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IJCV: Vol. 5 (2) 2011, pp. 261 – 276

The Central American Fear of Youth
Anika Oettler, Institute of Sociology, University of Marburg, Germany

Vol. 5 (2) 2011
Editorial (p. 236)
Focus:
Youth and Violence

Editorial Remarks: Youth at Risk Wilhelm Heitmeyer / Steven F. Messner (pp. 237 – 239)
Formations of Violence in Post-Dictatorial Contexts: Logics of Confrontation between the Police andthe Young Urban Poor in Contemporary Argentina Alejandro Isla / Daniel Pedro Míguez (pp. 240 – 260)
The Central American Fear of Youth Anika Oettler (pp. 261 – 276)
The Boys are Coming to Town: Youth, Armed Conflict and Urban Violence inDeveloping Countries Josjah Kunkeler / Krijn Peters (pp. 277 – 291)
Governance, Security and Culture: Assessing Africa’s Youth Bulge Marc Sommers (pp. 292 – 303)
Eastern European Transformation and Youth Attitudes Toward Violence
Eva M. Groß / Berit Haußmann (pp. 304 – 324)
Intergroup Conflict and the Media: An Experimental Study of Greek Students
after the 2008 Riots David Hugh-Jones / Alexia Katsnaidou / Gerhard Riener (pp. 325 – 344)

Open Section

The Eye of the Beholder: Violence as a Social Process Teresa Koloma Beck (pp. 345 – 356)
Women without Arms: Gendered Fighter Constructions in Eritrea and Southern Sudan
Annette Weber (pp. 357 – 370)
Spousal Violence against Women in the Context of Marital Inequality: Perspectives of Pakistani
Religious Leaders Rubeena Zakar / Muhammad Zakria Zakar / Alexander Krämer (pp. 371 – 384)

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives License.
ISSN: 1864–1385

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IJCV : Vol. 5 (2) 2011, pp. 261 – 276
Oettler: Central American Fear of YouthThe Central American Fear of Youth
Anika Oettler, Institute of Sociology, University of Marburg, Germany

It is often asserted that youth gangs and organized crime have seized Central America. For theories on contemporary Central American violence, Costa Rica,
El Salvador and Nicaragua present important test cases, which demonstrate the need to differentiate the diagnosis. This paper is concerned with the social
construction of violence-related national and transnational myths as a precondition for policy formulation. The notion of exploding youth violence is part ofhegemonic discourses and not necessarily linked to lifeworld experiences. While discourses on youth violence differ from country to country, with varying
threat levels, patterns of attention, and discursive leitmotifs, they share the monstrous image of brutal gangs (Mara Salvatrucha, Dieciocho) as the mostvivid object of fear.
1. Introduction: An Explosion of Youth Violence in Central America?
In recent years, many scholars have examined violence andglobalization, dealing with the “new paradigm of violence”(Wieviorka 2003) that has accompanied global socialchanges since the end of the Cold War. With regard to
Latin America, there is a wealth of literature on the wave of
criminal violence that has swept the continent.

Central America remains on the margins of international
political life, but developments relating to crime, violence,and insecurity are attracting growing interest. It is often asserted that levels of violence in the region are as high as, oreven higher than, during the state terror, insurgency, andwar of the 1970s and 1980s. According to policy papers andacademic studies, there are “two key areas of crime inwhich Central America is remarkable by global standards:
the volumes of drugs trafficked through the region and therate of murder” (UNODC 2007, 45). Even though there isscant evidence regarding “real” crime rates and perpetrators (Huhn, Oettler, and Peetz 2008), the majority ofcrimes tend to be attributed to youth gangs (pandillas,maras). In recent years, the question of “How the Street
Gangs took Central America” (Arana 2005) has evolved to
become the center of public debates, thereby clouding themultifaceted character of violence. The most prominent
phenomenon are the notorious street gangs Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Dieciocho (Calle 18/18th Street)that were formed in the Hispanic barrios of Los Angeles.
When the U.S. government began deporting convicted criminals “home,” the gang phenomenon spread to the wartorn Central American societies, increasing massively fromthe mid-1990s onwards. Since then, media reports as wellas policy papers have not ceased to perpetuate the dominant image of the anomic adolescent other. Central American youth gangs are said to have metamorphosed into ahierarchical transnational criminal network, which is generally tied to the narcotics trade (Bruneau 2005; Johnson
and Muhlhausen 2005; Manwaring 2007). These concerns
tend to be mobilized and translated into policy agendas at
global and domestic levels. Central American gangs areoften seen as major challenges to state sovereignty (Bruneau 2011; Manwaring 2007). In the latest World Development Report, they emerged as “major bugbears” (Jonesand Rodgers 2011, 987) that represent the power of anomic
social forces. It is crucial to note, however, that actual empirical evidence on the criminal behavior of youth gangs
has been provided for the local level (Rodgers 2006; DIRINPRO 2006) rather than the national or transnational

IJCV : Vol. 5 (2) 2011, pp. 261 – 276
Oettler: Central American Fear of Youthlevels. In general, there is little consensus on the causes,
logics, and structures of gang proliferation (Jones andRodgers 2009). Academic debate is divided as to whether
Central American youth gangs should be viewed as locallyrooted groups or whether migration has accelerated theproliferation of transnational adolescent organized crime(Cruz 2010). Some authors argue that Central American
gangs tend to replace the state in “providing micro-regimesof order” (Rodgers 2009, 964) in slums and poor neighborhoods, attracting members with their cohesiveness,“gangsta” culture, and resistance identities (Hagedorn
2008; Reguillo 2005; Liebel 2004). There is a lively debate
about the scope and extent of illegal and violent collective
behavior, while others have dealt with root causes of gang
proliferation such as unemployment, migration, and social
disintegration. However, the sub-field of gang studies faces
serious problems of methodology. As Wolf notes (2010),
much literature on Central American street gangs relies onanonymous sources, self-proclaimed experts, and media
and police reports, and thus lacks a critical foundation.
Findings vary greatly, ranging from dramatizing policy
papers to naïve interpretations of gang culture.
What does “mara” mean? It is important to note that“mara,” “pandilla,” and “youth gang” have evolved into
confusing and sometimes euphemistic buzzwords. In general, “pandilla” and “mara” are interchangeable Spanish
terms for “youth gang.” However, politicians and mass
media have been at the forefront of creating and disseminating the meaning of “mara.” The term is strongly associatedwith the Mara Salvatrucha and Dieciocho gangs, whichshould be labeled (adult) “street gangs” rather than “youth
gangs.” Nevertheless, they are often fearfully associated withdeviant adolescents. It is important to note that the ascription by others is not necessarily shared by gangmembers, who often describe themselves as “pandilleros.”
When referring to domestic youth gangs, people in Nicaragua and Costa Rica mainly use the term “pandilla.” Finally,it should be mentioned that there is a persistent etymological legend. While the term “mara” is often said to refer to “a1 Thanks to Jan Oettler (University of Regensburg)and Chris R. Smith (Earlham College) for providing
useful comments.

263
type of ant known for its ferocity” (Manwaring 2007, 13;
Bruneau 2011), myrmecologists’ use of the term does not
relate to army ant species but rather to horror movies suchas The Naked Jungle and Legion of Fire: Killer Ants.1
In all Central American societies, maras and pandillas areseen as a greater threat than ever before. However, we presume that this ever-present danger is, as in other cases,
mainly a result of discursive practices. The high level ofCentral American criminal violence may be understood asa social fact, which is such, because it is commonly believed. Thus, the notion of exploding crime is part of adominant ideological/discursive formation (Fairclough1995) and not necessarily linked to “real” threat levels or
lifeworld experience. The Central American talk of juvenile
delinquency shows how public discourses produce and reproduce collective patterns of interpretation as well as systems of social rules. It is crucial to note that this seed offear is nourished by a diverse pattern of discourse events
that differs from country to country.
This paper reports some results of an exploratory research
project on “Public Spaces and Violence in Central America,” carried out together with Peter Peetz and Sebastian
Huhn between 2006 and 2009, with new observational dataand supplemental material added. The research project
deals with public discourses on violence and focuses on awide range of hegemonic spheres and “subaltern counterpublics” (Fraser 1992) related to the media, politics, academic institutions, and the everyday social world (for moredetails on our approach, see Huhn, Oettler, and Peetz
2008). Our goal was to use multiple data sources to explore
discursive fragments circulating within different publicspheres (Oettler 2008), in particular in the media, thepolitical arena, the academic and legal sphere, and daily
life. The research data gathered included material from six
Central American newspapers, speeches, publications ofpolitical parties and NGOs, ninety qualitative interviews,
and 227 essays written by students from nine public, private, and rural schools and a theater project. These essays

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IJCV : Vol. 5 (2) 2011, pp. 261 – 276
Oettler: Central American Fear of Youthwere published as an edition that can serve as a primarysource for scholarly research (Huhn, Oettler, and Peetz
2007). In order to detect the macro-structure of the media
discourse, we analyzed all issues of Al Día and La Nación(Costa Rica), El Diario de Hoy and La Prensa Gráfica (ElSalvador), and El Nuevo Diario and La Prensa (Nicaragua)
published in 2004, 2005, and 2006 (for an overview of theCentral American print media and the marketing of crime,see Huhn, Oettler, and Peetz 2009).
This article is primarily concerned with the patterns of attention associated with contemporary youth violence in
Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua – three cases chosenfor (1) a suspected similarity in the perception of insecurity and (2) a variety of forms and contexts.2 In deconstructing the undifferentiated image of a vulnerable region
that suffers from escalating violence and juvenile delinquency, my goal is to explore national differences as well asvarying threat levels and patterns of attention paid to theseissues. My argument is that current Central American debates on juvenile delinquency are closely intertwined withnational myths, which provide citizens with a significant
frame of meaning.
The paper is organized as follows: the next section briefly
outlines the theoretical position and methodological approach of our research project. Rooted in the theoretical/
methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis,
the project explores the “social construction of [violent]
reality” (Berger and Luckmann 1966) at the local, national,
and transnational levels. Powerful and less powerful speakers in different discursive spaces tend to (re-)produce
national myths. As “discourse is socially constitutive as well
as socially shaped” (Fairclough and Wodack 1997, 258), thesections thereafter provide a brief historical overview of theevolution of political forces in Central America, revealing
how national discourses on contemporary violence in
Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, deal with the basic
question: What factors underlie the understanding of
2 Central America encompasses a common history
as well as a variety of national and local histories.
Political turmoil and armed confrontation flourished in these countries throughout the second halfyouth gangs as one of the greatest problems for public security, or even national security? (for the concept of seguridad ciudadana, see Peetz 2011). The last section explores
the landscape of discursive and non-discursive arenas froma comparative perspective, trying to trace back the nationaland sub-national origins of this mobilizing myth.
2. Violence Discourse and Mystification
As mentioned above, the research project aims to uncover
the origins, development, and institutionalization of Central American discourses on violence, rather than to identify the “real” magnitude of youth violence in Central
America. When we began our exploration of the issue in2005, we compared current academic debates with ourown field experiences in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras,
Guatemala, and Nicaragua. From our point of view, there
were two basic presumptions to be made when addressing
Central American crime. First, the waves of criminal violence that followed the state terror, insurgent action, andwar of the 1970s and 1980s did not spread to all countries
at the same speed. While public life in El Salvador has been
shaped by fear and criminal violence for more than a decade (Cruz 1997, 2004), the level of attention to this issue
in Costa Rica has only recently begun to rise (Huhn 2011).

Second, the “real” level of crime is mostly unknown.
Throughout Central America, criminal statistics are incomplete, out of date, and, as a result, unreliable. As thestate’s monopoly on the use of force is not fully functionalin most Central American countries, the police and otherstate institutions are far from being omnipresent. According to Rodgers (2004, 117), many crimes are not registeredin Nicaragua because the police are completely absent inover 20 percent of all municipalities.
With regard to the quantitative measurement of crime,
Huhn (2011) recently summarized the pivotal points ofcriticism, ranging from the unreported crime figures to theinstitutional capacity for receiving complaints, and fromof the twentieth century, with Costa Rica being thesole exception. Democratization was achieved
through civil war (Costa Rica, 1948), insurrection(Nicaragua I, 1979), election (Nicaragua II, 1990),

military directive (El Salvador I, 1982), and peace
negotiations (El Salvador II, 1992).

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Oettler: Central American Fear of Youthcrime investigations to translating these into accurate
numbers. In general, criminal statistics reflect police activity more than levels of violent crime: due to under- andover-reporting they deliver disproportional pictures ofcrime. Moreover, the political-publicist circle of intensification (Scheerer 1978) “can be expanded by the crime rates
themselves” (Huhn 2011, 137).
Young (2004) highlights the paradox that many researchers
are aware of the thin ice of data, but still keep on skating.
While this in itself is a fundamental reason to reject crime
statistics, there are further epistemic arguments for abandoning a positivist attitude. From a social constructivist
perspective, criminal statistics are a specific instrument
people use to make sense of their world. They reflect and(re)construct patterns of violent action. “But if the information they give on crime is restricted, they may nevertheless reveal other facts about the society that producesthem” (Caldeira 2000, 106). Thus, Central American criminal statistics relate to hegemonic discourses on violence,with the police being one of the most powerful speakers involved. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime (UNODC), the homicide level in El Salvador is
exceptionally high compared to Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Throughout Central America, reported homicides are increasing.3 Are these data reflections of the “real” degree offatal violence, or do they reflect crimes reported to the police and other government agencies?
Although (organized) youth violence is unquestionably asignificant pattern of violence in Central American societies, our findings suggest that the very perception ofyouth violence is tied to a multifaceted imagery. As an extension of the North American Crime Myth, the discourse
on North American Transnational Youth Gangs (Johnson
and Muhlhausen 2005) has swept through Central America, producing the vivid myth of Central American youth
gangs as a transnationally organized crime structure. Fromnational and sub-national perspectives, then, this myth becomes off-centered, shifting from its transnational mean3 Intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants:
Costa Rica: 6.4 (2002), 6.6 (2004), 8.0 (2006), 11.3
(2010); El Salvador: 47.3 (2002), 64.6 (2004), 64.7

ing to diverse fields of national and local significance.
Through my reading of Central American discourses on
youth violence, I seek to explain what underlies the common understanding of pandillas or maras. The myth ofyouth gangs becomes a mobilizing myth if and only if it istied to vital national myths. The myth of Costa Rica being
the non-violent Latin American exception and the myth ofNicaragua being a safe country are key features of contemporary national debates. In El Salvador, on the other
hand, the myth of a war-torn society being invaded bycriminal adolescents permeates daily life. Although they
may be obvious, it is important to highlight two key aspects of this particular case: First, El Salvador is a country
highly affected by both criminal activity and street gangs.
Second, the phenomenon of maras has undergone significant changes in recent years, with youth gangs metamorphosing into organized criminal structures. At thesame time, public politics changed from mano dura (ironfist) to efforts to combat organized crime, narcotics trade,and corruption. However, what does not fade is the initial
perception of male, marginalized adolescents being “atrisk.” In June 2011, President Funes presented his plan to
introduce forced military service for “high-risk” teenagers(Prensa Libre, June 1, 2011).
What exactly does “myth” mean? A myth is a narrativesynthesis of specific aspects of social life that is true forthose who believe in it. The argument that crime myths
create fear and justify repressive social control strategies is
not new (Wright 1985; Ainsworth 2000; Garland 1996; Robinson 2000). Crime myths often evolve from certain crime
stories and then become both exaggerated and overgeneralized. In contrast to authors like Robinson (2000),
who considers all crime myths to be untrue, I follow Katz’s
argumentation (2003, 196):
Three features are salient in assessing whether a belief is a myth.
First, myths are not necessarily false, they are ideas about matters that, under current states of evidence and by the use of thelogic of empirical research, cannot be established as true or false. Second, myths are not just guesses about the unknown; they

(2006), 66.0 (2010); Nicaragua: 10.6 (2002), 12.1
(2004), 13.1 (2006), 13.2 (2010); source: UNODC
homicide data: www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html.

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IJCV : Vol. 5 (2) 2011, pp. 261 – 276
Oettler: Central American Fear of Youthare beliefs that resonate deeply because they address immediate
existential concerns that they would resolve with presumptions.
Third, myths are not simply emotionally evocative fantasies
about central matters; they are profoundly consequential for the
distribution of power in society.

In defining deviant social groups, crime myths produce
and reproduce patterns of social exclusion. This is especially true for the vivid image of monstrous youth gangs,
which tends to dramatize and overgeneralize the problemof youth violence. This image is profoundly consequential
for the identification of both problems to be solved and social groups to be targeted. What if gang violence is not the
key problem, but rather elitist attitudes, gender-based violence, and/or corruption on a grand scale? If the Central
American crime myth has spread throughout the region,
however, it is just as likely that a “real” problem of youth
violence may exist at the local level. But if this is the case,the perception of insecurity tends to be shaped by a larger
process of mystification. What is felt in Central Americanneighbourhoods, as we shall see in the following, is both areflection and further complication of the vivid image ofmonstrous youth gangs.
3. El Salvador: The Mara Paradigm
Violence and repression shaped the history of twentiethcentury El Salvador. Since 1931, there have been six successful military coups and numerous fraudulent elections,as well as short periods of democratic opening.4 From thelate 1970s until January 1992, El Salvador experienced aguerrilla war between the Frente Farabundo Martí para la
Liberación Nacional (FMLN) and the state. After the peaceaccords were signed, the FMLN became a political party
and experienced factional splits as well as programmatic
agreements. The record on implementation of the peaceaccords is mixed (Studemeister 2001; Zinecker 2004). Although there have been positive achievements such as thedemobilization of military and guerrilla forces, the subordination of the military to civilian authorities, and, mostnotably, the end of the war, the peace settlement has been
“undermined by halfhearted compliance” (Karl 1995, 75)
4 Mass violence dates back to 1932, when military and paramilitary forces killed an estimatedthirty thousand people in the wake of a peasantand “there also have been notorious deficiencies” (Cañas
and Dada 1999, 73). The restoration of democratic rule inthe 1980s was an “elite settlement” (Higley and Gunther1992), expressing the political project of “self-modernized”
sectors of the Salvadorian oligarchy (Zinecker 2004, 25).
The political system has been highly polarized for decades.
“Ideology has been a major determinant of the vote in El
Salvador ever since the first postconflict elections in 1994”(Azpuru 2010, 129).
After two decades of one-party rule by the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA), the 2009 presidential elections produced a victory for the FMLN. Mauricio Funes, awell-known journalist, was the first FMLN presidential
candidate not to be a former guerrilla commander. During
his campaign, Mauricio Funes used the Obama-style slogan “Nace la Esperanza, viene el cambio” (Hope is born,change is coming) to indicate his moderate approach tonational politics. Since taking office, President Funes has
made broad-based economic growth, job creation, andfighting crime his top priorities.
At the time of our research, the debate on violence was inextricably linked to the issues of homicide and youth gangs
and was severely limited by a national and internationalobsession with the latter. The question of “how the street
gangs took Central America” (Arana 2005) had evolved to
become the center of public debate, drawing attention anddiscussion away from the multifaceted character of violence (Huhn, Oettler, and Peetz 2008).
It is important to note that the current meaning of maras
arose out of a complex and contradictory public process.
Within a few years after the end of the war, public concern
about delinquency and “low intensity peace” (Ribera 1997,
128) had risen. In the mid-1990s, right-wing politicians exploited the issue, calling for tougher law enforcement and,particularly, the death penalty (Vickers 1999, 400). While
the academic debate focused on the role of the media andpsychosocial explanations for exploding homicide rates

uprising, organized by local activists and membersof the communist party (Dalton 1997, 163–220).
The matanza is remembered as one of the main

turning points of Salvadorian history (Martí i Puig
2004, 54).

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Oettler: Central American Fear of Youth(Armando González 1997; Cruz 1997), the maras weretreated as a juvenile phenomenon rather than a threat tonational security(Smutt and Miranda 1998, Cruz and Portillo 1998). Within this particular context of political polarization, statements on violence became increasingly
focused on juvenile delinquency.
In July 2003, President Flores announced his anti-gang
campaign, Plan Mano Dura (the “iron-fist” plan), centeredaround raids and detentions (Peetz 2011). One month
later, according to El Nuevo Diario (August 23, 2003), thepolice had arrested 2,438 youths for having tattoos and fortheir style of dress, with 1,505 of them already having beenreleased again. In October 2003, parliament passed theanti-gang law, which defined gang membership as a crime
punishable by imprisonment. As the media began extensive
coverage of the “total war” against youth gangs, repeatedly
reporting on anti-gang efforts and crimes supposedly committed by gang members, the official electoral campaign
started. During the first foro presidencial, a presidential
campaign debate held in November 2003, Saca was asked:“Tony, why should the Salvadorans vote for Tony Saca?” Interestingly, while the ARENA candidate referred to honesty(“manos limpios”), freedoms (of expression, economic, religious), dialogue, and foreign investment, he did not mention public security or anti-gang policies. However, later onin the campaign, ARENA disseminated a manifesto entitledPaís Seguro: Plan de Gobierno 2004–2009, in which the“iron fist” against youth gangs is portrayed as the most important emergency measure to be taken.5 As discourses onviolence are, in Foucault’s words, “interlocking, hierarchized, and all highly articulated around a cluster of
power relations” (2006, 540), ARENA was able to restrict
other representations of public insecurity. On the other
hand, transnational networks of donor agencies and NGOs
tend to play a critical role in defining political priorities
and, thus, violent realities. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Society Without Violence

5 Only one type of perpetrator is specified in the
text: “The minor law-breaker and young adult in
conflict with the law,” “the youths” and “the maras.”
When referring to delinquency and crime less concretely, perpetrators are not specifically mentioned.

Program, established in 1998, provided an important public space in which the discourse on violence could flourish.6
A number of conferences were held to cover topics such as
prevention strategies, media representations of violence,and gender-based violence (PNUD 2004, 2006). However,some of these issues were overlooked in subsequent debates. While they were not completely negated, they wererelegated to discursive niches. One study, for instance,
points out that Salvadorian newspapers “prioritize and accentuate violent acts committed by maras and marginalize
information related to violence against women” (translated
from Las Dignas 2006, 25).
As our qualitative data indicate, the awareness of daily insecurity tends to be multifaceted, with the hegemonic discourse on youth violence being questioned and other formsof violence being perceived as an imminent threat, albeit
with varying degrees of sincerity. A paramedic told us:
And nowadays, well, in quotation marks, we live a peace process
after an armed conflict, but with regard to violence, it has notbeen contained, and I’m not only talking about the situation ofarmed violence, in the typical case of, let’s call them, socialgroups, mistakenly called maras and all that, but rather there isdomestic violence, there is violence in the streets, there is traffic
violence, there is violence of all kinds, so we are not just transporting people assaulted by non-legal armed people [gente armada no legal] but we are bringing in children who have been
mistreated by their parents, women who have been mistreatedby their husbands, and we are even getting to a point where
men are also mistreated by their wives [laughter]. (Interview, El
Salvador, December 7, 2006)

As described above, the 2004 electoral campaign was thecentral point from which the discourse on organized andmonstrous youth violence emanated. However, the mano
dura policy was not the only feature of the electoral process. The media and ARENA also stoked fears of communism, trying to establish a relationship between the FMLN
and international terrorism. Moreover, the media highlighted the US administration’s preoccupation with leftist

6 In 2005 and 2006, the programme implemented
an Arms-Free Municipalities Project in two pilot
municipalities, San Martín and Ilopango.

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Oettler: Central American Fear of Youthgovernments, suggesting the possibility of deportations
and the drying up of remittances, the financial lifeline thatstill keeps the Salvadorian economy running. The mano
dura thus began to form an integral part of ARENAís rhetorical repertoire, but was not the only strategy used.7
In the Salvadorian case, the entrepreneurial sector is key forboth political agenda setting and policy formulation. While
the Asociación Nacional de la Empresa Privada (ANEP)
was participating in bodies such as the National Commission on Citizen Security and Social Peace, the right-wing
think tank FUSADES has propagated a specific understanding of what is threatening to investors. FUSADES, farfrom restricting its debate to “iron fist” policies, proposes acatalogue of measures that includes small arms control, law
enforcement, prevention, rehabilitation, and institution
building (Pleitez Chávez 2006). Thus, the more sophisticated concept of the enemy, as applied by Mauricio Funes,is also backed by the most powerful sector of Salvadoriansociety. In recent years, we have witnessed an elite discourse
shifting from obsession with maras to a more multifacetedthreat analysis. On a national level, the fear of marginalized
youth has given way to the fear of organized crime. In his
second anniversary address, Funes identified insecurity andlow productivity as the main obstacles to development (LaPrensa Gráfica, June 2, 2011). However, as many commentators noted, the president failed to touch on the socialroots of insecurity: the neoliberal model.
Altogether, the image of monstrous youth gangs had a profound effect on the political trajectory in post-conflict El
Salvador. In this process, policy makers did not simply
react to a given problem. Instead, they proactively identified and prioritized the problem of juvenile delinquency.
With the transformation of policy goals into repressive
anti-gang policy, Salvadorian policy makers introduced a“punitive populism” (Wolf 2009, 88) that ultimately
proved counterproductive. Although the change of government had a visible impact on agenda-setting, the overall
fear of youth is unlikely to disappear.
7 For more information about the 2006 electoral
process, see Guzmán, Peraza, and Rivera (2006).

4. Nicaragua: Contested Evidence on Insecurity
In contrast to El Salvador, popular uprising and guerrilla
warfare were successful in Nicaragua. By the end of thenineteenth century, the idea of building a trans-isthmiancanal had increased U.S. attention to the region. The following decades were marked by long periods of U.S. military occupation of Nicaragua (1909–1919, 1912–1925,
1926–1933) and a guerrilla uprising headed by Augusto
César Sandino. In the early 1930s, U.S. troops withdrew
and gave way to the Somoza dynasty that was to rule thecountry for almost fifty years.

As mentioned above, democracy came through insurrection. After their revolutionary triumph in July 1979, theSandinistas encouraged a mixed economy and carried out
national crusades against illiteracy and disease. It is important to recognize that the “first half decade of Sandinista rule … featured experimentation, innovation, and somesignificant success in the area of politics” (Walker 2000,
74). Espousing an ideological mélange or “sincretismo
político” (Cardenal 2004, 540), the Frente Sandinista de
Liberación Nacional (FSLN) fostered a system of mass organizations, with the Comités de Defensa Sandinista(CDR) being among the most grassrooted organizations.
They functioned both as local administrative units for food
distribution and as neighborhood vigilancias (vigilance
committees).
Although the second half of the Sandinistas’ rule
(1985–1990) saw important political achievements (constitutional process, elections), this period was shaped by
the Contra War and the steady decline of both the economy and social programs, as well as a reversal of the gains
in participatory democracy (Figueroa Ibarra 1993, 68–78,
Walker 2000, 76–77, Prevost 1997, 154–55). Soon after its
electoral defeat in 1990, the FSLN experienced internal
struggles and organized Sandinista civil society imploded(Polakoff and La Ramée 1997).8 Since the late 1990s, Nicaraguan politics has been severely constricted by the pacto, a
power-sharing pact between Daniel Ortega (FSLN) and

8 The Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista(MRS) broke away from the FSLN in 1995, on the
grounds that the political stance of the post-insur-

rectionist FSLN was dominated by the authoritarian
pragmatism of Daniel Ortega, oscillating between
cooperation and confrontation (Close 2005, 123).

IJCV : Vol. 5 (2) 2011, pp. 261 – 276
Oettler: Central American Fear of Youththen head of state Arnoldo Alemán (Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, PLC). Even after Alemán was convicted ofcorruption in 2003, the pacto permitted president Bolaños
little room for leadership. Together with Cardinal Obandoy Bravo, head of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church, Ortega
and Alemán formed a powerful triumvirate, corrupting democratic governance.
In the 2006 presidential elections, former president Daniel
Ortega (1985–1990) was reelected with 37.99 percent of thevote. Since then, he has managed to bridge the gap between
the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade
Agreement (DR-CAFTA) and the Bolivarian Alliance for
the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), proposed by the Venezuelan government. Ortega introduced new anti-poverty
programs and centralized power. His government’s active
efforts to “monarchize and privatize the state” (Rocha
2010) have caused severe friction within Nicaraguan society. At the time of writing, voters had just elected Ortega
for a fourth term, ignoring the constitution’s term limits.
In Nicaragua, the importance of insecurity in public discourse is much more difficult to ascertain. Until 2006, public life in Nicaragua was overshadowed by an elite discoursethat described Nicaragua as a safe country (Rocha 2005).
On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
National Police, President Bolaños reported on the state of(in)security: “The citizen security we have achieved is enviable, it is beginning to constitute a legend in Latin America” (translated from La Prensa, August 6, 2004). On thesame occasion, the head of the National Police, Edwin Cordero, referred to a decline in youth gangs (pandillas) andtraffic accidents, saying that the police had achieved successboth in combating the sale of illegal drugs and in establishing a network of women’s police stations. A consultant
working for a powerful semi-state consulting agency in Nicaragua told us:
Nicaragua is one of the most secure countries in Central America. … yes, you notice security more in the urban part, in the rural part it is a bit more complicated, or in the poorest sectors ofNicaragua, or in the poor neighborhoods in Managua, you sense a bit more insecurity, because, OK, maybe it’s a bit, well,maybe a bit strange, but, yes there are some hold-ups among thepoorest people. (Interview, Nicaragua, December 14, 2006)

269
This image was reinforced by high-ranking police officials,
who repeatedly claimed that “criminal violence is minimal” (Rocha 2005, 5). Given this image of Nicaragua as asafe country, most of the presidential candidates avoided
the issue of violence during the 2006 electoral campaign.
However, the FSLN presidential candidate Daniel Ortega,
who refused to participate in pre-electoral “bourgeois”
media events, addressed his electorate by touring thecountry and via party structures. His entourage touched
upon the major preoccupations of poor people, including
insecurity and the supply of electricity. Douglas Pérez,National Coordinator of the Communal Movement, stated:
Adolescents are generally criminalized, and the problem comesfrom the system … we want a government that … like we havebeen in the 1980s. (translated from FSLN 2006)

In general, our findings suggest that Nicaragua was a discursively divided country in 2006, with total insecurity andunrestricted freedom forming antithetical public perceptions. It is crucial to point out that the image of Nicaragua as a safe country was produced not only by membersof the elite, but also by people belonging to the lower strata
of society. A well-educated employee of the security company ULTRANIC stated that Nicaragua
is sane, relatively sane; of course, there are incidents … Here it[the problem] is small, because it is a small country, everybody
knows each other, the capital does not provide the conditions
for gangs to organize. (Interview, Nicaragua, November 24,
2006)

Many Nicaraguans perceive crime as something imported
or happening elsewhere. “Aquí es sano, pero …” (here it issame, but …) is a phrase often heard in Nicaragua, and also
in other Central American countries. On the other hand,large sectors of society perceive violent crime as an important problem affecting the country. The “talk of crime”
often focuses on the poor, and some of our interviewees
stated that criminal behavior is a rational choice made bypeople facing famine wages and “condiciones muy jodidas
de trabajo” (very fucked up working conditions) (theater
educator, Nicaragua, October 25, 2006). The latest IEEPP
opinion poll (2010, 13–15) shows that 77.7 percent of respondents perceived ordinary crime as the main problem
of insecurity. 38.4 percent referred to youth violence, and270

IJCV : Vol. 5 (2) 2011, pp. 261 – 276
Oettler: Central American Fear of Youth31.1 percent to gender-based violence. Interestingly, 65.6
percent of the respondents identified insecurity as a consequence of unemployment. In general, the Nicaraguan
public debate on insecurity tends to address socioeconomic causes, with the lack of prospects at the center ofmany statements on the crime situation. However, there areconflicting views on the magnitude of youth violence.

were manipulated by the government (La Prensa, November 9, 2009). The adolescents were supplied withweapons, food, and bus fares. As Rocha notes, “the aggression was produced by and in the context of an absence ofpolitical and social morality” (2008). Most strikingly, it remains unclear whether these adolescents were actually gangmembers or not.

First, the National Police celebrates a successful deactivation of pandillas. In a recent report, the police identify
twenty youth gangs (pandillas juveniles) with 369 members
and 163 at-risk juvenile peer-groups (grupos juveniles enalto riesgo social). Moreover, the police claim to have “reintegrated” 3,979 adolescents between 2002 and 2007 (seealso La Prensa, February 26, 2010, and October 23, 2010).

5. Costa Rica: Crime and Moral Decline
Following the annulment of presidential election results in
March 1948, Costa Rica experienced a short civil war,
which brought José Figueres into power. Since then, thepolitical system has displayed great stability, based on a
party system effectively dominated by two parties, the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) and the Partido Unidad
Social Cristiana (PUSC). A commitment to democracy, theabolition of the army, and the “Bismarckian character of
the Costa Rican state” (Davis, Aguilar, and Speer 1999, 43)
have become core features of national identity. In contrast
to other Central American countries, non-communist
political society has been embedded into an institutionalsetting characterized by a high level of political freedom. If
the second half of the twentieth century was characterized
by the consolidation of democracy and organized civil society (Davis, Aguilar, and Speer 1999, 44), the turn of themillennium witnessed a significant change. The “transition
to neoliberalism” (Booth 2000, 101) of the late 1980s implied the replacement of the social democratic model withstructural adjustment and cutbacks in social security, education, and health. While political decision-making was
dominated by decrees, voters were faced with the increasing “sameness of the PLN and PUSC” (Booth 2000, 96).
The 2006 election returned Óscar Arias (PLN), the president and famous Nobel Laureate, to office but brought the
bipartisan model to an end.9 In 2010, Minister of Justice
Laura Chinchilla (PLN) won the presidential elections.

Second, some analysts state that Nicaraguan pandillas were“metamorphosing into a drug institution” (Rodgers 2008,84). According to Oscar Bonilla, director of the Salvadorian
National Council for Public Security, Nicaragua has alreadyimported the brutal Mara Dieciocho and Salvatrucha fromCentral Americaís northern triangle – El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (CENIDH 2010, 71, see also La Prensa, April 21, 2010).
Third, there is a growing concern about the manipulationof pandillas for political purposes. As mentioned above,
Ortega’s return to power has been accompanied by growing repression, including police raids, criminal charges, andharassment of prominent opposition figures and Sandinista dissidents like Ernesto Cardenal, Mónica Baltodrano,
Carlos Fernando Chamorro, and Dora Maria Tellez. Afterthe 2008 municipal elections, political demonstrations
were met with violence. “Meanwhile, bands of young Sandinista-linked thugs, claiming to be the ‘owners of thestreets,’‚ attacked demonstrators while the police stood idlyby’ (Burbach 2009, 37; see also CENIDH 2010, 65–66).
Vilma Núñez, director of the Nicaraguan Center for
Human Rights (CENIDH), declared that the adolescents
9 Surprisingly, the Partido Acción Ciudadana(PAC), founded in 2000 by Ottón Solís, received 38.9
percent of the vote, and the PUSC suffered a devastating defeat, winning only 3.5 percent. The “new-In contrast to El Salvador and Nicaragua, political partiesand decision-making bodies in Costa Rica tend to highlightcomerís” appeal to the electorate was successful because he presented the PAC as a force opposing free
trade and corruption.

IJCV : Vol. 5 (2) 2011, pp. 261 – 276
Oettler: Central American Fear of Youththe very perception of insecurity as a major problem. The“real” level of crime and the perception of insecurity areoften discussed as two sides of the same coin. For instance,
the final document of the PLN party congress in May 2005
and the forty-nine-page PLN Programa de Gobierno
2006–2010 both refer to a dramatic increase in violence
and insecurity, linked to a persistent fear of crime. The
PLN proposed to “stop the increase in delinquency and reduce the acute perception of insecurity that is currently aburden on the Costa Rican population” (translated fromPLN 2006, 24). In recent years, the twofold problem of increasing crime and increasing fear has been perceived as
one of the main obstacles to human development in Costa
Rica. Notably, awareness of rising insecurity has circulated
within the realm of academic debates linked to international organizations (Proyecto Estado de La Nación
2000, PNUD 2005, Rico 2006).
However, it appears that the twofold problem of increasing
crime and fear was not at the center of the electoral process
in 2006. While the electoral platforms of both the PAC andthe PLN included the issue of insecurity, promising an “integral-preventive vision” (PAC 2006), the strengthening of
the police, and the recovery of values and norms, media
debates focused on free trade, privatization, the social system, and, most notably, the personalities of the presidential
candidates. The issue of violent crime entered the stage in2010. During the presidential campaign, Minister of Justice
Laura Chinchilla emphasized conservative sexual policies
as well as the promotion of free trade and foreign investment. However, her top priority was the improvement ofpublic security and, especially, the introduction of new
anti-crime policies.
In Costa Rica, the increase in crime is not perceived as
being explosive in nature, but rather as being linked to asteady socio-economic decline since the mid-1980s. It is
important to note that a perceived or real dramatic increasein robberies has emerged as a thematic node associatedwith other leitmotifs such as drug consumption and moral
decline (Rico 2006, 17, 25–26). The issue of “ordinary violence” is not treated prominently in La Nación, but where itis addressed, it is treated intensively (Huhn, Oettler, andPeetz 2009). Media reports reflect an ongoing concern that271
the country is facing a permanent decline linked to a deterioration of the foundations of the social security systemand the social fabric of society. By attributing crime tomoral decline, La Nación, as well as other important voices,establishes an argument that leads to the stigmatization ofyouth. Consider, for example, Ottón Solís’s Convocatoria ala Ciudadanía. In this document, the PAC associates crimeand insecurity with social exclusion, loss of solidarity, impunity and corruption, the transnationalization of organized crime, and “domestic violence, especially violenceagainst women” (PAC 2006, 43–44). The chapter on insecurity culminates in a statement on rehabilitation measureswith infractores (lawbreakers), “children and adolescentswith criminal behavior,” “youth gangs” (pandillas juveniles), and “marginalized youth from rural and urban
areas” as the focus groups. How does the diagnosis of crime
symptoms translate into the definition of perpetrators to
be reintegrated into society? It is crucial to note that the
Costa Rican “talk of crime” is not a discussion about youth
gangs, but rather a conversation about moral decline, withthe (imagined) criminal behavior of adolescents serving as
a vivid leitmotif.
6. Organized Youth Violence as a Discursive Node
Members of the political establishment and international
think tank researchers play a key role in the process
through which the meaning of youth gangs (pandillas,maras) is progressively created. The life-threatening scenario of brutal and hierarchical gang culture, however,
evolves into something more fluid as we take other public
realms into account.

In general, “fear of youth” is not necessarily linked to lifeworld experiences. This is best explained with an example.
Our data set, gathered in 2006, includes 226 essays written
by students from rural and urban, marginal and upper
middle-class schools (Huhn, Oettler, and Peetz 2007). The
survey was carried out in two steps. The first question was
not directly linked to problems of crime, violence, and insecurity but allowed for a variety of answers: “Imagine youwere the president of the country. What are the country’s
most important problems and how would you solve them?”
The second question referred directly to lifeworld experience: “Do you feel secure in your family/neighborhood/vil-

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IJCV : Vol. 5 (2) 2011, pp. 261 – 276
Oettler: Central American Fear of Youthlage/town/country? Why? Why not?” The students’ essays
show that there are national differences in the perception of
threats (Peetz 2011). 80 percent of the Salvadorian students
identified problems related to violence, crime, and (physical) insecurity as major problems of their country, compared to 67 percent of the Costa Rican students and 25.6
percent of the Nicaraguan students. There is a correlation
between print media discourses and students’ perception,with the latter differing from “real” crime rates. Furthermore, our data indicate that the image of youth gangs isconnected to class and patterns of social exclusion. In theiranswers to the open question that was not directly related
to violence, sixteen (out of nineteen) Salvadorian uppermiddle-class students mentioned youth violence as a major
problem of the country, while only thirty-four (out of fiftytwo) students from Salvadorian urban public schools
identified issues related to crime and violence as important
problems. Are students from an upper middle-class social
background – which, in San Salvador includes certain standards of private security – more sensitive to crime problems
than their marginalized peers? Our data indicate that thelatter tend to stress other issues such as poverty, inequality,and joblessness. Most interestingly, however, only four (outof nineteen) Salvadorian students from private schools
mentioned youth violence as a problem related to their own
personal security. In contrast, thirty-four (out of fifty-two)students from marginalized urban schools considered
youth violence to have an effect on their own lives. This indicates that even in marginalized neighborhoods, fear ofyouth gangs seems not to be omnipresent.
The image of maras, however, evokes feelings of fear thathave gradually become internalized. This image of organizedyouth violence has emerged as a symbol for social deterioration and exploding crime rates. Our interviewees oftendrew on this symbol of the mara when they were asked tocompare the current situation with the past or to commenton the statement that Central America is one of the most violent regions of the world. A Costa Rican priest stated:
Yes, I think so [that Central America is one of the most violent
regions of the world], yes I think so. In other Central Americancountries, it is worse and, for example, in El Salvador the maras,
it’s terrible, it’s terrible. (Interview, Costa Rica, November 4,
2006)

A taxi driver from El Salvador said:
And what we have here is violence, nothing but violence, and I
think that you will eliminate this violence only if you eliminate
these maras. (Interview, El Salvador, November 28, 2006)

A female cook:
Yes, I think so, El Salvador is the country that has more violence, more assassinations, rapes for nothing, they kill people
without any reason, they assault people without any reason because there are many mareros and many delinquents. I think,
yes, El Salvador has more delinquency. (Interview, El Salvador, 9
December 2006)

It is important to note that the cook identifies two groupsof perpetrators, mareros and delinquents, and presumes
them to be guilty of a variety of crimes. Although most interviewees also refer to other groups of perpetrators andother violent settings including, for instance, school massacres in the United States, the war in Iraq, suicide bombers,
Colombian mass violence, and insecurity in Somalia, it appears that the very notion of maras provides a strong argument.
In recent years, the concept of pandillas/maras has entered
the political vocabulary. As political decision-makers,
among them presidents, members of parliament, and international consultants, have begun to turn their attention
towards public security, youth gangs have increasingly
been labeled as the perpetrator par excellence. It is crucial
to underline, however, that the political intentions andsocio-economic settings have differed from country tocountry.
According to Rocha, various factors have contributed tothe identification of Nicaraguan youth gangs as a major
target group to be reached by policy interventions. What
has mattered most is the transformation of the Sandinista
police into the National Police. The existence of parallel
Sandinista and traditional elite networks within the
National Police “has generated different discourses and actions towards youth violence” (Rocha 2005, 12), withpowerful international donor agencies such as the InterAmerican Development Bank contributing to making therehabilitation/prevention of youth violence a major prior-

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Oettler: Central American Fear of Youthity.10 In general, it appears that Nicaraguan decisionmakers use efforts to reintegrate so-called “young people
at risk” as a marker of difference, and something that indicates the democratic nature of Nicaraguan politics. They
also take up arguments that are circulating in otherspheres of public life in Nicaragua. After the Sandinistas’
electoral defeat in 1990, NGOs dealing with child protection appeared throughout the country. The Instituto de
Promoción Humana-Estelí (INPRHU-Estelí), the Centro
de Prevención de la Violencia (CEPREV), and the Fundación de Protección de los Derechos de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes Infractores de la Ley (FUNPRODE) are some of
the most important Nicaraguan NGOs working with“adolescents at risk.” All share the characteristic of being
dependent on foreign financial resources. A second, andmore important, shared feature is participation in transnational advocacy networks. Since the ideas of international consultants, Nicaraguan decision-makers, andNGO activists complement one another, the notion ofyouth violence has emerged as a substantial issue in publicspheres.
In contrast to Nicaragua, the networked, organized civil society in El Salvador has been an ineffective counterweight
to official agenda-setting and thus not a policy multiplier.
While ARENA has used the mara label as a meta-symbolfor evil, trying to establish the idea of close ties between
maras, Jihadist terrorism, and the FMLN, the latter has circumnavigated the issue of youth violence, focusing insteadon power relations and the socio-economic dimensions ofdevelopment. Given the high degree of political polarization, the discursive power of organized civil society has
been severely limited for a long time. Since anti-gang policies have been adopted, human rights organizations,churches, universities, and non-organized professionals
have criticized the state for violating human rights andexaggerating the problem of youth violence. Backed by international NGOs and intergovernmental organizations,organized civil society has sought to establish a counter10 A variety of institutions dealing with youth violence and/or “young people at risk“ have been established since the late 1990s, with the National Secretary of Youth Affairs (Secretaría de la Juventud) andweight to official statements. In general, critical views on
repressive anti-gang rhetoric can be articulated, but theytend to be ignored by the mass media. Recently, however,
U.S. and Colombian “success” stories appear to have created renewed interest in the promotion of alternative anticrime strategies by the business sector, regardless ofwhether or not these strategies are repressive. Certain interventions by FUSADES (see above) signaled a strategic shift
from “iron fist” policies to more comprehensive anti-crime
policies.
In Costa Rica, the stigmatization of youth has not yet beentranslated into policy. Rather, the classification of youth as
the social group most susceptible to crime and anti-social
behavior corresponds to the widespread perception that
Costa Rica is facing a moral decline. The 2005 PLN electoral platform includes a similar argument, stating that
Costa Rica is suffering from a norms and identity crisis.
Therefore, state policies should “promote generation rescue, inspired by new principles and norms, creating theconditions for a renewed culture of social cohabitation thatallows for the reversal of the observed tendencies” (translated from PLN 2005, item 151). Why is a generation to be
rescued? Or, in other words, why do strategies designed toprevent crime overlook adult criminals and violators andrefer solely to the imagined perpetrators of tomorrow? As
described above, adolescents at risk tend to be the only
group of perpetrators that is named.
In conclusion, as explained above, public discourses on
youth violence differ from country to country, with important thematic nodes linked to their respective political
history. The seed of fear is not automatically nourished by“real” violent incidents but rather by discursive events.
Moreover, we have shown that the public discourse on violence is not a monolithic phenomenon, but rather a seriesof overlapping or contradictory discourses emanating froma variety of hegemonic publics and “counter-publics”(Fraser 1992).

the Special Ombudsmanís Office for Children andAdolescents (Procuradoría Especial de la Niñez y laAdolescencia) being the most important.

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Oettler: Central American Fear of Youth274

7. Conclusion
The argument that there are discrepancies between the
portrayal of monstrous Central American youth gangs andsocial reality is not new. Previous writings have highlighted
the complex and often dispersed nature of the Central
American gang phenomenon:

figuration of societies characterized by porous borders.
There is a cross-national discursive leitmotif focusing on
the ever-present danger of youth violence, moral decline,
and social disintegration. The notion of organized youth violence has become a central feature of both national and international debates on violent Central American “realities.”

While there is no doubt that a significant proportion of regional
violence is attributable to the phenomenon, gangs are relatively
local-level security issues rather than the transnational threatthat the media and some policy outlets make them out to be.
(Rodgers, Muggah, and Stevenson 2009, 23).

The vivid image of monstrous youth gangs is widespreadbut by no means automatically associated with lifeworld
experience or sufficient empirical evidence. The talk of intentional crime, whether regarding homicide or organizedyouth violence, is by no means the only talk of violencefound in public spheres in Central America (Moodie 2010;
Hume 2008). What matters to many of our interviewees
are issues related to large-scale corruption, structural violence, and/or gender-based violence (Huhn 2009; Peetz
2011; Huhn, Oettler, and Peetz 2007). The talk of crime isperformed within ever-shifting intersections of ethnicity,class, and gender (see Anderson, Hill, and Collins 2001;
Johnson 2001). Moreover, public spheres are often divided
along residential lines. Various domains of oppression andprivilege come together in the rhetoric of (in)security, . As
our data indicate, the “talk of crime” (Caldeira 2000)
serves to create and perpetuate a patchwork of inequalities.
There are, for instance, white female NGO activists who reproduce prejudices against the poor. There are people frompoor neighborhoods who identify other poor neighborhoods as the danger spots, and there are machos fromall strata of society laden with prejudices against women.
On the other hand, there are men who communicate feminist messages and people from poor neighborhoods whodemystify the image of the dangerous poor. And, of course,
there are white feminists engaged in the struggle against
prejudice. Thus, it is crucial to recognize that discourses onviolence are plurivocal and often ambiguous, with a wide
range of speakers bound to different public realms. Perceptions of insecurity are closely tied to a matrix of privilege and discrimination, with income, gender, sexual
orientation, and residential background being important,albeit not determinative, factors affecting fear.

The combination of scant empirical evidence and dramatizing reports has fostered the spread of myths about organized youth violence: (1) youth violence is exploding; (2)North American transnational youth gangs have “growing
tentacles” (Muhlhausen 2005); and (3) Central Americanneighborhoods are struck with fear.
There are, however, significant discrepancies here. Our qualitative data indicate that national discourses on violence are
intrinsically tied to national myths. The myth of Costa Rica
being a “peace-loving nation” (Huhn 2009), the myth of preOrtega Nicaragua being a secure country (Oettler 2009), andthe myth of El Salvador being invaded by criminal adolescents (and, more recently, by mafia organizations) are key
features of contemporary national debates. In Central America the diverging paths of development seem to converge interms of crime policy. The three cases discussed in this paper
encompass countries with high and medium human development (Costa Rica vs. El Salvador and Nicaragua), countries
with and without a recent history of internal war (El Salvador
and Nicaragua vs. Costa Rica) and countries with crime rates
usually perceived as exploding (El Salvador), increasing(Costa Rica) or low (Nicaragua). These contextual features
may best be understood as a complex matrix that affects discourse content indirectly, allowing for overlapping or evencontradictory messages. Irrespective of national differences,
however, Central American crime myths are created and perpetuated mainly by mass media, politicians, and social scientists and serve to justify elitist status quo politics.
On the other hand, it is crucial to note that Central America
is a “bounded system” (Stake 2000), an interdependent con-

The perception of youth violence is multifaceted, withcross-sectoral and cross-border discursive strings as well as
national and subnational peculiarities. As Downs pointed

IJCV : Vol. 5 (2) 2011, pp. 261 – 276
Oettler: Central American Fear of Youthout thirty years ago, every problem of crucial importanceto society “leaps into prominence, remains there for a shorttime, and then – though still largely unresolved – graduallyfades from the center of public attention” (1998, 100). In
public discourse, though, issues come and go in public attention. According to Downs, the “issue attention cycle”
usually begins with a series of dramatic events resulting in“alarmed discovery” and “euphoric enthusiasm” that the
problem can be quickly solved (ibid.). Applying this concept to the intertwined Central American cases, we canidentify different stages of national agenda-setting and poReferences
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