In 2024, there were more than 16 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in Guatemala, the second consecutive decrease. The murder rate in Guatemala decreased consistently from 2014 to 2020, when it fell to less 15 victims per 100,000 inhabitants.

In 2023, the most frequent crime was extortion, with a rate of ***** cases for every 100,000 habitants in Guatemala, a **** percent increased when compared to the year prior. Followed by theft and robbery with **** cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Historical dataset showing Guatemala crime rate per 100K population by year from 1992 to 2021.

In 2024, 2,869 people were murdered in Guatemala. This is the lowest death toll of the last three years. Guatemala still has higher homicide rates than other Central American countries such as Panama and Costa Rica.

Historical dataset showing Guatemala murder/homicide rate per 100K population by year from 1992 to 2021.

Several countries located in Central America and the Caribbean registered some of the highest homicide rates in the Latin American region in 2023. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ranked first, with around 51.32 homicides committed per 100,000 inhabitants. Jamaica came in second with 49.44 homicides per 100,000 people. The source defines intentional homicide as the unlawful death inflicted upon a person with the intent to cause death or serious injury. When it comes to the total case count, Brazil was the Latin American country with the largest number of homicide victims. Central America and the falling rates El Salvador was commonly named the murder capital of the world for a few years. The inability of previous governments to control organized crime and gangs resulted in the highest homicide rate in the world for a couple of years. Nonetheless, the current administration and the measures applied during the emergency state had an incredibly positive impact in terms of the security of the Salvadorean citizens. But not only El Salvador has seen a considerable reduction in its murder rate in Central America. Honduras and Guatemala are also two great examples of crime reduction, introducing new policies, institutions, and changes to their judicial system to achieve better results. The Caribbean is still ridden by crime Some islands in the Caribbean are not only known as tax heavens, as some nations in the region are considered the main enablers of tax evasion in the world, but also for being ridden by crime. Haiti is one example of the still-rising levels of criminality. As a country with precarious conditions and extreme food insecurity, the homicide rate has been on the rise for almost four consecutive years. Another one is Jamaica, at the top of the Latin American ranking, that has also seen an increase in the youth involved in organized crime due to lack of employment and economic conditions.

In 2024, the highest homicide rate among 22 Latin American and Caribbean countries surveyed was in Haiti, with around 62 murders committed per 100,000 inhabitants. Trinidad and Tobago came in second, with a homicide rate of 46, while Honduras ranked seventh, with 25. In the same year, the lowest rate was recorded in El Salvador, with a homicide rate of 1.9 per 100,000 inhabitants. A violence-ridden region Violence and crime are some of the most pressing problems affecting Latin American society nowadays. More than 40 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world are located in this region, as well as one of the twenty countries with the least peace in the world according to the Global Peace Index. Despite governments’ large spending on security and high imprisonment rates, drug and weapon trafficking, organized crime, and gangs have turned violence into an epidemic that affects the whole region and a solution to this issue appears to be hardly attainable. The cost of violence in Mexico Mexico stands out as an example of the great cost that violence inflicts upon a country, since beyond claiming human lives, it also affects everyday life and has a negative impact on the economy. Mexicans have a high perceived level of insecurity, as they do not only fear becoming victims of homicide, but also of other common crimes, such as assault or rape. Such fear prevents people from performing everyday activities, for instance, going out at night, taking a taxi or going to the movies or the theater. Furthermore, the economic toll of violence in Mexico is more than considerable. For example, the cost of homicide and violent crime amounted to 2099.8 and 1778.1 billion Mexican pesos in 2023, respectively.

How do post-conflict societies contain large-scale criminal violence when state security forces that committed atrocities during a civil war remain unpunished and become key players in the criminal underworld? This article explores the impact on violence reduction of internationalized prosecution (IP): cooperation agreements between an international organization and a country’s public prosecutors to dismantle state-criminal networks through judicial action. We assess the IP process by which the United Nations–sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and Guatemala’s law enforcement dismantled 70 criminal structures led by death squads and the civil war military establishment. Using synthetic control models, we estimate that Guatemala’s IP process plausibly prevented the occurrence of between 20,000 and 30,000 homicides, from 2008 until 2019. Case studies show how IP contributed to violence reduction by removing criminal structures and deterring both state-criminal collusion and the state’s use of iron-fist militarized policies against crime.

In 2024, Guatemala scored 5.45 in the money laundering and terrorism financing risk index. Since 2019, the risk score of this country has been continuously increasing. Still, other Central American countries such as Panama and Honduras had a higher risk of money laundering and terrorist financing than Guatemala.The Basel AML Index is a composite index, a combination of 16 different indicators with regards to corruption, financial standards, political disclosure and rule of law and tries to measure the risk level of money laundering and terrorist financing in different countries. The numbers used are based on publicly available sources such as the FATF, Transparency International, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum and are meant to serve as a starting point for further investigation.

Since 2012, the corruption perception index score in Guatemala has been overall continuously decreasing. In 2022, the country registered 24 points, the same as the previous year. Guatemala ranks at the bottom among other Latin American countries on their perceived corruption index score. This index is a composite indicator that includes data on the perception of corruption in areas such as bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, embezzlement of state funds, and effectiveness of governments' anti-corruption efforts. The worst possible score is 0, whereas a score of 100 indicates that no corruption is perceived in the respective country.

Guatemala GT: Intentional Homicides: Male: per 100,000 Male data was reported at 55.778 Ratio in 2014. This records a decrease from the previous number of 59.977 Ratio for 2013. Guatemala GT: Intentional Homicides: Male: per 100,000 Male data is updated yearly, averaging 73.265 Ratio from Dec 2004 (Median) to 2014, with 11 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 82.197 Ratio in 2009 and a record low of 55.778 Ratio in 2014. Guatemala GT: Intentional Homicides: Male: per 100,000 Male data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Guatemala – Table GT.World Bank: Health Statistics. Intentional homicides, male are estimates of unlawful male homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.; ; UN Office on Drugs and Crime's International Homicide Statistics database.; ;

In 2021 in Guatemala, the victim group age with the highest share for domestic distribution was those between 18 and 29 years old, for this group age the topmost figure was for domestic violence with ** percent, homicide with ** percent and injury with ** percent of the cases.

Guatemala: Thefts per 100,000 people: Pour cet indicateur, The UN office on drugs and crime fournit des données pour la Guatemala de 2004 à 2016. La valeur moyenne pour Guatemala pendant cette période était de 66 thefts per 100,000 people avec un minimum de 29 thefts per 100,000 people en 2006 et un maximum de 296 thefts per 100,000 people en 2016.

In 2020, extortion was the most common type of property crime in Guatemala, with over ** thousand cases reported to the police. The number of documented extortion cases decreased over ** percent when compared to the previous year. Also in 2020, around *** thousand thefts and **** thousand robberies were reported in this Central American country.

The Central American nation with the highest prison occupancy rate, as of April 2025, was Guatemala, when the level stood at almost 300 percent of its official capacity. Nicaragua followed with 177.6 percent of occupancy level. The lowest prison occupancy rate was found in Belize, which, with 67 percent, was the only country whose prison system was not overcrowded. That year, El Salvador had the highest prison population rate in Central America.

During the timeframe displayed, there has been an overall decrease in the number of criminal offences registered in Guatemala. The highest figure registered was in 2013 with around ****** cases. On the opposite, the lowest amount registered was in 2020 with approximately ******.

This dataset contains data and analysis from the article Do State Department Travel Warnings Reflect Real Danger?

Key findings

• On the whole, there is a significant relationship between the number of American deaths abroad per capita and the number of travel warnings a country receives
• Mexico, Mali, and Israel have been targeted by the most travel warnings in recent years, but Americans are more likely to be killed in Thailand, Pakistan, and the Philippines
• Several countries with relatively high rates of American death have not been issued a single travel warning in ~7 years, including Belize, Guyana, and Guatemala
• Several countries with relatively low rates of American death have been issued a relatively high number of travel warnings in ~7 years, including Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia
• Overall, countries subject to travel warnings do not see notable declines in American visitors in the 6 months after a warning is issued

Data sources

• BTSOriginUS_10_09_to_06_16.csv Air Carrier Statistics Database export, Bureau of Transportation Statistics
• SDamerican_deaths_abroad_10_09_to_06_16.csv U.S. State Department
• SDwarnings_10_09to06_16.csv U.S. State Department via Internet Archive

Charts / data visualizations

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In a survey carried out in 2023, 12 percent of respondents in Guatemala said that they had been asked or had to pay a bribe in different interactions with police authorities. The number is lower for those who experienced the same by public officials.

In 2023, the percentage of the population aged over 18 who is very afraid of being a victim of crime in Guatemala was estimated at approximately 22 percent. Between 2007 and 2023, the figure dropped by around five percentage points, though the decline followed an uneven course rather than a steady trajectory.

In 2022, the homicides of at least four land activists or environmentalists were reported in Guatemala. 2018 had been even deadlier for environmental fighters in the Central American country, having registered 16 murders, the highest number of victims since 2015. These figures put Guatemala among the Latin American nations with most environmental defenders murdered.