Extorted Life: Protection Rackets in Guatemala City

Abstract

Extortion is the most common of crimes in Central America today and the most despised. As a growing criminal phenomenon, it exemplifies trends prevalent across post–Cold War Latin America as well as other parts of the world. In many societies, the “democratic wave” and the triumph of market fundamentalism has been accompanied by deepening uncertainty: the state has become criminal, criminals counterfeit the state. For those caught in the middle, distinguishing between predator and protector is often impossible. Proliferating protection rackets are both a symptom of and answer to collective anxieties over the terms of everyday survival and the difficulty of determining just who is in charge. This essay is an ethnography of extorted life, mapping the expanding geographies of extortion in postwar Guatemala to illuminate how this cold-blooded business organizes life at the most intimate of scales.

Negotiating Violence and Protection in Prison and on the Outside: The Organizational Evolution of the Transnational Prison Gang Barrio Azteca

“…The emerging literature on prison gangs seeks to examine several interrelated issues, namely, what prison gangs are (Camp & Camp, 1985; Maxson, 2012); how prison gangs influence carceral governance structures and engage in violence (Butler, Slade, & Nunes Dias, 2018; Dias & Darke, 2016; DiIulio, 1990; Gaes, Wallace, Gilman, Klein-Saffran, & Suppa, 2002; Porter, 1982; Skarbek, 2010, 2011, 2014; Skarbek & Freire, 2018; Trammell, 2012; Weide, 2015; Worrall & Morris, 2012); how prison gangs’ organizational objectives and behaviors develop, expand, and evolve (Buentello, Fong, & Vogel, 1991; Camp & Camp, 1985; Clemmer, 1940; Fong & Buentello, 1991; Fontes, 2018; Fontes & O’Neill, 2018; Gundur, 2018; Hunt, Riegel, Morales, & Waldorf, 1993; Jacobs, 1977; Lessing, 2014, 2016; Mitchell, McCullough, Wu, Pyrooz, & Decker, 2018; Sullivan & Bunker, 2007; Tapia, 2018; Tapia, Sparks, & Miller, 2014); how prison administrations can control them (Fleisher & Decker, 2001; Fleisher, Decker, & Curry, 2001; Forsythe, 2006; Winterdyk & Ruddell, 2010); their influence on recidivism (Dooley, Seals, & Skarbek, 2014); how they migrate (Etter Sr, 2010; Fontes, 2018; Savenije, 2004; Wolf, 2010); and how prison gangs use their organizational structures to underwrite criminal activity through illicit enterprise in the free world (Fontes, 2016, 2018; Lessing, 2016; Skarbek, 2014), specifically in the context of the Mexican drug trade and its related violence (Bowden, 2010; Grayson, 2010;…”

“…Security threat groups, colloquially known as prison gangs, develop, by definition, in confinement, but sometimes go on to expand into the free world. In particular, U.S.-based Hispanic and Latin American prison gangs, which often contribute to prison governance structures, have, in certain circumstances, evolved to underwrite the protection rackets that underpin criminal underworlds on the outside (Skarbek, 2014), typically via the drug trade (Bunker & Sullivan, 2013; Cruz, 2010; Dias & Darke, 2016; Dias & Salla, 2013; Dudley, 2011; Fontes, 2016, 2018; Grillo, 2011; Kan, 2012; Logan, 2009; Manwaring, 2007; Rodet, 2016; Santamaría, 2013; Savenije, 2004; Sullivan & Bunker, 2002; Willis, 2009; Wolf, 2010). While such initial, in-prison development and subsequent expansion into the free world are of interest to the literature (Ouellet, Bouchard, & Charette, 2018), the mechanisms driving them remain largely unexplored.…”

Terminal velocity: The speed of extortion in Guatemala City

“…Marcos and his colleagues know full well that chokepoints can become dead ends in an instant. For it is ultimately extortionists' control over not just territory but also time that makes terminal velocity such an important contribution to conversations about 'extorted life' (Fontes, 2016) and 'red zones' (Saunders-Hastings, 2018b) in Central America. The analytic invites social scientists, policy experts, and asylum advocates to appreciate how and to what effect a growing percentage of people throughout the region race through life with a gun to their heads.…”

“…Terminal velocity names the material limits that govern movement in Guatemala City while also highlighting the importance of temporality in a conversation that has been primarily concerned with territory. Today, social scientists (Fontes, 2016), policy experts (InSight Crime, 2019), and asylum advocates (Mart ınez, 2018) rely on a generally agreed upon understanding of extortion in Central America: Throughout Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, a vast array of criminal actors, many of whom are gang members, obtain goods and/or money from households, stores, markets, service providers, and transportation workers through the threat of force (Saunders-Hastings, 2018a). Known colloquially as taxes (impuestos), rent (renta), and fees (cuota), these payments allow victims to live in, work on, and/or pass through vigilantly guarded patches of territory -street corners, alleyways, and market stalls.…”

Breaking democracy: illegal political finance and organized crime in Guatemala

“…The 600-mile land border between Guatemala and Mexico is difficult to patrol and provides extensive opportunities for smuggling. Likewise, the absence of a permanent law enforcement presence in many areas of the country facilitates the commission of illegal activities and creates voids of power, which are filled and exploited by organized crime [14]. Frequent political crises and the high turnover of government officials further hamper international cooperation on securing and countering drug-trafficking [15]; key anti-drug trafficking fighters in the CICIG, the judiciary, the prosecution service and the police have seen their professional fate compromised in recent years.…”