While democracy is widespread, recent events remind us that progress has been uneven and great challenges remain. In our effort to meet these challenges, we need to guard strongly against the notion that having democratic structures in place is by itself sufficient. Judicial systems in the Hemisphere are often cumbersome, slow, and anachronistic. Some legal codes date back to the last century and have not been reformed to take into account modern crimes like narcotics, cyber crime, trafficking in persons, and money laundering. Unfortunately, soaring crime rates in Latin America have prompted some to short-circuit democratic norms or to support vigilante justice.
Corruption continues to divert public funds into the pockets of corrupt officials.
These are challenges democracies in the region continue to face in varying degrees everyday. The key test is what we, the Americas, do about it. Indeed, opinion polls in some Western Hemisphere countries reveal that while the public endorses democracy as a philosophical concept they are less satisfied with the performance of the system. Much of the dissatisfaction mirrored in these responses is a reflection of the disappointment with the limits of social and economic mobility, and in some countries, like Venezuela, the erosion of the traditional middle classes. There is a sense on the part of the common citizen that the system might be working for some, but certainly not for them.