Haiti Is a Political and Criminal Crisis that Should Not be Ignored

A coalition of criminal gangs is close to capturing Haiti’s beleaguered capital of Port-au-Prince.

Today, Haiti is grappling with extraordinary violence as gangs have tightened their stranglehold over large portions of the country. Over one million people have been internally displaced — nearly one in ten Haitians. By the end of 2024, at least 5,601 murders had been recorded, an alarming 1,000 more than in 2023, marking a national homicide rate of nearly 48 per 100,000 inhabitants — a grim record for what is the poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The ongoing crisis in Haiti defies traditional definitions of intrastate conflict. The crisis goes beyond a scourge of gang violence, as the gangs challenge the authority of the state. Yet, the gangs have not taken over the country, though they likely could do so at any time. Instead, the gangs appear to operate in parallel to the state, enabled by political instability, corruption, and weak institutions.

Without a clear diagnosis of what is happening and why, any attempts to resolve the crisis risk being misdirected, reinforcing the status quo. Indeed, the failure to define the crisis in precise terms has led to fragmented and ineffective responses from Haiti’s state leaders as well as a number of powerful state actors and international organizations. The situation has reached a tragic stalemate.

To adequately address the political-criminal crisis in Haiti, international actors — namely the U.N. Security Council, the United States, Canada, France, and the Caribbean Community should assume a new approach. This approach should focus on improving coordination between Haitian authorities and existing multinational forces to tamper violence, improving intelligence sharing to reduce the flow of weapons into the country, and empowering Haiti’s judicial institutions — if necessary, located outside of the country — to prosecute gang leaders, and their supporters, including for human rights violations.

Defining the Problem

What do the gangs want? Why do they stop short of a coup d’état, even though they hold the capital in the palm of their hand? Some of the gangs have carried out serious violations of human rights, such as the massacre of 207 people in the commune of Cité Soleil in Port-au-Prince on Dec. 6 and 7, 2024. Should they be considered armed groups, criminal organizations, or terrorists? And how should they be held accountable? These questions remain largely unanswered at the legal, operational, and political levels. This lack of clarity is not only a matter of intellectual debate — it has profound consequences for how the crisis is understood and addressed by external actors.

The gangs of Haiti do not operate as fully autonomous groups. While the gangs enjoy a measure of economic independence through drug trafficking, extortion, and kidnapping, they remain tightly tied through old allegiances and ongoing negotiations with the political elites of the country. Rather than seeking to overthrow the government, Haitian gangs aim to integrate, or at least try to navigate within the existing political system to occupy the most strategic place possible. The desire to remain within the system enables an illicit taxation regime and a stranglehold on trafficking networks but also positions the gangs themselves as actors and brokers indispensable to any stabilization of the country. At present, gangs function as the de facto authority in vast parts of the country, regulating the daily lives of the local population.

Inadequate International Response

In October 2023, the U.N. Security Council authorized a Multinational Security Support Mission to address escalating violence and reestablish security in Haiti. Led by Kenya, the mission was finally deployed in June 2024 with the aim of bolstering the Haitian National Police’s fight against the gangs. While the mission was expected to deploy over 2,500 personnel, the current force hovers around 1,000. This is far too few personnel to effectively combat a growing tide of gang-led criminal violence. Both Haitian authorities and multinational forces are outmatched by gangs who are increasingly well-equipped and can control swathes of territory.

The U.N. Security Council’s attempts at intervention in Haiti to improve political stability through the Multinational Security Support Mission is well-intentioned. Yet, it has been underfunded, under-resourced, and poorly coordinated. Without addressing the underlying political corruption that enables the gangs to thrive, any foreign intervention will likely fail.

Extortion is Central to the Gangs’ Grip on Power

The linkages between gangs and political officials have enabled gang leaders to impose protection racket schemes across the country. This system operates on multiple levels, from territorial control to economic influence, notably through rent extraction. Gangs impose extortion taxes across the country’s infrastructure, including ports, roads, and key border crossings. A single day’s travel between two Haitian cities often involves paying a dozen or more illegal taxes to gang-run checkpoints.

In the Artibonite region, the agricultural heart of the country, the Gran Grif gang levies a tax on the farm laborers. When conflicts break out over the payment of taxes, or when groups of farmers try to resist — as they did in October 2024 — the reprisals are terrible: A massacre committed by Gran Grif just a few days after its leader and a local politician were sanctioned by the United Nations and the United States for actively supporting the gangs, left at least 115 people dead. The logistical functioning of the country depends on a gang-run tax scheme. If they are not paid, gangs block access to goods and infrastructure, as they did in the spring of 2024.

More Guns, More Recruits, and More Violence

Gang recruitment efforts soared in 2024. This included a troubling 70 percent increase in child soldiers, many forcibly conscripted. The gangs also expanded their arsenals, amassing small arms weapons and larger caliber machine guns. Aided by national and international criminal networks, Haitian gangs now wield considerable firepower and have gained access to a steady flow of arms and ammunition. The U.S. state of Florida has become a key waypoint for illicit flows into Haiti.

The gang violence in Haiti, while deadly, is also highly calculated. Gangs no longer simply engage in random acts of terror. Instead, they systematically attack public and private state institutions — destroying private homes, hospitals in Port-au-Prince and in Artibonite, police stations and bases, and media organizations. This intimidation tactic erodes public trust and accelerates the collapse of essential services, leaving the population increasingly vulnerable and seeking protection from the gangs.

From Insecurity to Governance: The Political Impact of the Gangs

Gangs depend on the support of corrupt public officials and former elected representatives. The United Nations Panel of Experts on Haiti has pointed out these connections several times, but Haitian judicial institutions have been slow to act. Political-criminal networks are therefore still operational, financing gangs or supplying them with firearms, for example.

The gangs’ increasing power is no longer just a matter of public security — it has become a profound political crisis. Gang leaders exert increasing influence over the trajectory of Haiti’s fragile political transition, putting pressure on the sitting government and international actors. This pressure involves constant propaganda on social media networks and threats against public figures and the institutions of the political transition. Some gangs have even become involved in the transition itself. In early 2025, the leader of the gang coalition known as Viv Ansanm announced it would transform into a political party.

What Can Be Done?

The current situation in Haiti should be seen as a political-criminal crisis in which the use of large-scale violence serves to obtain or maintain an advantageous position within the political game — not in opposition to it. Haiti’s gangs are a parasite on the state, but they do not appear to want to kill the host.

The crisis is not merely a gang problem or a security issue — it’s a political-criminal crisis that demands a new approach. The deployment of another U.N. peacekeeping mission might help to stabilize the country in the short term, but it likely won’t solve the criminal governance problem. From Afghanistan to Sudan and from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Myanmar, peacekeeping operations, in particular, have historically failed to deal with conflicts beset by criminalized political economies. In any event, the era of classic U.N. peacekeeping operations is likely over.

Rather, the United Nations and other international actors need a new strategy that tackles not only the gangs but the political and economic structures that allow them to endure and thrive. What is required is a new set of initiatives built around the current Multinational Security Support Mission. As a crucial first step to addressing the crisis, Haitian and international actors, including the United States, Canada, France, and the Caribbean Community, should focus on improving public safety. Cooperation between the Haitian police and the existing Kenyan-led mission should be strengthened to enable more effective deployment of forces on the ground to deter gang violence and safeguard the local population. Security forces on all sides also need better training, intelligence, and logistics support.

Second, international actors should work to reduce the flow of weapons into Haiti. This requires better intelligence sharing and tighter coordination between Haitian authorities, the United States, the Dominican Republic, and other Caribbean countries.

Third, the United Nations and other multilateral organizations such as the European Union, the World Bank, or the Inter-American Development Bank should increase their support for Haiti’s law enforcement and judicial institutions. Without a functioning justice system to target the entire ecosystem of corruption and crime, criminal gangs will continue to operate with impunity. This involves creating or strengthening mechanisms to prosecute gang leaders and supporters, and human rights violations, in courts located both within and outside of Haiti.

Ultimately, making Haiti a functioning state will require more than just military interventions and political debate. A long-term strategy should include building a robust, independent justice system, ensuring accountability for political and economic actors, and addressing the broader social and economic issues that fuel gang recruitment, such as poverty and low living standards.

The lessons from Haiti are clear: When criminal groups embed themselves within the political and economic systems of a state, the situation becomes far more complex than traditional international responses can handle. Haitian authorities, the United Nations, and key actors involved in crisis resolution — including the United States — should adjust their thinking and actions if they hope to break the cycle of violence, corruption, and impunity.

Haiti’s future depends on a strategic, multi-pronged response that addresses both the symptoms and the root causes of the crisis. Failure to act decisively and comprehensively will not only worsen the situation in Haiti but also create far-reaching instability in America’s neighborhood.

Mark Shaw is the director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Romain Le Cour Grandmaison is the head of the Haiti Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Image: U.S. Embassy Haiti

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