Fear and Retaliation: Gang Violence in Brussels and Caracsa

This chapter looks at the characteristics of gang-motivated violence in two distinct cities: Brussels, Belgium and Caracas, Venezuela. A comparison of qualitative research findings lays bare some endogenous mechanisms that are surprisingly similar across these disparate contexts. In particular, it identifies retaliation and fear thereof as key drivers of gang-motivated violence in Caracas as well as in Brussels. Gang members justify the violence they commit in the name of the gang as a “retaliation” for past wrongs. Nevertheless, these “wrongs” are often obscure as are the details of how, when, where, and even against whom retaliation will be applied. These uncertainties generate a pervasive fear which, in turn, warrants the use of deadly weapons, strengthens group cohesion, and leads to distortions in the execution of the violence. This chapter contributes to a substantive literature on gang violence by looking at two cities that have not been studied very often, and using insights on group cohesion and micro-level process.