gangs

Must-Reads from Around the World

Two of the most violent gangs in Honduras will begin peace talks, Thai students push for a relaxation of school rules and police have arrested a 22-year-old man near Paris in connection with the stabbing of a soldier

A Week Later, the Battle to Understand England’s Riots Rages On

The French have a phrase for circumstances beyond control: “C’est la guerre,” literally “it’s the war.” They might say it, with a shrug, as they sit in traffic or wait for a bus that never arrives. But last week the expression, which dates back to World War II, took on a different inflection as residents of a village on the shores of …

Four Decades Later, It’s Time to Scrap the Dead-End Drug War



I recently returned from the desert city of Durango, Mexico, where forensic officials are still trying to identify some 240 corpses discovered this year in mass graves. More than 200 other bodies have been found in similar fosas across northern Mexico. All were victims, many of them innocent victims, of the drug-trafficking …

In Chongqing, A Rare Win for the Defense

The odds didn’t seem good for Li Zhuang. A defense attorney who had already once fallen afoul of the law, Li was back on trial this week in Chongqing, the southwestern Chinese megacity that has been waging a very public campaign against organized crime. In 2009, as the anti-gang campaign was starting, Li briefly represented Gong …

How Bihar Went from Basket Case to Case Study

I visited Bihar for the first time in 1998, when its reputation for lawlessness was well-deserved. Traveling by train from Delhi, you knew exactly when you crossed the border into Bihar. That’s when groups of aggressive, ticket-less riders suddenly jumped onto the train, comfortable in the knowledge that, in Bihar, no one would …