No country is free of violence, but it is particularly prevalent in Latin America. The Organization of American States has called violence in Latin America "an epidemic, a scourge that kills more people than AIDS or any other known epidemic" (Carroll). Brazil and Colombia are two countries shaped by gang violence; both are in the hands of some of the largest, most violent and institutionalized gangs in the world. In Donna Goldstein's ethnography of life in a Brazilian slum, Laughter Out of Place, the power and prevalence of gang violence is evident. In Colombia, gangs thrive throughout the country and have direct consequences on the economic, political and social structure of the country. Although they exist in completely different countries, and although they are different in some ways, the gangs of Brazil and Colombia, as a whole, share similarities in their power, function and effect on lives of the poor. a long history, which has led to their current prevalence in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The first organized drug gang in Brazil emerged in the Ilha Grande prison in 1969. The military regime in place at the time placed political prisoners with common criminals, generally poor and from the favelas; these common criminals were thus made aware of exploitation and injustice. The government later realized its mistake and distributed the inmates to prisons across the country, allowing them to spread their new knowledge. Upon their release from prison, these inmates organized a collective which became the “Commando Vermelho”, the first powerful drug gang. Over the next few years, drug wars broke out between rival groups and favelas were overrun by drug trafficking. Co...... middle of article ...... or in both countries, moving forward, the gang problem will need to be addressed first and foremost, as each gang has dominated their respective country's discourse on most problems, from the economy to living standards to crime rates and everything in between. Works Cited Carroll, Rory2008 The Guardian, October 8. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/09/mexico. human rights, accessed December 10, 2011. Combs, Cindy and Martin Slann2007 Encyclopedia of Terrorism. New York: Infobase Publishing. Goldstein, Donna M. 2003 Laughter is out of place. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jordan, David C. 1999 Drug Politics. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Perlman, Janice2010 Favela. New York: Oxford University Press. Martin, C Gus, ed. 2011 The Sage Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.