Latin America: A view of crime and the criminal justice system

thechronicleherald.ca reported Latin America is the world’s most violent region. More than one million people died as a result of criminal violence in the past decade, according to the UN Development Program. In Honduras, the most murderous country on Earth, the homicide rate in 2012 was 90.4 people for every 100,000 inhabitants — an epidemic of killing that translates to 7,500 murders a year in a city the size of London (where the actual number in the year to May was 112).

Lethal crime is only part of the story. Robberies have nearly tripled over the past 25 years, in contrast to trends elsewhere. Although there are huge differences between (and within) countries in Latin America, the costs of crime are large everywhere. Some of these costs, like spending on security and health care, can be quantified. Others are more intangible. In Chile, one of the region’s safest countries, almost a third of inhabitants say their neighborhoods are affected by gangs. Read Article