When will the Violence end?

The wave of murders in El Salvador highlights the fact that Latin America has the worst violence indexes of urban violence in the world. After many years of failures, how can governments overturn this phenomenon?

Ilustration by Erik Retana

By Grisha Vera*


In the weekend of March 27th, 87 people were murdered in only 48 hours. The government of responded with an old formula: a set of police and criminal measures that have failed to solve the problem of violence in El Salvador and in other nations in the region. The formula: a 30-day state of exception, seven reforms to laws to toughen procedures aimed at trying gang members, increased weaponry budget and over 5,700 arrested. In addition, the government is rationing imprisoned gang members’ food supplies and is not allowing them to see the sunlight.  

Violence in El Salvador has causes and dynamics that are not comparable with other countries in the region, asserts Keymer Avila, researcher and university professor of criminology in Venezuela. However, the deaths, at the apex of the pyramid of the phenomenon, are a problem that extends from Mexico to Argentina.

Indeed, according to the 2021 ranking of the fifty most violent cities in the world, published by Mexico’s Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Publica y la Justicia Penal, 38 of the most violent cities in the world are located in Latin America. According to the report, these 50 cities have an average rate of 48.08 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, a figure that contrasts with the world average of 6.15. 

Juan Solis, Mexican researcher and author of the series of books Atlas de la violencia en America Latina, explains that the problem in the region is heterogeneous and is caused by  different factors. For instance, he believes that limiting violence to poverty and inequality is  a commonplace mistake. He mentions the areas’ physical characteristics; “the literature of civil wars identifies that the power voids deriving from the conflict take place mostly in territories with geographical accidents. Chapo Guzman used to hide in the mountains of Mexico’s golden triangle. Abimael Guzman had an unconquerable territory in Peru’s mountain chain. Pablo Escobar attained significant control in territories in which geography was more rocky,” he reported to CONNECTAS. 

Solis and Avila agree that Latin America’s electoral reasoning influences unsuccessful safety programs. “There seems to be a lack of will and of political capacity to seriously address the problem, these are long-run measures intended to transcend electoral situations and particular governments”, Avila states. From Solis’ point of view, the partisan thinking focuses measures and programs on entities in which the “friendly” party rules, and limits its action in territories beyond their political control. 

Shortcomings of international cooperation aimed at addressing safety programs in the framework of regional governance also have an influence. “We continue addressing the issue of violence, mostly of organized crime, with the same old tools. Meaning we assume it can be solved within the scope of national sovereignty. But that is not the case, crime, just as many other things, is now transnational and it requires wider international cooperation strategies.” 

The expert clarifies that homicides and other forms of violence are just symptoms. “In the region, with its nuances, we are sunk in a structural violence that strips large sectors of the population from the fulfillment of their most basic needs, and subdues them to a precarious quality of life that fails to offer young people any future chances in the licit world. This structural violence is the mother of all other forms of violence,” Avila explains in his conversation with CONNECTAS. 

Reactive and Situational Measures

When he came into office, Nayib Bukele chose citizen security as his flagship. Initially, the measures were similar to the ones recently enforced, the eyes of the world turned to him and he was criticized by human rights advocates. Yet, violence indexes went down and that became a reason for celebration in the ruling party. 

However, an investigation by El Faro revealed that Bukele’s government had negotiated with gang leaders to guarantee peace. The story concluded that was the real cause for the decrease in violence. In December 2021, the United States imposed sanctions on two officials for negotiating with gang leaders. Similar agreements have also taken place in other countries in the region, such as Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico.

On the other hand, governments in Latin America seem to deal with violence especially during elections or when events that affect the public opinion occur. Measures are usually the same: legislative reforms and police and military programs, executed without much respect for the law, just as in El Salvador on March 26th and 27th. 

“In Latin America it is common for policies to be reactive, or worse, they can be framed in what is known as penal populism,” Solis adds. For Avila, these measures foster abuses of power by law enforcement, and in turn, violence increases in a vicious circle. Monitor Fuerza Letal, a regional initiative that analyzes murders committed by public servants, concludes in a report that state law enforcement in Latin America tends to abuse lethal force and that this is a widespread problem. 

Avila, who was part of that study, specifies: “Our reference point of contrast was the death of more then ten civilians per law enforcement agent, suggesting that lethal force could have been used for purposes other than protecting their life in emergency situations.” According to the document, in 2019: in Brazil 114 civilians were murdered per deceased agent; In Jamaica the ratio was of 86 to 1; in El Salvador, 39 civilians were murdered per deceased agent and in Venezuela law enforcement agents commited one of three homicides. 

“Institutional violence as a structural instrument contributes to its preservation and potentiation: it is selective, racist and classist. When going through the cases, it is clear that homicides committed by armed forces agents in the region account for significant percentages of our countries’ total figures. This logic of war leads to bands’ reconfiguring and attaining more weaponry, which is paradoxically supplied by the armed forces. It is a cycle with constant feedback.”

Popular distrust in justice and, in many cases, the precarious performance of the state are an added element of this predicament. In 2016 Juan Garzon, Colombian political scientist who specializes in theory and solution of armed conflicts, explained in an article published by Fundacion Ideas para la Paz, that at that moment in Colombia, only 38% of the violent deaths were investigated, and that the level of impunity between 2005 and 2010 was estimated at 96%. 

“A concrete recommendation for the executive would be to focus its attention on demanding competent institutions to clarify what has happened with the perpetrators instead of having a weekly follow-up of how many members of criminal organizations are captured or killed (…). The eradication of impunity and the protection of citizens should be prioritized rather than the logic of war,” he concluded in his article. 

Will and Political Capacity

Experts agree that violence in Latin America could decline. But they warn about the need to change programs and policies executed to date because they have not worked. They offer short-term results but fail to solve the real problem, which persists and even increases, as in the case of El Salvador. 

Solis recalls that inspite of the elevated murder rate, there are peaceful territories in Latin America. He affirms that research does not evince a common pattern in areas with high violence rates, but that there is a pattern in peaceful territories: most of the population is indigenous. This fact, Solis believes, leaves room to reflect about new ways to address violence. 

He adds that policies need to be focalized. He suggests defining four groups: countries whose entities are violent; countries where there are some areas at peace despite elevated violence rates (Mexico, for instance); countries with very violent territories in which most of the nation is peaceful (Chile and Argentina); and countries without problems of violence. He encourages governments to analyze and learn from their peaceful territories and to apply focalized security policies, servicing the particular factors of violence in the context of each territory. He emphasizes that it is not possible to apply generalized measures everywhere. 

“Prevention policies can only be enforced in peaceful territories. It is not possible to prevent cancer once it has been detected. (…) What are you going to prevent when you are faced with the problem? In this case strategies are different.” In response to uncontrolled violence, safety measures can be agreed upon or imposed. “In Latin America we usually make the worst decision. We react to problems and also, national governments are inclined towards imposing policies. So, those measures are meant to fail.”

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