Queenpins: Women Leaders and Violence in Organized Crime

How does women’s leadership affect the behavior of criminal organizations? Organized criminal groups are male-dominated patriarchal organizations that use violence to govern, compete, and control territory. Qualitative research suggests that women leaders—though rare—reduce their organization’s violent behavior. We examine this expectation through Mexico’s Tijuana Cartel, leveraging the sudden 2008 ascension of a woman to leadership. Although violence increased under her tenure, synthetic control results show greater reliance on hidden violence and less on visible violence and territorial expansion. Original data on male cartel leaders reveals that systematic gender differences in trajectories help explain these patterns. Our results indicate that women leaders are not necessarily less violent than men but instead strategically employ different violent repertoires. Case studies of 44 women leaders across 18 countries since 1850 assess the broader applicability of these findings and identify important scope conditions. Our findings underscore the importance of incorporating gender into organized crime research.