The Regional Working Groups are the central working structures within the Global Consortium. They are thematic work groups conceived as clusters of practitioners, researchers, and activists who have a common interest in a given topic and engage in new, cross-regional and comparative research projects. The groups convene to share new knowledge, take advantage of practical experiences in the field, foster new agendas, and strengthen existing networks.
Each of the Working Groups will develop specific thematic workshops, which allow for cross-regional collaboration and comparison. The comparative nature of the Working Groups will allow sharing experiences of policy reform and conceptual cross-fertilization. Combining practical experiences with a more conceptual debate on security trends will be one of the key features of such workshops.
As Working Groups engage in new cross-regional and comparative research projects, developing a common research methodology would be key to ensuring the comparability of findings across regions. In order to broaden participation and ensure alternative voices are heard, the Working Groups could ensure the use of participatory research methodologies if and when appropriate. One technique that has already been successfully deployed in similar circumstances is Participatory Action Research (PAR). PAR involves the people and communities researched as genuine, active and reflective participants in the research process, and the research itself aims to be transformative in terms of addressing a particular problem and creating spaces and opportunities for positive transformation. This research technique can still be rigorous and produce recommendations and analysis that are firmly backed up by empirical evidence, but it also allows for genuine participation, encourages new voices and creates opportunities for change.
2nd Meeting of the Working Group on Transnational Organized Crime (Transnational Organized Crime )
09.15.10
The Working Group on Transnational Organized Crime of the GCST will hold on September 15-17 its second meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, co-hosted by UN-HABITAT. The aim is to present the working papers produced by the members of the WG within the GCST. Furthermore, there will be a round table to discuss public policies on organized crime with the aim of obtaining tangible results.
2nd meeting of the Working Group on Regional Security (Regional Security)
08.15.10
The Working Group on Regional Security from Above and Below will hold its second meeting on 15 August 2010 at Buenos Aires, Argentina, in order to present and disseminate the papers from the mapping exercise of perspectives on regional security and to plan the second year of the research project.
International Summit on Violence Prevention in Latin America (Crime Prevention)
04.15.10
With the aim of exchanging experiences in the field of insecurity reduction in the cities, the city of Bogotá and the IDB hold the international summit titled “Ideas, leadership and innovation on violence prevention in Latin America and the Caribbean
More information here (in Spanish)
Book Understanding Political Violence now available in Spanish (Transnational Organized Crime )
12.31.09
Vincenzo Ruggiero’s “Understanding Political Violence” (published in English by Open University Press in 2006) is now available in Spanish, with the title: “La violencia política: un análisis criminológico”, published by Anthropos (Barcelona).
This book analyses institutional and anti-institutional political violence, the former as violence from above, the latter as violence from below. An excursus in sociological and criminological thought highlights how the different theoretical schools have discussed this particular form of collective behaviour. From classicism to positivism, from functionalism to conflict theory, through to most recent theoretical contribution, the book also analyses the two extreme forms of political violence, namely terrorism and war.
Publisher's website
Recording, presenters' slides, and polling results from the webinar (Transnational Organized Crime )
12.01.09
The recording, presenters' slides, and polling results from the webinar "Best Practices to Combat Human Trafficking", hosted by the Harvard’s Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking & the Government Innovators Network on November 16th, can be accessed in the Government Innovators Network website through this link.
You must first register with the site to access this page (which is free and takes only a few seconds).
Latin-Americans to debate on the relationships between police forces and youth (Crime Prevention)
11.11.09
From this Wednesday, the Regional Conference on Police and Youth will take place in Nicaragua’s capital, Managua. On this occasion, the Latin-American Network of Police and Civil Society will present the results of a research on the mechanisms for youth crime prevention used by police forces in the region.
More information here (in Spanish).