ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Safe and Inclusive Cities project that studied youth crime in Cote d'Ivoire. It focuses specifically on Abidjan, the country's economic capital. The Safe and Inclusive Cities project in Cote d'Ivoire was initiated in 2013 with the objective of filling in the gaps in author's research on the new faces of crime and better understanding the transformations of criminal violence. Criminal violence is nothing new in Ivorian cities, and has rarely attracted the attention of social scientists. The children perceive their living conditions as something to be rejected, and they consider resorting to violence as a triumph over failure and social degradation. The young criminals may feel that any increase in the overall economic prosperity of Cote d'Ivoire bypasses them. The process of inducting new candidates into any criminal group often requires them to undergo an initiation ritual, to introduce them to the norms and values of the gang.
