Dealing with the problem of the actions carried out by illegal armed groups in shantytowns and poor neighborhoods of Brazilian urban peripheries, this article aims at outlining a dynamic model of criminal activities structuration, expecting to provide subsidies for a more comprehensive and systemic understanding of the development of such phenomenon in the country along the last decades. Working on the perspective of a complex evolutionary model, we propose the idea that, despite their many forms of manifestation, it is possible to identify common stages of criminal activities structuration in the phenomenon of gangs and illegal armed groups active in Brazilian shantytowns. We argue that, in their initial stages, the criminal dynamics of gangs are characterized mainly by a societarian/communitarian logic, which gradually turns to be oriented towards more economic/rational ends as they adhere to more complex criminal activities.
Gangs; Violence; Criminality; illegal armed groups
