A charity supporting young adult men has teamed up with a student criminologist researching the dynamics of Bermuda’s gangs to explore how the island context influences antisocial behaviour.

Frankco Harris, who is pursuing a doctorate in criminology at St Anthony’s College in Oxford University, is collaborating with Transitional Community Services and its members on a multiyear study.

Mr Harris told The Royal Gazette that while his aim was to research the root causes of gang activity, it was not about “gangs”.

“I don’t want to be a gang specialist, and gangs are not the unit of my analysis, which is really my country and community,” he said.

“I’m using my set of skills to uncover a different way of looking at this issue.”

TCS, which launched in 2021, helps men aged 18 to 34 who face a spectrum of challenges, many of which are shaped by the smallness and isolation distinct to island life.

The charity’s clients, known as members, range at present from ten to 20.

Several began meetings Mr Harris last week to help with a root cause analysis into what he terms the “islandness” behind social problems.

Mr Harris explained: “Bermuda is so unique. How does being on a small island with limited resources impact issues like gang violence?”

Prominent studies of gang activity typically focus on large cities in the US, with findings that do not apply to an island setting.

Mr Harris said many in the public were baffled at how criminal gangs were able to operate in somewhere so small, where people were presumed to know “everyone else”.

“Everyone in Bermuda does not know everyone else,” he said.

He added that the island’s smallness taught people involved in illicit activity to operate out of sight.

“You learn to be more secretive, to use secret networks,” he said. “That’s where Bermuda is challenging.”

TCS members come with diverse challenges. The charity is aimed at getting them to a point where “they do not need this service any more”, according to Aruna Dismont, the programme resource manager.

“Our goal is to see them become self-sufficient in the community,” she said.

Ms Dismont said TCS preferred to avoid the term “at-risk” for its members.

She added: “With the spectrum of members that we have, some of them are very introverted, have lived at home their whole lives — the family structure can be great or not great, but there’s just been a disconnect somewhere in their childhood or adolescence.

“It’s a very, very wide spectrum. We have all different sexualities as well, some neurodivergent, and some who are at risk. By ‘at risk’ we mean different things, not just gang affiliations.”

Challenges can range from health issues to a struggle with traditional academia.

Ms Dismont said that many had undergone “adverse childhood experiences” and “many have been involved with government services such as the Department of Child and Family Services”.

Mr Harris, who grew up in the Middletown neighbourhood in Pembroke, has had brushes with trouble in the past.

“I really wish something like this had existed when I was a young boy,” he said of TCS.

“I used to leave high school and go out roaming the streets just looking for a safe space.”

He returned to the island this year from Britain to delve into a topic that he described as “something you really want to work towards solving”.

“When it came to my thesis, I was clear from the beginning — if I’m going to do this doctoral research, it has to be based on my own community.”

Using the model of “participatory action research”, involving engaging directly with a community and building partnerships based on trust, Mr Harris arranged an online meeting with TCS early this year.

He said: “I wanted to be grounded in the lived experience of people that are marginal or at risk.

Mr Harris said he understood that the public was “really tired, despondent” after decades of gang violence, but added: “If you were to right now lock up every person you suspect of gang violence, that’s just containment.

“That’s not actually addressing and fixing the problem.

“A lot of these things are systemic. You won’t see a change in root causes for a generation.”

He acknowledged that many people “don’t want to hear that” but highlighted that the World Health Organisation in 2017 adopted “a public health approach to violence reduction”.

“It’s about addressing the root causes. People within that are at risk of either perpetuating violence or being susceptible to violence.”

He added: “When you feel you’re not safe at home and your family doesn’t care, and you’re trapped on this little island and you’re stuck here ‒ you can implode.”

Mr Harris admitted that, since his return, he had been taken aback by some of the violence that shook Bermuda this year.

“I said to my supervisor, it’s popping off down here right now,” he said.

“It is scary. But these things are not really easy fixes. It’s so complex, because there are all manner of different relations going on. It’s not as obvious as a particular gang fighting a particular gang.”

Now in his second year of work, Mr Harris said he faced his own long-term journey, with his funding at present covering 3½ years of research and analysis.

He repeated that his end goal was not to become “a figurehead” or expert on Bermuda’s gangs.

“I really want to come back and work in the community,” he said.