reminder that someone is looking or those who engage
in natural surveillance, including ―ordinary citizens going about their
41

daily lives but providing by their presence some degree of security-. He
further clarifies the guardianship concept, stating ―‗Guardians‘ should not
be mistaken for police officers or security guards who are very unlikely to
be on the spot when a crime occurs.
For the purposes of this book, the concept and definition of guardians,
handlers, and managers are too limited in the sense that all of these people
have (in some way) an existing ―commitment to a special person, place,
or target. This conceptualization (where guardians are only those with
the goal of target protection) neglects the occasional guardian (the most
important guardian-type), or those who are simply at or near the scene of
a potential criminal event. It is this individual (or group of individuals)
who, often even unknown to themselves, is preventing the criminal event
then and there.
c) Suitable targets
Targeted Victim
The suitable target is a person or property that may be threatened by an
offender. Felson prefers the term “target” to “victim,” as the former
highlights the fact that the majority of crimes are aimed at obtaining goods,
and therefore the “victim” may be absent from the place of the crime
(FELSON & CLRKE, 1998). The probability that a target will be more or
less suitable is influenced by four attributes, described from the point of the
view of the offender by the acronym VIVA (value, inertia, visibility, and
access), which defines its level of risk (COHEN & FELSON, 1979;
FELSON & CLARKE, 1998):
•value, real or symbolic, from the perspective of the ofender.
•inertia, referring to size, weight, and shape, or the physical aspects of the
person or good that act as obstacles or impediments to the offender seeing
it as suitable,
• visibility, or exposure of targets to offenders,
the attribute that marks the person or the good for the attack,
• access, referring to the design of the site and the placement of the object
that increases the risk of attack or makes it easier to carry out.
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Opportunistic Victim
An opportunistic victim is ancillary to the offense. In such cases, the
offender is motivated by a desire to commit the offense and the victim is
irrelevant. The victim is selected because of:
▪Availability: This refers to a particular victim’s accessibility to the
offender. It is related to the concept of offender exposure.
▪Vulnerability: This refers to the offender’s perception of how susceptible
a particular victim is to the method of approach and attack. It is also related
to the concept of offender exposure.
▪Location: This refers to the victim’s particular locality in relation to the
offender’s. It is often a function of both offender and victim activities and
schedules and is also related to the concept of offender exposure.
Opportunistic victims may also be chosen because they fit specific criteria
preferred by the offender. These criteria may include:
Fantasy criteria: Fantasy criteria mean that victims are selected by virtue
of having traits that a particular offender views as desirable or necessary
for the satisfaction of a particular fantasy. The nature of these desirable or
necessary traits is revealed in the victimology and the offender signature
behavior.
Symbolic criteria: Symbolic criteria mean that victims are selected by
virtue of sharing the characteristics of others
in a relationship with the offender (spouse, parent, family member, coworker,
friend, roommate, therapist, teacher, etc.).
From the offenders perspective, suitable targets are victims or objects that
they perceive to be vulnerable (COHEN and FELSON, 1979). Is the
offenders´perception of how susceptible a particular victim is to their
modus operandi.
Routine activities also argues that certain lifestyles increse exposure to risk
of victimization, consequently, it is the routine of activities that people
engage in throughout their day and night life that makes some people more
likely to be viewed as suitable targets by a rationally calculating criminal,
the theory of routine activities relates the pattern of offense to everyday
patterns of social interaction.
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There are other factors that influence the victimization of people, target
victim, victim lifestyle expositure, gender of the victim, availability,
vulnerability, location, opportunistic victim, specific criteria by offender,
fantasy and symbolic criteria.
Reflection Groups
The Reflective Moment:
Each one of the seven members of the group of masculinities have in
common having led a program prior attention to their violence, courses and
workshops on identities, paternity, violence and sexuality. This new
opportunity to rethink the state of our personal processes we call it “Fear
and Insecurity Expressed by Men in the Process of Change” (GARCIA
2011) as a continuity to our work of self-reflection of our life projects and
our commitment to equality and nonviolence. Our last similar work
experience experiential was in 2009, in the workshop "Living the
Masculinities” meeting for four weekends adding a total of 42 hours,
(GARCÍA, 2008)
During the month of January 2011, we met once per week to address issues
that have to do with group strengthening, planning and scheduling of
activities. Three weekends were dedicated for individual self-reflective
work.
The initial approach of the first day was to be able to speak of those things
that mostly overwhelmed us and that could emerge spontaneously, freely,
but although two of the partners spoke about their relationship partner and
the rest on issues related to the urban insecurity, the transversal axis of
these conversations was the perception of fear, anger and insecurity.
It should be noted that in this group there are three men who have been
personally affected and family by groups related to criminal activities and
organized crime, causing damage to health and property.
The reflective and questioning moments were reinforced with some games,
bio-dance, movements and body contacts.
On the second day, a recount was made of what was reflected on in the
previous session and we were able to realize that our fears, anger and
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insecurities were related to experiences early in our life histories, emerged
comments like the following:
“Instead of identifying my fear, my fear is that it will happen something to
my family, to my children…” “…it really scares me what is happening in
the streets…”. These expressions allow identify patterns of masculine
socialization that have to do with the mandates of having to be the
protectors of our family and not having the skills to be able to do it
experiencing a “lack of control” of circumstances generated by violence
and crime, but also the disconnection between our emotions and our act,
not wanting to recognize fear, or rather, not want to connect with painful
experiences, abandonment, losses and wounds caused by humiliation in
some moment of our life and the feeling of powerlessness to resolve them
properly.
These restructurings of our discourses and these new ways of
understanding our realities, allowed us identify the causes of our anger, by
not allowing ourselves carry out our daily life as we have been doing,
forcing us to withdraw and modify our routines.
At this point in our self-reflective process and group, on the third day, we
experienced a feeling of greater tranquility, well-being and relaxation.
A recovery of confidence in ourselves to confront the challenges that urban
violence and the crime presents us.
Throughout the work of reflection and questioning, developed games that
contributed to recognizing each other, themselves and others, through
intimate physical contact, dialogues with high emotional content, that is,
construction of empathy and care of the masculinities of the men who
participated, which allowed greater openness and recovery of confidence in
themselves and in others.
Our reflections take greater sense when contrasted with some of the
concepts that have emerged as a product of research the theme of violence
and crime.
By confronting our experiences, we were identifying that our discomfort
was a social unrest, that our routine activities changed, as forms of
protection and security. In addition, when organized crime groups
withdrew from La Laguna, their displacement and the difusion of benefits
were reflected in other places, in other states and perhaps with other forms
of crime.
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New reflections after the confrontation about what was experienced, the
question arose: Can communality and good living be directly or indirectly
related to stopping violence?
From these reflections new knowledge arose, creating and developing a
micro-level analysis that would give us guidelines for a new perspective of
life, a perspective of transformation and the possibility of thinking about
the strengthening of a liberating and libertarian masculinity.
6) CONFRONTING OUR EXPERIENCES WITH THEORY
Our experiences in La Laguna, both in the years of extreme violence in
organized crime contexts and now in the face of new situations, take on
greater sense when contrasted with some of the concepts that have emerged
as a product of research the theme of violence and crime.
With the purpose of framing this work on the perception of fear and the
feeling of insecurity expressed by men who make up the program of
masculinities of the Colectivo Hombres Nuevos, propose some conceptual
definitions related to the experiences of fear and insecurity, some of the
contributions made by authors about violence from a gender perspective
approach, making visible that the perception that women have about
violence they receive, urban violence and the impact about their lives, is
different from the perception that the men both in the private and public
spaces (FALÚ, 2009).
The Fear of Crime and the Routine Activity Theory are two frameworks
of analysis to interpret our reality through a situational mapping of crime.
This analysis will be with a gender and masculinities perspective.
I will start by saying that a first key concept to understand the impact that
the population experienced in the face of crime is the fear of crime, it is
necessary determine if the fear is or not proportional to incidence current
crime.
When fear is proportional to reality, people are aware of the risks
associated with various offenses of personal violence, this level of fear can
encourage creating personal habits security and increase the security of the
house and the properties. Therefore, it minimizes the risks of become a
victim (positive effects).
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But when the fear becomes disproportionate to reality, the positive effects
can be replaced by a chain of effects devastating effects on the way and
quality of life of the people (negative effects). These effects may include:
-Restrictions in the way of life.- The fear of crime often caused people to
avoid situations and shorten their mobility, sometimes even resisting to
leave their house.
-Poor quality of life.- Not only as a result of a restriction in the way of life,
but many people avoid beforehand, enjoy some activities in an attempt to
ensure your personal safety, or copes with activities without enjoying them
due to a excessive fear.
-Increased stress and paranoia.- Caused by belief in imminent harm to
personal safety.
-Decreased confidence.- Fear of crime with trust in people often decreases
surrounds them. This lack of confidence is reflected in the language body
and leads to the appearance of an easy victim for the aggressors, who
identify the vulnerability of people. But not only that, it also reduces the
ability to deal with an attack, often exhibits a lack of self-confidence ability
to parry an attack or escape.
-Dis-empowerment.- The constant feeling of risk of personal violence
usually allows adopting a “victim mentality” this can decrease more a
person's confidence and increase the risk of becoming a victim.
-Reduces a natural surveillance.- Restricted movements in public places,
it increases the opportunities for crime due to the lack of vigilance of the
citizens who live in these spaces.
-Increase financial costs.- Not only these costs can be evidenced by the
community, but also individually by those who fear crime, leads them to
convert their houses into true fortresses, build large bars, high fences,
sophisticated electrical systems of security, locks and the payment of
private agents of surveillance.
What makes security become a good, that only those who have resources
will be able to pay, when in reality It is a right of citizens to receive
security provided by the state.
Fear is experienced differently if it is about women, cultural and
socialization processes have led to greater vulnerability than men, domestic
violence such as organized crime has affected them differently.
The Routine Activity Theory states that the occurrence of a crime is likely
if there is a motivated offender and a suitable target, with the simultaneous
absence of a capable guardian.
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According to Cohen and Felson, crime rates depend on the constantly
changing lifestyles and behaviours of the population. Depending on the
time and place, three factors that are decisive for Cohen and Felson and are
responsible for the occurrence or absence of criminal behaviour vary (see
diagram).
Accordingly, the requirement for crime is a offender motivated to commit a
crime, whereby this motivation can be of very different nature.
Then there must be an object suitable for the offender (potential victim,
tempting object, etc.). There are various factors that influence whether the
object is suitable: value, size/weight and visibility of the object as well as
access to the object.
Last but not least, the lack of informal or formal control should be
mentioned as protection for the object of the crime. This can be personal
control, but also technical control: police officers and security personnel,
video surveillance and alarm systems, attentive passers-by, neighbours,
friends and staff.
In summary, the Routine Activity Theory describes crime as a situational
event that depends less on the offender’s personality and socialization than
on the situation in which the offender finds himself.
Influenced and motivated offenders.
In our country, as in La Laguna, when murders and femicides occur, the
media focus on the detailed description of the victims, especially if they are
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women, the perpetrator who generally flees the scene, the media hardly talk
about him, thereby contributing to the perpetrator assuming his
responsibility, further contributing to the corruption and impunity of the
authorities in charge of dispensing justice.
The target group’s men roles: are victim vs. perpetrator, men can exercise
violence within their own group and outside it (in group) (out group). From
the perpetrator perspective, support of the retributive justice was demand
when the ingroup had committed rather than suffered violence.
Some findings suggests that differential reactions on perpetration ingroup
versus victimization are mainly driven by their past perpetrator rather than
victim experiences.
The situational approach to crime allows us to explore the mobility and
changes that the men who intervened and those who currently intervene in
various criminal acts and crime in our region have.
Among the factors that influence these perpetrators are: The rational ability
to choose or not to commit a crime, this choice is determined by the
predominant patriarchal ideologies of power, hierarchy and dominance
over other men and women, so that in La Laguna , young men, women and
children are the most vulnerable.
These perpetrators also have the possibility of not committing crimes,
through a moral disconnection that can be self-regulated through deterrence
of offencing or desistance by probation. Otherwise, the perpetrators will
make the decision to kill.
Suitable targets
Targeted Victim
A targeted victim is the primary object of the offense, resulting directly
from the offender’s motive for committing the crime. A targeted victim is
selected in advance specifically because of who they are, what they are,
what they know, or what they possess. A targeted victim may be in a
relationship with the offender (spouse, parents, family member, co-worker,
friend, roommate, therapist, teacher, etc.) or may have been in a past
relationship with the offender. The offender may also intentionally target a
victim because the victim has information, items, or valuables sought by
the offender. Examples of targeted victim selection include: administrative
homicides that eliminate a witness to a crime; abduction and physical
49

torture of a victim for the purposes of eliciting information; stalking,
abducting, and raping a victim as revenge or punishment for a real or
perceived wrong; and killing an intimate partner.
In our context, young people and women were victimized due to their
degree of exposure and their lifestyles, due to their availability,
vulnerability and location, the most opportune moments of the victim for
the criminal act.
But the symbolic, fanciful and specific criteria of the perpetrator himself
about his possible victims and their contexts are also taken into account.
Guardianship and accessibility
Capable guardians are those individuals whose presence or proximity
discourages offenders from committing crime. They can take the form of
persons, including police officers, private security, family members, or
ordinary citizens. They may also take institutional forms, such as proximity
of a location to a building that houses capable guardians, including police
stations, secured facilities, government offices, or courthouses. Whatever
the case, these individuals or institutions must possess the actual ability to
respond if criminal behavior is observed. 6 Simply by having capable
guardians present, crime may be reduced by discouragement, as there exists
a greater chance for outside intervention and ultimate apprehension.
The underlying argument within routine activity theory is that crime
generally occurs where there is both the opportunity and ability to commit
it. This is dictated by the motivation of the offender, the vulnerability of the
victim, and the lack or capable guardians. As these three elements
converge, victimization is more likely to occur.
In La Laguna, the homicides, femicides, and other crimes generated
conditions of tension, frustration, fear, and insecurity, which prompted a
collective response from public and private institutions, civil organizations,
businessmen, and other community groups. This response, rather than
being proactive, was reactive to the phenomenon of crime and violence, it
was disjointed and at times ambiguous.
Among the guardians and watchmen who participate to prevent violence
are bystanders or witnesses, families, vigilant neighbors, and occasional
natural watchers. There are the police agencies and the military.
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All these instances make up a Collective Moral Responsibility.
In situational violence, the opportunities for crimes to be committed have
to do with the different situations of the environment and the routine
activities of populations, micro-places, local spaces, segments of streets,
blocks, subdivisions or cities. It is also important to take into account the
social disorganization and the distrust of the citizens in their authorities and
their institutions.
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NEW PERSPECTIVES
Perspective transformation
“Perspective transformation is the process of becoming critically aware of
how and why our presuppositions have come to constrain the way we
understand and feel about our world; to formulate these assumptions, to
allow a more inclusive discrimination from a permeable and integrating
perspective; and to be able to make decisions in another way by acting on
these new understandings” (MEZIROW and Associates, 1990).
Mezirow refers to the goal of supporting individuals to become aware of
oppressive structures and change them, and the political goal of forcing
change towards a more dignified and just life. This important contribution
from Mezirow highlights the complementary nature of the two sides of
transformative learning, namely the need for individuals to transform
themselves through an awareness of the limiting structures that lead to
praxis that in turn. In turn, it may lead some to join (political) forces to
bring about a change in the world in which they live (MEZIROW 1990).
For the reflection and analysis of violence against women and girls in a
continuum of collective violence in La Laguna, Mizerow's interpretation of
transformative learning is very useful because it emphasizes the importance
and centrality of experience, understanding the frame of reference own, the
role of the disorienting problem, the importance of critical self-reflection,
the role of rational discourse and dialogue in communication with others.
Mezirow believes that a disorienting problem is triggered by a life crisis or
major transition. This causes a personal transformation, which then turns
into the transformation of perspectives (IMEL 1998), (BOYD1989) argues
that for transformation to be possible, the resolution of a personal problem
and the expansion of consciousness require a greater integration of the
personality.
Another equally important contribution to this analysis of realities is the
concept of liberating and libertarian masculinity influenced by the
works of Pablo Freire in his concept of transformative learning and the
conceptualization of critical self-reflection through his understanding of
awareness, the underpinning of democracy is awareness and its critical
relevance (FREIRE,1974), (RUIZ, 2020).
Both the proposal of the liberating masculinities of Javier Omar Ruiz and
that exposed by Mezirow, this active notion of critical reflection and
52

proposed three types of reflection: content reflection, process reflection,
and premise reflection.
The first two types lead to what Mezirow calls a simple transformation.
Transformation that results from asking questions about what was done in
the past, considering the actions, their origins and related factors,
(KITCHENHAM, 2008).
The third type of reflection leads to a deeper transformation (premise),
reflection that is achieved by considering a broader picture of possible
change. In the latter type of reflection, people evaluate their own value
system, which underlies their actions, to question the basic premise of their
actions.
According to Freire ~ this is achieved when individuals think globally and
critically about a problem and are able to take action to bring about change
as a result of critical thinking ~ to affect change in their lives and to see
what would be the catalyst for that change' (KITCHENHAM, 2008).
Similarly, an action will lead to a more complete and global re-evaluation
of the practice (transformation of the perspective of meaning). Then, a new
purpose emerges from our process of individual, group or collective
change, a "New Perspective on Life".
“Here and now”
The years of violence and crimes in our country and in our region have left
and continue to leave new routine activities on the part of the population,
every day more clandestine graves of corpses are located, more femicides
and homicides and new ways of executing crimes, most horrendous,
ruthless and outrageous.
Collectives were created to search for people who had disappeared by
force, search for complete and dismembered bodies buried in clandestine
graves, the criminal gangs in the neighborhoods disappeared or were taken
over by organized crime, the housing developments with the greatest
economic resources closed the access to their streets and built higher
protection fences. Surveillance cameras were implemented in the main
streets of the cities and protocols for attention to gender violence and the
use of digital emergency applications were drawn up. In 2013 in Coahuila,
femicides were considered by law as a serious crime.
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As of 2016, violence against women increased, from 2017 to 2020
decreased the rate of violence in men but in this same year violence against
women increased, especially in public spaces.
Faced with this reality, a participatory state diagnosis was carried out for
two years (2020-21).
The government of the state of Coahuila, through the Secretary of
Government and the Coahuilense Institute for Women in alliance with UN
Women, carried out the State Program to Prevent, Address, Punish and
Eradicate Violence against Women with the collaboration of various actors
from civil society, including the Colectivo Hombres Nuevos de La Laguna,
with the purpose of making proposals for the elimination of gender
violence.
In a current national scenary of social decomposition, with the socioeconomic
impact of COVID-19 and the presence of organized crime,
migrant groups, militarization and the presence of other armed crime
groups, from the Colectivo Hombres Nuevos de La Laguna, a proposal was
made to contribute to strategies for the prevention and care of violence in
general and violence against women and girls in the state of Coahuila.
Being the collective and structural violence so complex, it implies
responses that are equally collective and also complex. Thus, as Colectivo
Hombres Nuevos, we learn from other groups with histories of armed,
54

political, and structural violence, such as Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua, and
El Salvador, as well as the experiences of men who have committed and
still commit crimes and violence in the Laguna region.
Work was carried out within the framework of the UN program, Cities and
Safe Spaces for Women and Girls.
Our initial theory of change for the project centred on working with men
and their masculinities to cultivate capacities in three key areas:
• Gender equality
• Libertarian and liberating masculinities
• Healthy relations
We felt that strengthening this combination of capacities in male-oriented
settings would lead to reduced rates of interpersonal and structural violence
in all its many forms. While our initial theory of change included an
emphasis on social norms and networks, our strong focus on developing
capacities related to gender equality, libertarian and liberating
masculinities, and healthy relationships pulled the initiative more towards
the ‘changing minds’ end of the spectrum. As we evolved our approach, we
began to shift the emphasis to include a greater focus on ‘changing
contexts’ through social and environmental nudges. Our theory of change
now reads as follows:
55

The usual route to behaviour change […] has been to attempt to ‘change
minds’ by influencing the way people think through information and
incentives. There is, however, increasing evidence to suggest that
‘changing contexts’ by influencing the environments within which people
act (in largely automatic ways) can have important effects on behavior.
Some of the questions that we hoped to answer through this project
included the following:
• What would non-programmatic approaches to enhancing gender equality
and preventing violence against women look like?
• How can we complement ‘changing minds’ approaches with interventions
designed to change the contexts in which gender-based violence and
discrimination occur?
• How can we work more effectively in the middle space between programbased
interventions and policy-based approaches?
• How might we work in settings where men already congregate* (i.e.,
where they work, play, learn, worship, etc.) rather than asking them to
come to us?
• How could we work with key influencers in those settings to shift social
norms and create the conditions for healthy, equitable interactions?
• How can we develop the Human Services sector’s capacity to engage in
this work?
Changing Contexts: A Framework for Engaging Male-Oriented Settings in
Gender Equality and Violence Prevention is the culmination of our
collective exploration. It was developed to help to people engage men to:
• Disrupt, mitigate, and/or address gender-discriminatory and/or violencesupportive
dynamics in their networks and settings (e.g., the workplaces,
peer groups, sports teams, faith communities, etc. in which men are
embedded), and
• Flood those settings with signals that cue more prosocial, genderequitable
behaviours.
Throughout this book, the terms ‘context’, ‘setting’, and ‘environment’ are
used interchangeably to indicate physical environments (e.g., an office, a
56

mall, school, etc.) as well as sociocultural environments (e.g., a peer
network, your team at work) and situations (e.g., becoming a father, a son,
a sicario or hig profile murderer).
Meeting men where they’re at
Needless to say, anyone interested in engaging and mobilizing men to
promote gender equality and prevent gender-based violence has to be able
to understand men’s perspectives (in all of their richness and diversity) and
know how to meet them where they’re at. Like relationship-building, this is
a complex skill set – one that is not developed quickly. And it can easily go
sideways if you have not done your own work around power and privilege,
gender socialization, and past traumatic experiences like those lived in La
Laguna.
In some cases, there will be an opportunity to work with men's groups at a
deeper level. This is ideal as it’s difficult to contribute to new norms related
to gender and healthy relationships if you haven’t been through some type
of self-examination and transformational learning process (GARCIA,
2013). In other cases, this will not be what the groups feels they ‘signed up
for’ – and they might not be able to go as deep in your meetings. The
practices outlined below are important in either scenary.
This book has been written based in part on the size of Piotr Pawlak for the
Global Alliance MenEngage and the Women's International League for
Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
-Understand current political, economic, social, and technological forces
and factors.
-Focus on structural and system change.
57

-Change systems jointly.
-Address the military systems of power and culture.
-Move from individual change to collective and institutional change.
-Focus on influential people and decision makers in institutions.
-Use digital communications and virtual spaces.
-Engage with youth in a meaningful way.
-Consolidate peace and the fight against militarism and official and
unofficial armed violence through better interventions.
The government of the state of Coahuila, the Civil Society Organizations,
the Business Organizations and the Educational Institutions, constituted an
Alliance to put an end to gender-based violence against women, acquiring
the following commitments: A ten years project.
1) Participate in the process for the creation of the State Technical Standard
for the Certification of Safe Sites for Women.
2) Promote the certification of their institutions as safe places for women.
3) Promote awareness campaigns to prevent discrimination and violence
and foster a culture in favor of equality among the various organizations,
companies and institutions.
4) Develop strategies for the prevention, care, punishment and eradication
of harassment and sexual harassment.
5) Establish mechanisms for attention and reporting of violence against
women and girls.
6) Promote training on gender issues, women's human rights, prevention
and care of violence against women and girls and substantive equality
between women and men.
7) Execute the necessary actions to promote gender equality, prevent
discrimination and violence against women and girls.
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The federal government has taken decision to resort to the Army and the
Navy – institutions whose members are trained in the use of force under
war contexts—to perform public safety tasks. Said of another way, the
characteristics of the developed strategy by the federal government increase
the possibility of human rights violations in the use of the public force, in
particular of the violation of the right most important human right: the right
to life.
Currently, the context in which this book arises is described, highlights: a)
the increase in the number of operations for the fight against drug
trafficking carried out by the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA);
b) the increase in complaints of alleged violations to human rights
presented before the Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH)
that point to the Sedena as responsible; c) the increase of violent crimes
registered in the country, homicides in special.
The high levels of violence we experience today in Mexico are:
1) the prevalence of types of violence that have existed from long time ago,
not related with organized crime groups, but tolerated and even ignored, in
combination with other factors, they have fueled the current levels of
violence;
2) the weakness and decomposition of the police and justice institutions,
and
59

3) the inadequacy of social and economic policies to reduce inequality and
to promote the inclusion of large sectors of population, and a larger and
better integration of those policies with the security ones to define their
common goals.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The results that I now present constitute a basis for the development of
future projects that improve the specific situation of women, girls, boys and
young people in the La Laguna region.
The crime phenomenon in the La Laguna region was analyzed from two
sources:
1) Compiling information from the press, in-depth interviews, memories of
reflection groups and experiential workshops, between January 2007 and
May 2014 on clashes between federal forces and suspected criminals
organized to identify the impact and its consequences on the citizens who
directly or indirectly experienced the violence.
2) The analysis of some responses of citizens to the consequences left by
extreme violence as fear to crime and the new perspectives of daily life for
a good life.
In this book, I expand on the idea that gender systems and the “doing” of
gender are intricately linked to the global political economy, and propose
that the identities of many Mexican men who belong to criminal gangs are
bound up with a “disobedient” form of masculinity that is driven by
structural conditions of inequality.
With specific reference to homicide that occurs around and between drug
cartels and organized crime in Mexico, we argue that structural violence, in
the form of poverty, inequality, and deprivation, has restructured traditional
male identity in reference to the hegemonic masculine identities embedded
in national and global political economic orders. The neoliberal economic
model that Mexico has followed for the past three decades has led to a
deterioration of essential services and economic conditions, resulting in the
exclusion of large sectors of the population from education and
employment opportunities. I take a view of masculinity and political
economy in Mexico to describe how it has become a breeding ground for a
particularly violent male identity that in other parts of Latin America.
60

In order to understand the roots of today’s homicide epidemic, we need to
review “how the violence of economic inequality, unemployment, and
precarious employment has translated into chains of violence, from
violence against women to the most dehumanized forms of criminal
violence”, It is worth mentioning that in border states such as Coahuila,
crime and violence are experienced in different ways than in other parts of
the country, due to mobility, migration, political and economic interests, as
well as being strategic points in the routes of drug trafficking networks.
Forms of structural and indirect violence often begin with “assaults on the
personhood, dignity, sense of worth, or value of the victim”.
Although the structural factors behind the current epidemic of homicides
linked to organized crime continue to be ignored in official discourse,
common causal elements have been identified as a weak state and
institutions (corruption, impunity, generalized lack of support, and trust in
government), a deficient social policy (extreme levels of poverty,
marginalization, deteriorating health and education provision), and a
historical propensity to violence throughout swathes of Latin America.
In this scenary, as in La Laguna, on the one hand, the poor who make up
most of the victims, as well as most of the aggressors, and on the other
hand, the oligarchic elites and other criminal actors, they are the hidden
protagonists of this violence. But in any of the contexts, men and the
exercise of their masculinities are present.
A greater analysis of the situations and contexts of structural and collective
violence in the region is necessary, but it is also essential to analyze the
hegemonies and hierarchies of men and the oppressions and
discriminations of men as an integral part when we need to account for
homicides, crime and femicides.
.
The explanations and interpretations that have been given on violence vary
according to patterns personal, cultural, ideological or symbolic.
In this sense, it is possible to say that violence could be experienced as the
breaking of a "established order", of a pre-existing harmony, of living
conditions in which they encrypt expectations of existence of the human
species. This is because, in the face of the various projects and objectives
that exist to regulate conflicts, it is decided to discriminate the usufruct of
available resources, harming unnecessarily to any of the parties.
Unlike the meaning "violence collective", political violence has more
defined its semantic field: violent action of organized groups to modify the
structure of power, its distribution or the form in which it is exercised.
61

There is talk of political violence when it can be attributed to its
protagonists a purpose related to power and its main political actors:
parties, organizations, governments or institutions. The political violence is
understood in structures strictly political.
More than ten years ago, the Mexican municipality of Allende, Coahuila,
was the site of one of the worst human rights atrocities ever seen in the
country: a three-day rampage that punctuated a larger wave of violence in
which the Los Zetas criminal group kidnapped, murdered, and later burned
the bodies of as many as 300 victims, many of them from Allende but also
from nearby towns like Villa Unión and Piedras Negras, a city 35 miles to
the north that lies just across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas.
In a country where murders and disappearances are troublingly common,
the scale and the horrific details of the Allende massacre case still stand
out. No one is sure exactly how many were killed, and the methods used by
the Zetas to dispose of the bodies—incinerating them in barrels of gasoline
and diesel fuel—make it unlikely that there will ever be a definitive count
of victims.
The tenth anniversary of the Allende killings comes as allegations of
narcotics-related corruption among top Mexican officials have brought
U.S.-Mexico security ties to their lowest point in many years. Elites,
politicians, governors and drug traffickers, colluded in this structural and
collective violence.
Conflict and violence are two concepts frequently used to describe
numerous actions and behaviors that go against that of peace, tranquility,
harmony and security. These actions are manifested in different spaces and
actors such as: people, family, couples, rival groups, workplaces, between
rulers and social organizations, and between the government and society.
These behaviors unwanted have been extensively studied in the human
sciences (psychology, sociology, anthropology, communication, etc.). In
this specific case of the presence and impacts of violence in La Laguna,
they were framed in a model of situational mapping of crime.
The well documented rise in femicides over the past two decades speaks
both to changing masculinities and femininities that are the result of
structural gender dynamics, and a generalized decomposition of the state,
reinforced by criminality its infiltration within the government. The death
of women is an expression of gender oppression, the inequality of
relationships between masculine and feminine, between domination, terror,
social extermination, patriarchal hegemony, social class and impunity.
62

It is an urgent need to promote a liberating and libertarian masculinity and
a social and gender justice that vindicates the rights of women and girls,
including the right to live a life free of violence.
The perception of fear and insecurity of citizens and the impact on their
health and daily life, were the result of interpersonal, structural and
collective violence.
Fear and insecurity due to the increasingly horrendous forms of crime,
forced citizens to confine themselves to their homes, this alternative was
repeated again in the years 2019-2020, isolating themselves in homes due
to the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting the daily life and health of citizens,
domestic violence and intimate partner violence increased.
Ruth Segato (SEGATO, 2016) proposes the concept of corporate
masculinities, to explain the collective contexts in which men exercise
their hierarchies and powers using the repression and violence if necessary.
This concept applies to the oligarchic elites of La Laguna, whether it be the
power of the military, clerics, agro-exporters, businessmen, drug
traffickers, builders, among others with great power and wealth.
Leaning me on the theory of situational crime prevention, these corporate
masculinities in a region like La Laguna, are found in the military, police,
business, political-partisan instances or in the prison system.
All of them play a fundamental role both in contributing to criminal
activity and in crime prevention. The attention, prevention and eradication
of structural, collective violence and femicides in particular in La Laguna,
must include a serious, deep and responsible questioning of our order of
things, a radical change of the hegemonic, violent and discriminating
patriarchal system.
In this current crime situation, it is necessary to identify the opportunities,
places, spaces and routine activities that were experienced during 2007-
2014, so as not to repeat, much less favor crime conditions.
Newly motivated perpetrators within our context, according to situational
crime prevention theory, should have fewer opportunities to commit their
crimes, greater obstacles, and fewer incentives. Perpetrators will always be
responsible for their violent acts and assume that responsibility. Assuming
this responsibility is more complex when it comes to structural or collective
violence, said responsibility for crimes is diluted and even more so when
dealing with high spheres of power (white collar violence).
63

Potential victims must be guaranteed their rights, especially the right to live
free of violence, to repair damages and non-repetition.
In the case of the guardians, they must be accessible to the population, to
care for, to protect, not to collude with the perpetrators and commit crimes
undercover by official authorities or by ordinary citizens involved in
criminal and violent acts.
The answers to a system as complex as violence in any of its
manifestations. requires also complex responses, built collectively, to
question the armed militarized approach, the permanent clashes between
the armed forces, police and self-defense groups, affecting ordinary
citizens, being dispossessed of their land and property, forcing them to flee,
disregarding them or burying them in clandestine graves.
Creating new public policies, the inclusion of experiences of groups
directly or indirectly affected by violence, new legal frameworks for gender
justice transformative.
The contempt for life in my country Mexico, and in the place where I live,
must change, for a good life, with justice and dignity. If the use of force
takes place in conditions of insufficient information about their exercise
and with based on inadequate control procedures and possible
determination of responsibilities, increases the possibility of its abuse.
Given the complexity of an issue such as violence, it was necessary to look
for theoretical-methodological tools that would allow defining, describing
and questioning the conditions of violent crimes between the years of 2007
and 2014, to be able to advance some possible explanations of how, and
not so much why, this phenomenon of violence was It came to affect the
lives of families in the region, so much so that in this year 2022, fear,
mistrust, insecurity still persist in the population, particularly in the most
vulnerable groups, women, girls and young people.
Loss of confidence, fear and insecurity cannot be understood outside of the
current context in in which the participation of the armed forces is a central
part of the federal government's strategy in the fight against drug
trafficking. The inclusion of the Army in security tasks, in violent
environments, it seems bring about an unavoidable use of force under a war
and masculine logics, and possibly it will be difficult another result from
the characteristics of the formation military. This logic of war and
masculine, is embodied for the most part, by men who have built
themselves and have built their masculinities (the way of becoming men),
warriors in a hegemonic, hierarchical, capitalist and colonizing system,
64

which through its power, discriminates, oppresses, violent and exterminates
those who do not fulfill their interests.
Although conditions, situations, routines, places, time and people change,
the perpetrators of violence, the victims, the guardians and the witnesses
continue to emerge among ordinary citizens, with other or the same faces.
The dead and disappeared due to the violence during the past years are still
present in the minds and routine activities of their relatives, friends and
neighbors. Memory that is not forgotten due to the permanent search by
their families in cemeteries and clandestine mass graves, facial recognition
centers for missing persons, memorials for those disappeared from the
violence, but also due to the media saturation of crimes, mostly
unpunished, processes full of institutional corruption and the new
modalities and scope that violence and drug trafficking have.
It only remains for me to express my profound appreciation to the men and
women who trusted in the project of the Colectivo Hombres Nuevos de La
Laguna in the work of attention to men who exercise violence, I hope one
day these lines reach the hands of any of them wherever you are.
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