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.

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.

The average for 2017 based on 9 countries was 11.9 homicides per 100,000 people. The highest value was in Brazil: 30.5 homicides per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Chile: 4.3 homicides per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Some of the most populous countries in Latin America were also the nations that register the highest number of murders. Brazil was the country with the largest number of intentional homicides in the region with 44,367 victims. Mexico came in second, with 33,287 homicide victims, followed by Colombia with over 13,000 victims.

In 2022, Colombia was the deadliest Latin American country for land activists and environmental defenders. Up to 60 such activists were murdered in Colombia in that year. Small-scale farmers, indigenous and afro-descendent people were the main targets of these crimes. Meanwhile, in Mexico, at least 31 environmentalists were killed. Brazil also made it into this infamous list, with 34n environmentalist or activist murdered.

Historical dataset showing Latin America & Caribbean murder/homicide rate per 100K population by year from 2010 to 2021.

A research project developed by the Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM) revealed that at least 235 trans or gender-diverse people were murdered in Latin America from October 2022 to September 2023. The highest number of victims was reported in Brazil, with 100 homicides. Mexico was the second deadliest country for trans people in Latin America, having registered 52 murders in the same period.

Historical dataset showing Latin America & Caribbean crime rate per 100K population by year from 2010 to 2021.

Existing literature on cross-national variation in violence has paid little attention to the transnational transmission of crime. One such channel is the forced return of migrants with a penal record in their country of temporary residence. Responding to this research gap, we study the effect of US deportations of convicts on levels of violent crime in deportees’ country of origin for a cross-country panel of up to 123 countries covering the years 2003 to 2014. We find a strong and robust effect of the deportation of convicts on homicide rates in countries of origin, which is to a large degree driven by deportations to Latin America and the Caribbean. An additional inflow of ten deportees with a prior criminal history per 100,000 increases expected homicide rates by roughly two. In addition to controlling for country-specific fixed effects, we provide evidence on a causal effect using an instrumental variable approach, which exploits spatial and time variation in migrant populations’ exposure to state-level immigration policies in the United States.

Honduras was the Latin American country with the highest femicide rate as of 2023. In that year, it was estimated that around seven women were murdered on account of their gender per 100,000 female population in this Central American country. Chile recorded one of the lowest femicide rates, at 0.4 victims every 100,000 women. In that same year, Brazil registered the largest number of femicide cases in the region.

Violence has harmful effects on individuals and society. This is especially true in Latin America, a region that stands out globally for its high homicide rate. Building on research on subnational politics, democratization, and an inter-disciplinary literature that seeks to understand sources of violence, we examine the effect of municipal politics on homicide rates in Brazil while controlling for conventional socio-structural accounts. Specifically, we test the effect of four key political variables – party identification of mayors, partisan alignment of mayors and governors, electoral competition, and voter participation – and examine the locally varying effect of these variables with geographically weighted regressions (GWR). Our emphasis on political explanations of criminal violence is a rare departure from dominant accounts of violent crime, suggesting comparisons with the literature on political violence, and the spatial approach allows an analysis of the territorially uneven effect of political variables. The results show the statistical significance, direction, and magnitude of key political factors vary substantially across Brazil’s 5562 municipalities, showcasing the uneven effect of predictors of violence across space, and generating new hypothesis regarding the conditional effect of key predictors. In the time period examined (2007–2012), the largest left party in Brazil, Workers' Party (PT), had a beneficial effect, reducing violence in large parts of Brazil, the center party that held most local governments (PMDB) had a harmful effect in certain areas of Brazil, and the largest center-right party (PSDB) had mixed effects – helpful in some parts of Brazil and harmful in others. These results help us understand key features of the relationship between Brazilian politics and public security across different parts of the country, illuminating the political geography of violence in the region's largest country.

Crime is a major problem in Latin America and the Caribbean. With 9 percent of the world's population, the region accounts for 33 percent of global homicides. This dataset makes extensive new survey data available to help identify what anti-crime policies citizens in the region demand from their governments, as well as who is demanding what and why. This dataset accompanies a recent report on Combating Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://publications.iadb.org/en/combating-crime-latin-america-and-caribbean-what-public-policies-do-citizens-want. Data from Americas Barometer study were collected in 2016–17 and refer to the subsample of 17 countries in Latin America. The IADB–LAPOP–Capital Cities Project includes data collected from 2017, between August and September. A total of 6,040 interviews in seven countries were conducted as part of the project (Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay). Methodology and Code variables definitions are available here: https://publications.iadb.org/en/what-public-policies-do-citizens-want-combating-crime-latin-america-and-caribbean-dataset

The article examines the relationship between victimization, fear of crime, and democratic legitimacy in Latin America, considering both the causal mechanisms and contextual effects involved in this process. Fear of crime and victimization are regarded as distinct (yet interconnected) phenomena, each potentially operating through different causal mechanisms. Democratic legitimacy is understood from a multidimensional perspective. The hypotheses consider country-level contextual factors and are tested using multilevel analysis, based on data from the 2016 and 2018 Americas Barometer. The findings underscore the detrimental impacts of victimization and fear of crime on democratic legitimacy in Latin America, with a particular emphasis on the intensified negative effect of victimization in countries with high homicide rates.

Turks and Caicos Islands saw a murder rate of ***** per 100,000 inhabitants, making it the most dangerous country for this kind of crime worldwide as of 2024. Interestingly, El Salvador, which long had the highest global homicide rates, has dropped out of the top 29 after a high number of gang members have been incarcerated. Meanwhile, Colima in Mexico was the most dangerous city for murders. Violent conflicts worldwide Notably, these figures do not include deaths that resulted from war or a violent conflict. While there is a persistent number of conflicts worldwide, resulting casualties are not considered murders. Partially due to this reason, homicide rates in Latin America are higher than those in Afghanistan or Syria. A different definition of murder in these circumstances could change the rate significantly in some countries. Causes of death Also, noteworthy is that murders are usually not random events. In the United States, the circumstances of murders are most commonly arguments, followed by narcotics incidents and robberies. Additionally, murders are not a leading cause of death. Heart diseases, strokes and cancer pose a greater threat to life than violent crime.

Can crime victimization increase support for iron-fist crime-reduction policies? It is difficult to assess the political effects of crime, mainly because of the presence of unmeasured confounders. I use panel data from Brazil and strategies for reducing sensitivity to hidden biases to study how crime victims update their policy preferences. Additionally, I use survey data from 18 Latin American countries to improve the external validity of the findings. I find that crime victims are more likely to support iron-fist or strong-arm measures to reduce crime, such as allowing state repression. Also, I show that affected citizens attach less value to democracy, and that might explain their willingness to accept the erosion of basic rights in favor of radical measures to combat delinquency. These results reveal that exposure to crime can change what people think the state should be allowed to do, which can have important political implications.

Brazil led the list with a total of 4,390 kidnapping cases in the latest available data. Ecuador followed with 1,246 occurrences in 2022. On the flip side, there was only three reported kidnapping in the Antigua and Barbuda during that year. Homicides, another recurrent problem in Latin America Among the region's prevalent offenses, intentional homicide emerged as one of the main concerns in the region. Nonetheless, the rates vary among the different countries. Brazil leads the ranking of the most number of homicides in Latin America, as well as being the most populated country by far. On the other hand, Jamaica holds the top position according to the homicide rate, reporting nearly 61 instances per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023. Nevertheless, even with these varying homicide rates across countries, four out of five of the world's most perilous urban centers are situated in Mexico, with Colima leading the pack at a 2024 homicide rate of 140 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Cost of violence in Central America Following criminal acts, the responsibility for addressing the consequences falls squarely on the government, causing government expenditure to surge, called the cost of violence. Notably, Panama is more severely impacted in Central America, with the economic cost of violence per inhabitant accounting for over 3,771 U.S. dollars in 2022. In terms of a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), El Salvador takes the first place with a value of 15 percent of their GDP.

Latin America is the most violent region in the world, with many countries also suffering from high levels of criminality and the presence of powerful criminal organizations. Identifying government responses that improve citizen security is imperative. Existing research argues that improving intergovernmental coordination helps the state combat criminality, but has limited its analysis to political factors that affect coordination. I study the impact of increasing intergovernmental coordination between law enforcement agencies. Using the generalized synthetic control method, original data on the staggered implementation of a police reform that increased intergovernmental police coordination and detailed data on criminal organizations and criminality in Guanajuato, Mexico, I find that the reform weakened criminal organizations and reduced violent crime, but increased violence.

In 2023, Brazil registered a total of 1,463 murder cases that were classified as femicide, or the killing of a woman or girl on account of their gender. Meanwhile, the number of women killed on account of their gender in Mexico reached 852 in that same year.

From 2017 to 2024, Mexico recorded 90 murders of journalists. This is more than all other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean combined. During that same eight-year period, Colombia witnessed the killings of 21 journalists. The largest country in the Latin American and Caribbean region with no journalists killed between 2017 and 2024 was Argentina.