# **2. Crime and Violence in Latin America: Magnitude, Trends, and Manifestations**

The extent to which countries in Latin America are affected by crime and violence varies significantly. For 1994, the most recent year for which comprehensive data are available, homicide rates per 100,000 were 51.9 in the Andean region, 30.1 in Brazil, 21.1 in Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean, 19.5 in Mexico (1995 data), 8.7 in the English Caribbean and 6.2 in the Southern Cone.<sup>8</sup> Crime and violence rates are especially high in post-conflict countries. In El Salvador, for example, the homicide rate increased by 36% after the end of the civil war.<sup>9</sup> But high levels of violence are not exclusively a symptom of countries experiencing or emerging from periods of political unrest. Rather, it appears that countries at varying levels of development are affected by it.

Alarmingly, crime and violence levels have been on the rise since the 1970s. Data indicate an overall upward trend in criminal activity in most countries of the region, a few exceptions being Argentina, Chile and Costa Rica.<sup>10</sup> The highest rates of increase were recorded in the English Caribbean, where homicide rates jumped by more than 67% and in the Andean region, where rates more than doubled. In Brazil and Central America (including the Hispanic Caribbean), rates increased by 29.7% and 20.6%, respectively, whereas increases in the Southern Cone and Mexico were 14.8% and 7.1%. For the region as a whole, the non-population-weighted rate of increase was 40.7% between 1984 and 1994, or approximately 3.4% per year.<sup>11</sup> One of the most dramatic increases occurred in Jamaica: between 1977 and 2000, the rate of violent crime increased from 254.6 incidents per 100,000 to 633.4 per 100,000 and the murder rate jumped from 19.2 per 100,000 to 39 per 100,000.<sup>12</sup> Violence is most severe and visible in urban settings. The main metropolises such as Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Lima, and Caracas account for more than half the total of their national homicides.<sup>13</sup> While the majority of the literature analyzes crime and violence in urban contexts, large parts of the rural population are also affected by it. A high incidence of rural violence is most marked in conflict and post-conflict countries, such as in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Colombia. El Salvador has one of the highest incidences of rural violence, with 76% of homicides occurring in rural areas.<sup>14</sup> Kay (2001) suggests that Latin America’s potential for rural violence is largely rooted in its unequal and exclusionary agrarian socioeconomic system, although the manifestation of violence depends on a number of factors, including particular political circumstances.<sup>15</sup> Not only has there been a marked increase in crime and violence levels since the 1970s, but also a change in its form. Since the 1990s, the most visible manifestation of violence

> 8 Morrison, Buvinic, and Shifter (2003).

> 9 Buvinic and Morrison (2000).

> 10 Fajnzylber, Lederman, and Loayza (1998).

> 11 Morrison, Buvinic, and Shifter (2003).

> 12 Harriott (2004) in Harriott, Brathwaite and Wortley (2004).

> 13 Briceño-León (1999) quoted in Moser (2004).

> 14 World Vision (2002) quoted in Moser (2004).

> 15 Kay (2001).

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