By The Guardian<\/p>\n
Latin America has suffered more than 2.5m murders since the start of this century and is facing an acute public security crisis that demands urgent and innovative solutions, a new report warns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sheer dimensions of homicidal violence are breathtaking,\u201d says\u00a0the report<\/a>\u00a0by the Igarap\u00e9 Institute, a Brazil-based thinktank focused on security and development issues.<\/p>\n The publication, released on Thursday, paints a bleak portrait of what it calls the world\u2019s most homicidal continent.<\/p>\n Latin America suffers 33% of the world\u2019s homicides despite having only 8% of its population. One-quarter of all global homicides are concentrated in four countries \u2013 Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela \u2013\u00a0all of which are gearing up for presidential elections<\/a>\u00a0in which security is a dominant theme.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe overall trend right now in Latin America is one of increasing homicides and deteriorating security,\u201d said\u00a0Robert Muggah<\/a>, one of the report\u2019s authors.<\/p>\n \u201cLatin America is a large area and there are lots of variations. But as a region \u2013 including\u00a0Mexico<\/a>\u00a0down to Central America and South America \u2013 the rate of homicide is set to continue increasing up until 2030.\u00a0<\/em>The only other places we are seeing similar kinds of increases are in parts of southern and central Africa and some war zones.\u201d<\/p>\n The report lays bare how young Latin Americans are disproportionately affected, with nearly half of all homicide victims aged 15\u201329. It also denounces the \u201castonishingly\u201d large role of guns.<\/p>\n Muggah said: \u201cIn addition to having these exceedingly high, epidemic levels of homicide, the vast majority of these homicides are committed with firearms. Over 75% of homicides are gun-related.\u201d The global average is about 40%.<\/p>\n The security crisis has taken centre stage this year as the region\u2019s most violent nations head to the polls. Colombia and Venezuela are both due to hold presidential elections in late May while Mexico, which\u00a0last year saw its highest murder rate since records began<\/a>, votes on 1 July and Brazil in October.<\/p>\n Seeking to exploit public anger over insecurity and crime, some candidates are floating radical responses. On Sunday, one Mexican presidential hopeful, Jaime Rodr\u00edguez, suggested\u00a0chopping off thieves\u2019 hands<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s a serious proposal, not something I\u2019ve just pulled out of my sleeve,\u201d\u00a0he later claimed<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Brazil,\u00a0far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro<\/a>, an early presidential frontrunner, has vowed to relax gun-control laws. \u201cWe must give everyone the right to carry a gun, just like in the US,\u201d\u00a0he told O Globo<\/a>\u00a0this week. \u201cWe already have a \u2018bang-bang\u2019 going on in Brazil but only one side is allowed to shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n Muggah said he feared many voters would look to strongman-style populists peddling \u201csimple, forceful and aggressive solutions to what they see as one of their primary problems\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a risk right now that Latin Americans are seduced by this narrative of\u00a0mano dura\u00a0<\/em>[iron fist]. [But] we will not solve this problem \u2026 by simply throwing more police, longer sentences and more prisons at it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By The Guardian Latin America has suffered more than 2.5m murders since the start of this century and is facing an acute public security crisis that demands urgent and innovative solutions, a new report warns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1613,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612\/revisions\/1613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}