How to Map and Combat Urban Organised Crime: Lessons from the Medellín Impact Lab
January 2025
Briefing note 33
Prof Christopher Blattman, University of Chicago
Dr Benjamin Lessing, University of Chicago
Prof Santiago Tobón, EAFIT Universidad
SOC ACE project: Developing government information and accountability systems for combatting serious organised crime: Medellín demonstration project
PUBLICATION SUMMARY
Extortion and protection fees are one of the most pervasive yet poorly measured problems at the core of organised crime. As a result, not only does the problem receive too little attention from policymakers, but the attention it does receive can be counterproductive. This is evident in Medellín, where extortion by its close to 400 neighbourhood gangs (combos), is less easy to observe, is less surveilled and therefore less well addressed.
It's easy to say that treatment should follow from diagnosis, but how can problems be diagnosed and assuming there is a diagnosis, what is the treatment? Impact labs may offer a solution that allows cities to develop diagnostic and experimental capacity on the issue of organised crime. The research team have applied the four pillar impact lab methodology working with Medellín’s local government, police, and local non-governmental organisations to diagnose the problem of extortion, develop, scale and evaluate interventions, consequently crating scope for a framework of accountability.
Pillar one has involved investigation of the organisation and politics of organised crime in Medellín, finding that combos tend to be small, hierarchical organisations of 15 to 50 employees with foot soldiers ages ranging from 15 to 18 years, with earnings similar to an average city worker. Members at the top of the combos structure are earning equivalent to the top 1% of city workers.
Pillar two involved merging novel survey data together with official administrative data, through data access agreements for real-time analysis. These efforts shed light on the nature of underreporting of extortion and on alternative governance provided by gangs, revealing that in areas where state governance is weak, combos often fill the gap, offering dispute resolution and maintaining order, albeit at significant societal cost.
Pillar three focused on understanding the long-term criminal career paths that attract the next generation to join combos, and therefore understand what may work to prevent them from joining. Qualitative research has preliminarily found that boys tend to underestimate the returns from education, with this misperception increasing as their interest in joining gangs increases. It has also shown that their interest in joining gangs is greater when their belief that gam membership will bring them status, enjoyment, and success with girls, is greater – essentially subjective and often inaccurate beliefs.
Finally, the fourth pillar has seen the building of partnerships to develop, test, scale and evaluate treatment interventions. The research team are working with Medellín’s police and local government to pilot a ‘conditional repression’ intervention to reduce extortion. They are partnering with a local non-governmental organisation to pilot interventions to tackle youth recruitment into gangs, and with Medellín’s city government, they are focusing on evaluating the city’s unarmed approaches to disorder and crime.