In much of Latin America and the Caribbean, organized crime destabilizes governments, undermines institutions, hinders economic growth, and threatens citizen security and public health. InSight Crime, hosted by CLALS, is the leading source for investigation, reporting, analysis, and training targeted to meet the needs of academics, researchers, policymakers and analysts, journalists, NGOs, and law enforcement and government officials tackling the problems posed by organized crime and drug trafficking throughout the region.
InSight Crime’s work is featured on a dual-language website, comprising the largest and most comprehensive database on organized crime in the Americas. Daily articles summarize major news events and provide original, ground-level multimedia reports and in-depth investigations on organized crime that go beyond coverage in the traditional media. Bolstered by large followings on a range of social media platforms, InSight Crime’s coverage reaches between 300,000 and 400,000 readers every month. InSight Crime’s material is also routinely cited, quoted, and reprinted in major media outlets.
CLALS hosts InSight Crime’s Washington, DC office, maximizing the organization’s visibility and influence in the academic community and in constituencies in the worlds of policy and advocacy. InSight Crime serves as a critical partner in a number of Center research initiatives, including previous work on elites and organized crime, current work mapping the operation of clandestine wildlife trafficking and logging industries, and ongoing efforts to analyze the criminal behavior of Central American street gangs. In order to support media freedom and combat impunity in the region, InSight Crime also builds the capacity of journalists and NGOs to cover organized crime, corruption, and citizen security through targeted workshops and trainings.
InSight Crime has centers of operation in Colombia as well as at AU. CLALS Research Fellow Steven Dudley co-directs the initiative together with Jeremy McDermott, a journalist based in MedellÃn. InSight Crime’s key funders include Open Society Foundations, the British Embassy in Colombia, USAID, the International Development Research Centre of Canada, and the Swedish government, among others.
- Transnational Criminal Organizations in Brazil and the Southern Cone
- Wildlife Trafficking and Illegal Logging in Latin America
- Transnational Criminal Capacity of the MS-13 in the U.S. and El Salvador
- Elites and Power in Central America
- Exclusion and Violence in Central American Cities
- Religion and Violence in Latin America