What happens when a gangster leaves their life on the street? How do they transition to something new? In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we find out through the life stories of two people who joined gangs as young men and came out the other side.

Dennis Rodgers, a research professor at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, has spent decades studying youth gangs across Latin America, particularly Nicaragua. In 2019, Rodgers launched a global research project called GANGS to explore the commonalities across gangs, gangsters and ganglands around the world.

Rodgers says there are a huge variety of factors why somebody might leave a gang. This could range from having children or getting married, to experiencing violent trauma or being imprisoned. Other reasons he knows of have included:

Becoming bored, having a lucky escape, being conscripted into the army, emigrating, a death in the family, or moving away from the neighborhood … having a friend being killed in front of them, or parental pressure, or........

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