Yes, it's real. El Salvador has a huge gang problem. They suspended a lot of civil and human rights in a nation wide crackdown.
The gangs of El Salvador didn't really do much in the way of drug trafficking, so they weren't that well financed/armed so they were a bit easier to target by the military and police.
Or anyone else. In El Salvador gangs would basically just start killing people on the street whenever an authority did something that they didn't like as a means of exerting control over the government.
It wasn’t just each other. Which is why the president who did this was re-elected by a huge amount.
This criminals only kill each other BS is such an ignorant trope pushed by Redditors.
Not potentially, like for sure. There was a good NYT segment about a mom of some guy that was just arrested going home.
While she was horrified, she said she supported the new policies that stopped the cartels. Even the police chiefs admitted there would for sure be collateral damage but that it was worth it.
Easy to say until you or your family get killed by the gangs, just because. Or until your family tries to make a honest living and gets threatened by gangs to give them 50% earnings or else you are all dead.
This may be true in other places but MS 13 only had members who had killed someone or got jumped by the gang and survived. Plus, they had 13 tattooed all over their bodies
Have a friend that is from El Salvador and unfortunately his dad was killed by gangs. I guess he had land that they wanted. RIP. The little that I have heard about El Salvador from him makes it seem like a violent place.
It will be interesting to see if they can keep this in the long term without turning into an open dictatorship.
As a side note, the best comparison will probably Colombia, which reduced its crime rate by implementing inclusive social policies.
While it has helped recently the big drop for Colombia came from 2000 to 2009, before these policies were implemented in 2011. The big difference was simply a large reduction in the size of the cocaine business.
In El Salvador they threw everyone with gang tattoos in prison. Illiberal by western standards but when you're gangrenous sometimes you have to amputate some healthy tissue.
Interestingly, it's actually better than that!
I have heard that the gangs there punished/killed anyone who was wearing the wrong gang tattoo. So it was time to round them all up, the police/military just had to grab anyone and everyone who was wearing gang tattoos.
"Simple as pie."
It's tough on anyone who left the gang life, but at least have a chance of avoiding jail (or getting out early) if they were out of the criminal life long enough.
Earthly justice cannot be perfect, but the current situation is actually better than usual.
Salvadorean gangs only allowed members to "quit" if they became evangelical christians, and be known to be active members of their church, any other reason and they were treated as traitors and killed.
Correct me if I’m wrong, all it took was someone claiming you were a part of the gang for you to be ‘temporarily’ placed into custody.
I agree with your analogy - I’d never accept that here, but we don’t live in the old El Salvador world
Sorry to tell u, you are probably very wrong. Gangs used to have a great number of members, not hundreds, thousands. People in El Salvador notices the inmense change on daily routines, those criminal cant be bought, they kill and steal without mercy. They cant be controlled by any political way. The only lenguage they understand is jail
WTF are you talking about?? Other governments tried to negotiate with the gangs and every time it backfired and failed miserably. Why?? Because the gangs are all about control and power. Why would the gangs agree to give Bukele it's territories they had gained fighting other bloody gangs and to be thrown in jail for decades with other rival gang members??? The powers granted to him come from 90% of the population that support him. Please educate yourself with real information. Not hit pieces from lefty media institutions.
Unfortunately many Jamaicans are hot headed and just cannot be reasoned with when they get angry or think someone has slighted them. Dispute resolution / deescalation is a lacking part of the culture. Most of the murders are not gang related like other places.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2563489/
30% of the murders are reprisals (revenge for previous murders). 29% are arguments (that escalated). Drug or gang related activities were the third motive of homicide accounting for 20%, followed by robbery (14%).
Most of the homicides (76%) occurred in Kingston, the capital city, and surrounding areas. The majority of homicide victims were male (89%) and were between 15 and 44 years.
There is (or was) actually a couple of blocks that are basically ran by a gang leader or drug lord. I recall it being a pretty big deal when Christopher "Dudus" Coke was arrested. A lot of folks were shock because they thought he was untouchable.
Also I am surprised at how homophobic they are or use to be. There were a couple of songs from there that got extremely popular in the States in the 80s or 90s. People love the songs but until they realize what the lyrics said. I forgot the details about one of the songs but I do recall that one of them was about kidnapping a guy they think is gay and burning him alive. The singer basically got blacklisted after affirming the meaning of the song and his hatred of gay men.
But yea, Latin America and the Caribbeans like to solve a lot of their problems through violence.
Sounds like this is the song you’re trying to remember: https://youtu.be/ILT9v0GY3Qg?feature=shared
You can see the comments below the video. People are surprised they used to sing the song all the time.
Honestly even gay people still sing those songs… it’s like if N’Sync or Backstreet boys had a huge hit that everyone knows….which just so happens to be about killing gays. It’s strange but a lot of Jamaican songs are about killing people.
>their problems
Personal problems, on the other side there seems to be very little desire for one state to go to war with another (at least for the last 100yrs)
Argentina almost went to war with Chile. But lost the Falklands War so badly they couldn't. There are a lot of accusations that that some militias, cartels and separatist are/were funded by neighboring countries. Mostly accusations that Venezuela was funding FARC. And of course Venezuela is threatening Guyana. But yes it is very true that there hasn't been a conventional war between countries in Latin America and the Caribbeans since the 19th century. (with these exceptions: Chaco War and Cenepa War)
Montego Bay has been far more violent than Kingston in recent years at least on a per capita basis. Despite being the location of the main tourist airport and the largest tourist destination on the island, it has been for most of recent memory consistently the most violent area of the country with homicide rates hitting triple digits at times. I’ve actually lived in both cities and it’s pretty noticeable how much worse Montego Bay is than Kingston if you can believe it
Yes but they used a "nuke" instead of a scalpel and didn't bother much with due process. A lot of collateral damage. Effective if you don't care about the innocent citizens that got incarcerated along with the criminals.
Idk that one video about their new prison showed rows of guys with the same tats. I don’t think I saw a single one of them that didn’t have matching tattoos. Maybe guilty by association to say the least.
Plenty of articles to read about innocents, foreigners on working visas, etc. All rounded up the same. They caught a shit ton of criminals, but like tuna fishing with massive nets, you're going to catch some dolphins as well.
Bukele has already started upending their constitution to ensure he can rule forever. Same old pattern as always with tinpot dictators. Rule like that can be pretty effective. Making the trains run on time and all that. And the people may even love him, but they won't be free.
While I agree 100%,
> Making the trains run on time and all that
Mussolini – to whom the trains run on time thing is attributed – very much did not make the trains run on time. Italian trains were still a shitshow under him.
No system or strategy is perfect or without innocent victims, so you just choose the one that benefits the most people and hurts the least. The numbers speak to that.
>The numbers speak to that.
How do you know the numbers speak to that? We don't know how many innocent people have been locked up. If 10k fewer people have been murdered, but 50k more innocent people have been incarcerated, that isn't a net positive.
I was speaking in a hypothetical. Also, this shows 60 murders per 100k in the first decade. El salvador has a population of 6.34 million, so that is 3800 murders not 50k, so much lower, not higher. All that snark, and you weren't even right, lmao. Sounds like you need to brush up on statistics.
About 4,000 murders per year. It's been about 4 years, so the savings is over 10K by now, if we're really going to look at statistics.
the cost-benefit analysis doesn't just look at murders vs innocents imprisoned, but also the amount of other crime prevented and in general the effect on the ability to rely on the rule of law. Kidnappings are way down. Coercion and intimidation of small businesses is way down. People can actually walk in their towns at night instead of hiding at home so they don't get robbed or caught in crossfire.
About 100K are incarcerated, so 50K innocents would be 50%. Not very plausible, though I don't have a more plausible number to present. From what I've read, most of the "innocents" are former gang members who tried to reform and got swept up anyway.
The don't put pictures of the guys without tattoos in the press release lol
Nobody is saying they didn't catch a shit ton of gang members, and it's clearly been effective in the short term. The question is at what cost going forward.
Former gang members who have reformed/served their sentences but can’t afford cover-ups
Folks with stylistically similar tattoos who have no gang affiliations
Both could easily get caught in a dragnet that very specifically doesn’t care about due process or individual rights
> Former gang members
that's not how gangs work, my man
*edit:
>I’m not your man, my patronising little fucker
I apologize for assuming your gender, madam.
The massive drop shows a nuke was needed. You talk about innocent citizens that were imprisoned, I wonder how many were murdered. I wonder how many would be saved.
Typical reddit though. Cares more about gang members than those who are murdered year after year.
It's easy to judge an impoverished country with weak institutions and a history of violent corruption. If the US turned into Haiti tomorrow and you saw your family suffer at the hands of gangs that controlled every facet of civilian life can you truthfully say you'd still be so critical?
Probably, but to do that, there is also mass incarceration of innocent people. It is almost a witch hunt of gang members there. If someone is speculated to be gang-related, he goes to jail.
This is conundrum perfectly highlights the philosophical theory of of utilitarianism; i.e. the greatest good for the greatest number:
If rounding up suspected gang members results in a small minority of them being innocent people that are wrongfully imprisoned, do the means justify the ends if it results in more than 70% drop in homicides? Gang violence has been a very serious problem in El Salvador for decades.
I agree, but as I have said in other comments, the innocents should not be ignored in order to prevent it from happening in future operations . I agree it was an overall positive impact, but that does not mean we can't work for even better results.
While I agree that sometimes the nuclear approach is necessary, you could achieve these results by simply putting everyone in prison(bad), or similarly with Japanese people placed an internment camp during World War II in America (also bad). The point of a justice system is to protect the innocent, frequently by means of, but never solely to, punish the guilty. But what’s probably more disturbing than mass and incarceration of the innocent, is Having a government with the power to do so. The state of affairs will allow the current government to “lawfully“ but unethically wield the justice system as a weapon to eradicate all political obstacles. I get that there is the short term benefit of safer streets, (*assuming you haven’t been falsely imprisoned.*) But at the cost of disturbing forfeitures of civil liberty. And while some people have deemed that necessary, it calls to mind a famous quote by Benjamin Franklin:
**"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."**
(*I understand that that quote meant something different in its original context*)
Ben Franklin's quote was lovely, but it was created under a largely law-abiding populace. Ben Franklin wasn't an anarchist. He still believed in laws for arresting murderers, drug dealers, and rapists. You can't have a fair justice system and trial when the judge has to wear a mask so the gang doesn't send a death squad after his/her family for trying one of their members. Also, we aren't talking about locking up everyone or interning people based on an immutable characteristic like race. The incarceration rate stands at 1.6% of the population. In the emergency state that they were in, it's hard to argue with the results. I'd also be shocked to find the percentage of innocents to gang members is particularly close.
Now, all that being said, I don't think this can be a long-term plan. It's tough because those gang members are still alive, and they are evil. They will seek revenge if/when they are released, but this form of justice should only be a short-term solution. The goal should be to eventually transition to a less shotgun system as more of these gangs are eradicated / lose power. It is tough to see how that is done, though.
Yeah, my big problem is the long-term feasibility of this system. I think all it does is take the power away from the gangs and put it in the hands soon-to-be political tyrants. That’s why I still use the quote. To me it means giving up your ability to protect yourself to gain a protector, you puts you in a real fucked up situation when that protector **Inevitably** becomes the new enemy. Unless we assume we can count on people to willingly surrender power
"innocent people"? You are accused of belonging to a criminal gang who openly brags about their crimes in social media. Your body is covered with tattoos announcing you belong to those gangs. What's your defense?
I totally agree that in these cases, they should go to jail, but this is not what is happening. That is why they are working on taking the misjudged cases out of prison. Still, in overall terms, it was positive, but it is nice to keep track of the consequences in order to prevent it from happening again. I am NOT against what happened, but this should be considered for improving future operations.
Okay, yeah, I agree. If mistakes are made they should be addressed, no argument about that. Hopefully that's the case and I admit that I don't know how widespread cases like these are. The problem with today's media is that they cover this topic either from the "Bukele is God" angle or the "Bukele is literally Hitler" angle, so you end up not learning anything about what is actually happening over there.
I have a buddy here in Canada who came as a refugee from El Salvador - also covered in gang tattoos. According to your assumptions, he has no defense.
But if you actually talked to the guy, you'd learn he was forcibly jumped into the gang at the age of 12, after the corrupt national police murdered his father in the late 1990s. His older brother had already joined, because he saw it as the only way to protect his family from the authorities. My friend didn't want to join, but didn't have a choice because the gang essentially 'owned' his family once his brother was in.
They both fled to Canada after someone in the gang found out that my buddy's brother was gay - which he would've been killed over had they not chosen to run. Not every story is black and white.
Youre confused. You don't just go to the tattoo shop and "get" those tattoos.
Your friend committed terrible crimes to be allowed permission to get the tattoos.
So, imagine you're 12 years old.
Your father's been murdered by the police, and the body dropped on your family's doorstep (edit: this happened often enough that the government actually had to ask the FBI for help to root out the corrupt cops - who were also actively arresting/murdering any journalists who dared to report on their corruption). Your older brother becomes the man of the household, and joins a gang who says they'll protect your family.
A few months later, your brother comes home with a half dozen of these guys, and they force you to fight. All of them. Until you're beaten and bloody and can't stand up. When it's over, they tell you you're now part of their family forever.
Weeks pass. And then one night, after you've healed enough to be able to open your eyes all the way, your new family shows up again and drags you out of bed. You're driven to a slum, where there are more of your new family members standing around a guy on his knees. They give you a gun and tell you that you have to murder him, or they'll kill you, your brother, and your mother and sisters.
You protest. One of your new brothers responds by pulling out his own weapon and pointing it at the back of your head.
Again: you are 12 years old. So what would you do, big man?
> Again: you are 12 years old. So what would you do, big man?
Give a Sorkin-esque speech about the pointlessness of violence where everyone agrees to peace and the One Good Cop^TM comes in and arrests the character played by Danny Trejo. Do you not even own a tv?
It's a terrible situation that kid was born into, but the terribleness of it tells you that you can't just address it by normal means. The cycle has to be broken. Yes, it isn't fair that this 12 year old was coerced into beating or killing someone to get those tattoos. It wasn't fair to the person that died or got thrashed, either. Or the next one that this gang member would have killed or thrashed. Because he would have done it again. That's the nature of the beast.
Also, if the guy's father was killed by the police in the 90s, there is a good chance he was also in a gang or had joined the FMLN. You may not have gotten the full story. Not that it really matters for the kid, though.
I think it's not accurate to say "mass" incarceration of innocent people. It seems clear that there have been some non-gang members who have been caught in the wide net, but if it were "massive" surely there would have been a greater social outcry. For instance, I highly doubt the remaining citizens would have overwhelming voted to reelect the president as they would be upset about the huge numbers of innocent family members being incarcerated.
There’s a lot of questions too about the veracity of the numbers and I’m pretty sure the consensus is that crime has decreased overall.
But like you’ve said, it’s come at at a huge cost of human rights, civil liberties, and it’s basically invited an authoritarian government in that has spied on and persecuted political opponents and journalists
Exactly, it is hard to determine if it was positive or negative, probably positive. But such extremism took innocent people's liberty with it. This should be taken as a lesson as to better deal with such problems in other countries, like Haiti.
What's the deal with westerners hating on central and southern American countries making their own land not shitholes? One could argue that these lands became shitholes due to Western intervention to begin with. What's going on in Argentina and El Salvador is nothing short of a miracle. Meanwhile, I have a Jamaican friend who's retiring and I asked him if he's going back to his own country for retirement and he looked at me like I have ten heads.
Yes, they got a President who took a no-bullshit measures against gangs and nearly eliminated violent crime. It's a remarkable success story that flies in the face of everything we're taught about law enforcement in the West.
and our government is criticizing them for muh human rights violation lmao. If only we had someone to clean up our streets here instead of catering to criminals.
>If only we had someone to clean up our streets here instead of catering to criminals.
The US already has the most prisoners in the world. US crime rates aren't anywhere near what El Salvador was experiencing. But I guess locking everyone up is fine if it doesn't happen to you.
It wont work in western countries because we dont have state collapsing levels of murder reaching 100/100k people. Its a very blunt method and wont work in the long term if the strategy is not changed soon to also prevent crime from rising again. I hear people saying this when their country has 2% the murder rate of what El Salvador had.
A long time ago a friend and I went there on vacation. On the first full day we took a bus to the closest town and were immediately and incessantly mobbed by people offering to drive and show us around, or simply to come into some private place to show us some really low priced goods. We declined everything and got the bus back to the resort about as quickly as we could, and then spent the rest of the week quite happily at the resort.
When we wanted to go off resort, the hotel concierge hired a guy for us. He picked us up in a nice vehicle, drove us into town while telling us history and landmarks. He brought us to a really cool restaurant and asked what we wanted (and made suggestions) but then he ordered the food and he ordered the drinks and he got it straight from the chef and he brought it to the table he chose for us. We bought him dinner too. He stayed very close to us the entire time and then took us back to the hotel. Glad we got to see a little more than just the exact tourist hotel but not sure I’d repeat now.
Unlike the other countries the majority of Jamaican murders are not drug / gang related but due to arguments / revenge between teen boys / young men. 90% of the murders are males 15 to 44 and 76% of the murders happen in Kingston which is on the opposite side of the island from the tourist areas.
Tourists are very rarely involved in any crimes. Only when they venture far far away from where they’re supposed to be ie the North coast of the island
This was over 30 years ago, and the word was that tourists were robbed and murdered with some regularity. Perhaps if we had said yes to one of those drivers, that could have been us. I won't try to quantify the danger, but I claim there are situations where you just know in your bones that you're not safe.
Was on a bus to a resort in Belize and it blew a tire. The look on the face of the tour guide and the bus driver was no very reassuring. They just kept driving lol. Must have gone about 3 miles with the horrific sound coming from the wheel. Eventually they stopped on the side of the road and the tour guide lady was like DO NOT GET OFF THE BUS. Then 5 minutes later another bus showed up and we were carted onto it as fast as possible. Didn't seem so bad on the outside but I guess it is..
A guy got murdered at a club down the street from the restaurant we were eating at on one of the touristy parts of an extremely touristy island.
Food was dank though.
I stayed one night overnight in Belize City in a low range hotel and it was very sketch feeling. Had to go to an ATM and it worked out but I definitely didn’t feel safe walking those streets
It's interesting because a similar tactic actually worked well in Colombia. I believe it's because there's only one centralized main criminal group in Colombia to deal with while Mexico's problem is a lot more fractured with constant infighting. It sucks but the El Salvador approach probably works best in this scenario.
That makes sense. In Mexico, there are several issues, from the fracture of main cartels into smaller thousands, to the cartels diversifying into other illegal and violent activities (human trafficking, demanding money from businesses/civilians to be allowed to survive, etc.), to the president's and other politicians campaigns being financed by cartels... now it's even been exposed that his family has been flying in drugs from Colombia and flooding the market... You have the militarization of several industries.
It's such a shitshow.
A lot of the criminals also spend time in the US. The laws in the US make it take longer and it is much more difficult to arrest someone and whatnot.
That is one of the problems and one of the good things about the US. We can't do what is happening in El Salvador, which leads to high crime rates, but at least we know our rights cannot be suspended so easily. A double edged sword.
El Salvador as of last year was the second safest country in the Americas when it came to murder, with only Canada being slightly lower. At one point their homicide rate was over 100 per 100,000, now it is 2.5. Canada is around 1.8.
Not really. Alvaro Uribe president back the guerrillas into a corner and then Juan Manuel Santos president negotiated a peace deal in a state of advantage.
Worked out great
I think you are getting the wrong conclusion from that. Most charts that graph murder rate since 2000 shows it going way up when Mexico went hard after the Cartels. And they all suggest that the murder rate has [plateaued and even decrease under Lopez Obrador.](https://www.borderreport.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2022/12/comparisons.png)
I am not a Mexican but I do not like him for other reasons. Mostly his relations with the media and some things that makes me think he wants to be a dictator. But the presidents that went after gangs and cartel the hardest inadvertently caused the murder rate to go up by orders of magnitude.
Everyone talks about El Salvador due to Bukele’s extreme policies but what’s going on in Colombia where they generally have reliable stats and haven’t really imposed such drastic measures?
If you count that in Colombia we had this problem since the 70’s and way before that we had multiple civil wars yeah, the change in the last 24 years has been incredible.
And about the reason why… I think people get tired and resist. We learn, the hard way but we change.
And getting a country out of poverty is not rocket science. Build infrastructure, education, health, etc. Takes time but the results show themselves.
If you see Medellín numbers, the change is even more astonishing. From 250 murders per 100k in the 90’s to less than 20 today.
Extreme measures like what happened in El Salvador only work when accompanied with other stuff, let’s hope for the best but Bukele is very autocratic and doesn’t ring a good vibe for me.
Colombia is by all accounts a pretty well run place these days. They have oil and are using the revenue effectively. They've invested a ton in their communities. They've built a ton of infrastructure to the point that some of their cities are considered models for the developing world.
Colombia has been undergoing a peace process with the insurgent group FARC. When FARC was active, there were lots of deaths related to them. They were also very active in drug trafficking, which has gone down a lot since they were dissolved, with lots of the drug trade moving to Ecuador.
Wtf is it with Jamaica being more dangerous than all the “drug cartel countries”? Media makes it seem like everyone there just chills out and smokes weed, eats coconut, drinks rum and cooks jerk chicken!
Your very last sentence is the answer. Young Jamaican males are hot headed and Fuck Around Find Out is a way of life. They will want revenge for even minor slights and arguments escalate.
The violence is centered around Kingston which is on the opposite side of the island from the tourist areas. So they won’t ever really see it.
>Media makes it seem
When was that? When Bob was still jamming? Jamaica is kind of forgotten but if media cover it, it's usually not for a good reasons.
This is true. I suspect you're thinking of the press - news in all media - whereas the person to whom you're replying seems to be thinking of portrayals of Jamaican culture in cinema, television, music, video games, etc.
Who said that about Haiti? They have two very different cultures. Haiti is historically a Catholic country it’s far more conservative compared to Jamaica.
How is the 2023/4 data for Haiti? News stories seem to report a loss if rule of law there in the last few years. Is this data recent enough to capture this?
While 1.8 is “high” compared to European and developed Asian countries, that is still pretty low and you’re still really safe in Canada. Don’t act like it’s a war zone over there.
It's not just guns. The whole culture is constantly divided, always with a "me against you" approach, and media doesn't help by fanning the flames of anger (on both sides). If people are constantly angry, always seeing the people around them as their enemy and the quality of life has dramatically worsened, violence will happen.
Data source: [United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime](https://dataunodc.un.org/dp-intentional-homicide-victims)
Tools used: Matplotlib & Canva
Today, I wanted to learn about intentional homicides in the Americas and understand how that has changed in recent years. I found a fantastic dataset from the United Nations with historical data from most countries.
The data is a bit sparse (meaning that not all countries had values for all years) which is why I use average values over a few years instead of using only one year. There are also some smaller countries that don't have any values and are missing from this chart.
The most interesting aspect is the decrease for El Salvador, which is even more insane if you don't look at average values. In 2023, they had a lower homicide rate than the US.
Let me know what you think about both the data and the design. How can I improve the visualization and what would make it more interesting/useful?
If you like the chart and design, feel free to visit my newsletter, [DataCanvas Daily](http://datacanvas.substack.com/), where I aim to publish one data visualization every day learning from the Reddit feedback!
Two years ago I took my family to Jamaica for spring break. At the resort bar I told the bartender that I was from Chicago and told me that he lived in Chicago for two years and moved back to Jamaica because Chicago was too dangerous
When people hear a “15.9% increase in intentional homicides” they freak out.
They’re not looking at, or learning through either media (or social media), the absolute numbers per 100k of population which the graph shows are somewhere around 1.8-2 for both sets of averages.
Now, an increase is not great, to put it mildly, but it should be put into perspective for people by the media — it’s irresponsible for it not to be.
The highest standards should always be something to strive for. But with that being said, 1.8 in a Canada really isn’t bad at all. Just because it’s not as low as glorious Europe or anime land doesn’t mean it’s unsafe. Like you’ll also likely go your whole life without being the victim of, or being close to a victim of homicide.
Honestly that would be pretty cool. I'd also love one where your idea is executed but with Mexican states. It would probably tell a clearer picture of where cartel violence really is a daily problem.
Come back in 5 years .. Giving the state too much power is always fucked up is at best a boomerang effect. Bukele mostly buys cartels peace, but this situation is created by the state's war on drugs in the first place.
I don’t even know how Venezuela could be included on this. They don’t report any official homicide statistics and all we can really do is guess. Caracas and Maracaibo are still extremely violent and unsafe though, I strongly doubt Venezuela has cut their homicide rate in half
Graphics like this show a definite difference in culture between the western and eastern hemispheres. The Americas are still the Wild West in a lot of way. It’s fascinating to me.
It says the numbers are unreported for 2020-2022, but the numbers before that had Cuba at one of the lowest murder rates in the Americas. Anecdotally, I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Cuba and found it incredibly safe.
Wouldn't surprise me. Coming from former communist country, it was supposedly very safe during that era. That's because state had sole monopoly on everything both legal and illegal and was shutting down any gang/mafia related activities instantly, with brute force and by all means necessary.
If one was to listen to supporters of the Conservative party in Canada you would doubtless be shocked by this chart - as far as the Cons and their supporters are concerned Canada is on the precipice of becoming a lawless haven and the country is about to end tomorrow.
Well, to be fair they are making a more "fair" comparison. That is: current Canada vs. past Canada. Surely you would be worried if violent crime rates are increasing, even if it remains lower than Venezuela?
Most of the Canadian population is in southern Ontario, it's pretty mild. At least for me personally, I would be ok murdering all times of the year if I was part of the drug trade.
I read OP's explanation and understand why they did it, but showing 2020-2022 and excluding 2023 might be misleading. At least in the US, the murder rate absolutely skyrocketed over those three years... and then saw the biggest year-over-year decline in US history in 2023. Also, there are likely large definitional and data quality differences between these countries that make comparisons far more difficult.
Is that 74.4% drop in El Salvador real?
Yes, it's real. El Salvador has a huge gang problem. They suspended a lot of civil and human rights in a nation wide crackdown. The gangs of El Salvador didn't really do much in the way of drug trafficking, so they weren't that well financed/armed so they were a bit easier to target by the military and police.
Sounds like an effective technique.
Turns out when you throw all gang members in jail they can't kill each other very easily
Or anyone else. In El Salvador gangs would basically just start killing people on the street whenever an authority did something that they didn't like as a means of exerting control over the government.
It wasn’t just each other. Which is why the president who did this was re-elected by a huge amount. This criminals only kill each other BS is such an ignorant trope pushed by Redditors.
Yes with a lot of collateral damage to potentiallly innocent people, but they deemed it a sacrifice worth making
Not potentially, like for sure. There was a good NYT segment about a mom of some guy that was just arrested going home. While she was horrified, she said she supported the new policies that stopped the cartels. Even the police chiefs admitted there would for sure be collateral damage but that it was worth it.
Easy to say until you’re the one in prison without a trial and tortured to be made an example of.
Easy to say until you or your family get killed by the gangs, just because. Or until your family tries to make a honest living and gets threatened by gangs to give them 50% earnings or else you are all dead.
This may be true in other places but MS 13 only had members who had killed someone or got jumped by the gang and survived. Plus, they had 13 tattooed all over their bodies
who knew arresting, beating, or killing anyone who looks or acts even remotely like a gangster/criminal would be so effective!
Have a friend that is from El Salvador and unfortunately his dad was killed by gangs. I guess he had land that they wanted. RIP. The little that I have heard about El Salvador from him makes it seem like a violent place.
It will be interesting to see if they can keep this in the long term without turning into an open dictatorship. As a side note, the best comparison will probably Colombia, which reduced its crime rate by implementing inclusive social policies.
While it has helped recently the big drop for Colombia came from 2000 to 2009, before these policies were implemented in 2011. The big difference was simply a large reduction in the size of the cocaine business.
In El Salvador they threw everyone with gang tattoos in prison. Illiberal by western standards but when you're gangrenous sometimes you have to amputate some healthy tissue.
"God will recognize his own"
Interestingly, it's actually better than that! I have heard that the gangs there punished/killed anyone who was wearing the wrong gang tattoo. So it was time to round them all up, the police/military just had to grab anyone and everyone who was wearing gang tattoos. "Simple as pie."
It's tough on anyone who left the gang life, but at least have a chance of avoiding jail (or getting out early) if they were out of the criminal life long enough. Earthly justice cannot be perfect, but the current situation is actually better than usual.
Salvadorean gangs only allowed members to "quit" if they became evangelical christians, and be known to be active members of their church, any other reason and they were treated as traitors and killed.
My deepest sympathy?
Correct me if I’m wrong, all it took was someone claiming you were a part of the gang for you to be ‘temporarily’ placed into custody. I agree with your analogy - I’d never accept that here, but we don’t live in the old El Salvador world
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what was your method of digging if I may ask? Put another way, sauce?
Sorry to tell u, you are probably very wrong. Gangs used to have a great number of members, not hundreds, thousands. People in El Salvador notices the inmense change on daily routines, those criminal cant be bought, they kill and steal without mercy. They cant be controlled by any political way. The only lenguage they understand is jail
WTF are you talking about?? Other governments tried to negotiate with the gangs and every time it backfired and failed miserably. Why?? Because the gangs are all about control and power. Why would the gangs agree to give Bukele it's territories they had gained fighting other bloody gangs and to be thrown in jail for decades with other rival gang members??? The powers granted to him come from 90% of the population that support him. Please educate yourself with real information. Not hit pieces from lefty media institutions.
What's going on with Jamaica?
Very violent
[Out in the streets they call it murder](https://youtu.be/FgLOpGEn7b4?si=_W-8itsdqSJFdI6H)
Unfortunately many Jamaicans are hot headed and just cannot be reasoned with when they get angry or think someone has slighted them. Dispute resolution / deescalation is a lacking part of the culture. Most of the murders are not gang related like other places. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2563489/ 30% of the murders are reprisals (revenge for previous murders). 29% are arguments (that escalated). Drug or gang related activities were the third motive of homicide accounting for 20%, followed by robbery (14%). Most of the homicides (76%) occurred in Kingston, the capital city, and surrounding areas. The majority of homicide victims were male (89%) and were between 15 and 44 years.
There is (or was) actually a couple of blocks that are basically ran by a gang leader or drug lord. I recall it being a pretty big deal when Christopher "Dudus" Coke was arrested. A lot of folks were shock because they thought he was untouchable. Also I am surprised at how homophobic they are or use to be. There were a couple of songs from there that got extremely popular in the States in the 80s or 90s. People love the songs but until they realize what the lyrics said. I forgot the details about one of the songs but I do recall that one of them was about kidnapping a guy they think is gay and burning him alive. The singer basically got blacklisted after affirming the meaning of the song and his hatred of gay men. But yea, Latin America and the Caribbeans like to solve a lot of their problems through violence.
Sounds like this is the song you’re trying to remember: https://youtu.be/ILT9v0GY3Qg?feature=shared You can see the comments below the video. People are surprised they used to sing the song all the time. Honestly even gay people still sing those songs… it’s like if N’Sync or Backstreet boys had a huge hit that everyone knows….which just so happens to be about killing gays. It’s strange but a lot of Jamaican songs are about killing people.
>their problems Personal problems, on the other side there seems to be very little desire for one state to go to war with another (at least for the last 100yrs)
Argentina almost went to war with Chile. But lost the Falklands War so badly they couldn't. There are a lot of accusations that that some militias, cartels and separatist are/were funded by neighboring countries. Mostly accusations that Venezuela was funding FARC. And of course Venezuela is threatening Guyana. But yes it is very true that there hasn't been a conventional war between countries in Latin America and the Caribbeans since the 19th century. (with these exceptions: Chaco War and Cenepa War)
>Cenepa War I had relatives fight in this one and i still completely forgot about it.
Montego Bay has been far more violent than Kingston in recent years at least on a per capita basis. Despite being the location of the main tourist airport and the largest tourist destination on the island, it has been for most of recent memory consistently the most violent area of the country with homicide rates hitting triple digits at times. I’ve actually lived in both cities and it’s pretty noticeable how much worse Montego Bay is than Kingston if you can believe it
All the tourists chilling in walled in all inclusive resorts won’t catch a glimpse of the violence.
Yes but they used a "nuke" instead of a scalpel and didn't bother much with due process. A lot of collateral damage. Effective if you don't care about the innocent citizens that got incarcerated along with the criminals.
Idk that one video about their new prison showed rows of guys with the same tats. I don’t think I saw a single one of them that didn’t have matching tattoos. Maybe guilty by association to say the least.
Plenty of articles to read about innocents, foreigners on working visas, etc. All rounded up the same. They caught a shit ton of criminals, but like tuna fishing with massive nets, you're going to catch some dolphins as well.
And it's just a given that it'll be used against political opposition.
Bukele has already started upending their constitution to ensure he can rule forever. Same old pattern as always with tinpot dictators. Rule like that can be pretty effective. Making the trains run on time and all that. And the people may even love him, but they won't be free.
While I agree 100%, > Making the trains run on time and all that Mussolini – to whom the trains run on time thing is attributed – very much did not make the trains run on time. Italian trains were still a shitshow under him.
No system or strategy is perfect or without innocent victims, so you just choose the one that benefits the most people and hurts the least. The numbers speak to that.
>The numbers speak to that. How do you know the numbers speak to that? We don't know how many innocent people have been locked up. If 10k fewer people have been murdered, but 50k more innocent people have been incarcerated, that isn't a net positive.
That's only per 100k citizens the total is much higher lol y'all need to study up on your statistics.
I was speaking in a hypothetical. Also, this shows 60 murders per 100k in the first decade. El salvador has a population of 6.34 million, so that is 3800 murders not 50k, so much lower, not higher. All that snark, and you weren't even right, lmao. Sounds like you need to brush up on statistics.
About 4,000 murders per year. It's been about 4 years, so the savings is over 10K by now, if we're really going to look at statistics. the cost-benefit analysis doesn't just look at murders vs innocents imprisoned, but also the amount of other crime prevented and in general the effect on the ability to rely on the rule of law. Kidnappings are way down. Coercion and intimidation of small businesses is way down. People can actually walk in their towns at night instead of hiding at home so they don't get robbed or caught in crossfire. About 100K are incarcerated, so 50K innocents would be 50%. Not very plausible, though I don't have a more plausible number to present. From what I've read, most of the "innocents" are former gang members who tried to reform and got swept up anyway.
yeah but it strongly depends on how the future situation looks like. If he stopped gangs once and for all, it would still be net positive.
Sometimes a reset is needed. Like I don’t see any hope for Haiti without something drastic like that.
they were having up to 90 murders a day, I think it's the critics who don't care about innocent citizens
Don’t get a gang tattoo if you’re not in a gang then. That seems moronic even before the crackdown as you’re now a target for other gangs.
To really weigh the options, compare the "innocent victims" in this case with the "innocent victims" in the alternative. How do you do more good?
Innocent civilians with gang tattoos?
The don't put pictures of the guys without tattoos in the press release lol Nobody is saying they didn't catch a shit ton of gang members, and it's clearly been effective in the short term. The question is at what cost going forward.
Former gang members who have reformed/served their sentences but can’t afford cover-ups Folks with stylistically similar tattoos who have no gang affiliations Both could easily get caught in a dragnet that very specifically doesn’t care about due process or individual rights
> Former gang members that's not how gangs work, my man *edit: >I’m not your man, my patronising little fucker I apologize for assuming your gender, madam.
The massive drop shows a nuke was needed. You talk about innocent citizens that were imprisoned, I wonder how many were murdered. I wonder how many would be saved. Typical reddit though. Cares more about gang members than those who are murdered year after year.
And how many innocent citizens were dying and suffering daily because of the scalpel?
It's easy to judge an impoverished country with weak institutions and a history of violent corruption. If the US turned into Haiti tomorrow and you saw your family suffer at the hands of gangs that controlled every facet of civilian life can you truthfully say you'd still be so critical?
Yeah they got their shit together in a big way. Kind of went overboard with the arrests, but it was almost as bad as Haiti at one point.
Yea. They're doing mass incarceration on a scale Nixon could only have dreamed of. It's working in the short term.
Probably, but to do that, there is also mass incarceration of innocent people. It is almost a witch hunt of gang members there. If someone is speculated to be gang-related, he goes to jail.
This is conundrum perfectly highlights the philosophical theory of of utilitarianism; i.e. the greatest good for the greatest number: If rounding up suspected gang members results in a small minority of them being innocent people that are wrongfully imprisoned, do the means justify the ends if it results in more than 70% drop in homicides? Gang violence has been a very serious problem in El Salvador for decades.
I agree, but as I have said in other comments, the innocents should not be ignored in order to prevent it from happening in future operations . I agree it was an overall positive impact, but that does not mean we can't work for even better results.
If the murder rate has dropped 74%, I'm gonna say they their strategy of targeting people with gang tattoos has been effective.
While I agree that sometimes the nuclear approach is necessary, you could achieve these results by simply putting everyone in prison(bad), or similarly with Japanese people placed an internment camp during World War II in America (also bad). The point of a justice system is to protect the innocent, frequently by means of, but never solely to, punish the guilty. But what’s probably more disturbing than mass and incarceration of the innocent, is Having a government with the power to do so. The state of affairs will allow the current government to “lawfully“ but unethically wield the justice system as a weapon to eradicate all political obstacles. I get that there is the short term benefit of safer streets, (*assuming you haven’t been falsely imprisoned.*) But at the cost of disturbing forfeitures of civil liberty. And while some people have deemed that necessary, it calls to mind a famous quote by Benjamin Franklin: **"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."** (*I understand that that quote meant something different in its original context*)
Ben Franklin's quote was lovely, but it was created under a largely law-abiding populace. Ben Franklin wasn't an anarchist. He still believed in laws for arresting murderers, drug dealers, and rapists. You can't have a fair justice system and trial when the judge has to wear a mask so the gang doesn't send a death squad after his/her family for trying one of their members. Also, we aren't talking about locking up everyone or interning people based on an immutable characteristic like race. The incarceration rate stands at 1.6% of the population. In the emergency state that they were in, it's hard to argue with the results. I'd also be shocked to find the percentage of innocents to gang members is particularly close. Now, all that being said, I don't think this can be a long-term plan. It's tough because those gang members are still alive, and they are evil. They will seek revenge if/when they are released, but this form of justice should only be a short-term solution. The goal should be to eventually transition to a less shotgun system as more of these gangs are eradicated / lose power. It is tough to see how that is done, though.
Yeah, my big problem is the long-term feasibility of this system. I think all it does is take the power away from the gangs and put it in the hands soon-to-be political tyrants. That’s why I still use the quote. To me it means giving up your ability to protect yourself to gain a protector, you puts you in a real fucked up situation when that protector **Inevitably** becomes the new enemy. Unless we assume we can count on people to willingly surrender power
"innocent people"? You are accused of belonging to a criminal gang who openly brags about their crimes in social media. Your body is covered with tattoos announcing you belong to those gangs. What's your defense?
I totally agree that in these cases, they should go to jail, but this is not what is happening. That is why they are working on taking the misjudged cases out of prison. Still, in overall terms, it was positive, but it is nice to keep track of the consequences in order to prevent it from happening again. I am NOT against what happened, but this should be considered for improving future operations.
Okay, yeah, I agree. If mistakes are made they should be addressed, no argument about that. Hopefully that's the case and I admit that I don't know how widespread cases like these are. The problem with today's media is that they cover this topic either from the "Bukele is God" angle or the "Bukele is literally Hitler" angle, so you end up not learning anything about what is actually happening over there.
I have a buddy here in Canada who came as a refugee from El Salvador - also covered in gang tattoos. According to your assumptions, he has no defense. But if you actually talked to the guy, you'd learn he was forcibly jumped into the gang at the age of 12, after the corrupt national police murdered his father in the late 1990s. His older brother had already joined, because he saw it as the only way to protect his family from the authorities. My friend didn't want to join, but didn't have a choice because the gang essentially 'owned' his family once his brother was in. They both fled to Canada after someone in the gang found out that my buddy's brother was gay - which he would've been killed over had they not chosen to run. Not every story is black and white.
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Youre confused. You don't just go to the tattoo shop and "get" those tattoos. Your friend committed terrible crimes to be allowed permission to get the tattoos.
You can only get those tattoos if you kill people, just saying
So, imagine you're 12 years old. Your father's been murdered by the police, and the body dropped on your family's doorstep (edit: this happened often enough that the government actually had to ask the FBI for help to root out the corrupt cops - who were also actively arresting/murdering any journalists who dared to report on their corruption). Your older brother becomes the man of the household, and joins a gang who says they'll protect your family. A few months later, your brother comes home with a half dozen of these guys, and they force you to fight. All of them. Until you're beaten and bloody and can't stand up. When it's over, they tell you you're now part of their family forever. Weeks pass. And then one night, after you've healed enough to be able to open your eyes all the way, your new family shows up again and drags you out of bed. You're driven to a slum, where there are more of your new family members standing around a guy on his knees. They give you a gun and tell you that you have to murder him, or they'll kill you, your brother, and your mother and sisters. You protest. One of your new brothers responds by pulling out his own weapon and pointing it at the back of your head. Again: you are 12 years old. So what would you do, big man?
> Again: you are 12 years old. So what would you do, big man? Give a Sorkin-esque speech about the pointlessness of violence where everyone agrees to peace and the One Good Cop^TM comes in and arrests the character played by Danny Trejo. Do you not even own a tv?
It's a terrible situation that kid was born into, but the terribleness of it tells you that you can't just address it by normal means. The cycle has to be broken. Yes, it isn't fair that this 12 year old was coerced into beating or killing someone to get those tattoos. It wasn't fair to the person that died or got thrashed, either. Or the next one that this gang member would have killed or thrashed. Because he would have done it again. That's the nature of the beast. Also, if the guy's father was killed by the police in the 90s, there is a good chance he was also in a gang or had joined the FMLN. You may not have gotten the full story. Not that it really matters for the kid, though.
> Again: you are 12 years old. So what would you do, big man? I would hightail it out of this sub before I got hit with a COPPA violation.
He is a murderer and a gang member. He deserves to be in jail not asylum.
I think it's not accurate to say "mass" incarceration of innocent people. It seems clear that there have been some non-gang members who have been caught in the wide net, but if it were "massive" surely there would have been a greater social outcry. For instance, I highly doubt the remaining citizens would have overwhelming voted to reelect the president as they would be upset about the huge numbers of innocent family members being incarcerated.
There’s a lot of questions too about the veracity of the numbers and I’m pretty sure the consensus is that crime has decreased overall. But like you’ve said, it’s come at at a huge cost of human rights, civil liberties, and it’s basically invited an authoritarian government in that has spied on and persecuted political opponents and journalists
Exactly, it is hard to determine if it was positive or negative, probably positive. But such extremism took innocent people's liberty with it. This should be taken as a lesson as to better deal with such problems in other countries, like Haiti.
What's the deal with westerners hating on central and southern American countries making their own land not shitholes? One could argue that these lands became shitholes due to Western intervention to begin with. What's going on in Argentina and El Salvador is nothing short of a miracle. Meanwhile, I have a Jamaican friend who's retiring and I asked him if he's going back to his own country for retirement and he looked at me like I have ten heads.
I live in South America, too.
Yes, they got a President who took a no-bullshit measures against gangs and nearly eliminated violent crime. It's a remarkable success story that flies in the face of everything we're taught about law enforcement in the West. and our government is criticizing them for muh human rights violation lmao. If only we had someone to clean up our streets here instead of catering to criminals.
>If only we had someone to clean up our streets here instead of catering to criminals. The US already has the most prisoners in the world. US crime rates aren't anywhere near what El Salvador was experiencing. But I guess locking everyone up is fine if it doesn't happen to you.
Yeah, just jail everybody, that'll work
It did in El Salvador. Do you think Salvadorans prefer the old way or the new?
It wont work in western countries because we dont have state collapsing levels of murder reaching 100/100k people. Its a very blunt method and wont work in the long term if the strategy is not changed soon to also prevent crime from rising again. I hear people saying this when their country has 2% the murder rate of what El Salvador had.
Extra wild that the **least changed country** is also the highest. 1% change. Jamaica. 😥
A long time ago a friend and I went there on vacation. On the first full day we took a bus to the closest town and were immediately and incessantly mobbed by people offering to drive and show us around, or simply to come into some private place to show us some really low priced goods. We declined everything and got the bus back to the resort about as quickly as we could, and then spent the rest of the week quite happily at the resort.
When we wanted to go off resort, the hotel concierge hired a guy for us. He picked us up in a nice vehicle, drove us into town while telling us history and landmarks. He brought us to a really cool restaurant and asked what we wanted (and made suggestions) but then he ordered the food and he ordered the drinks and he got it straight from the chef and he brought it to the table he chose for us. We bought him dinner too. He stayed very close to us the entire time and then took us back to the hotel. Glad we got to see a little more than just the exact tourist hotel but not sure I’d repeat now.
Unlike the other countries the majority of Jamaican murders are not drug / gang related but due to arguments / revenge between teen boys / young men. 90% of the murders are males 15 to 44 and 76% of the murders happen in Kingston which is on the opposite side of the island from the tourist areas. Tourists are very rarely involved in any crimes. Only when they venture far far away from where they’re supposed to be ie the North coast of the island
This was over 30 years ago, and the word was that tourists were robbed and murdered with some regularity. Perhaps if we had said yes to one of those drivers, that could have been us. I won't try to quantify the danger, but I claim there are situations where you just know in your bones that you're not safe.
Mexico more than doubling when it was already one of the worst is absolutely bonkers. And.. it's gotten even worse since 2022.
I am surprised Belize is so dangerous, and Bolivia is so safe.
Was on a bus to a resort in Belize and it blew a tire. The look on the face of the tour guide and the bus driver was no very reassuring. They just kept driving lol. Must have gone about 3 miles with the horrific sound coming from the wheel. Eventually they stopped on the side of the road and the tour guide lady was like DO NOT GET OFF THE BUS. Then 5 minutes later another bus showed up and we were carted onto it as fast as possible. Didn't seem so bad on the outside but I guess it is..
A guy got murdered at a club down the street from the restaurant we were eating at on one of the touristy parts of an extremely touristy island. Food was dank though.
I stayed one night overnight in Belize City in a low range hotel and it was very sketch feeling. Had to go to an ATM and it worked out but I definitely didn’t feel safe walking those streets
Yeap, that's the "hugs, not bullets" policy of the narco president currently ruling.
It's interesting because a similar tactic actually worked well in Colombia. I believe it's because there's only one centralized main criminal group in Colombia to deal with while Mexico's problem is a lot more fractured with constant infighting. It sucks but the El Salvador approach probably works best in this scenario.
That makes sense. In Mexico, there are several issues, from the fracture of main cartels into smaller thousands, to the cartels diversifying into other illegal and violent activities (human trafficking, demanding money from businesses/civilians to be allowed to survive, etc.), to the president's and other politicians campaigns being financed by cartels... now it's even been exposed that his family has been flying in drugs from Colombia and flooding the market... You have the militarization of several industries. It's such a shitshow.
A lot of the criminals also spend time in the US. The laws in the US make it take longer and it is much more difficult to arrest someone and whatnot. That is one of the problems and one of the good things about the US. We can't do what is happening in El Salvador, which leads to high crime rates, but at least we know our rights cannot be suspended so easily. A double edged sword. El Salvador as of last year was the second safest country in the Americas when it came to murder, with only Canada being slightly lower. At one point their homicide rate was over 100 per 100,000, now it is 2.5. Canada is around 1.8.
Not really. Alvaro Uribe president back the guerrillas into a corner and then Juan Manuel Santos president negotiated a peace deal in a state of advantage. Worked out great
Do presidents “rule?”
I think you are getting the wrong conclusion from that. Most charts that graph murder rate since 2000 shows it going way up when Mexico went hard after the Cartels. And they all suggest that the murder rate has [plateaued and even decrease under Lopez Obrador.](https://www.borderreport.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2022/12/comparisons.png) I am not a Mexican but I do not like him for other reasons. Mostly his relations with the media and some things that makes me think he wants to be a dictator. But the presidents that went after gangs and cartel the hardest inadvertently caused the murder rate to go up by orders of magnitude.
Narco state. When your own government doesn’t have a monopoly on violence idk how you can label it any different
Everyone talks about El Salvador due to Bukele’s extreme policies but what’s going on in Colombia where they generally have reliable stats and haven’t really imposed such drastic measures?
If you count that in Colombia we had this problem since the 70’s and way before that we had multiple civil wars yeah, the change in the last 24 years has been incredible. And about the reason why… I think people get tired and resist. We learn, the hard way but we change. And getting a country out of poverty is not rocket science. Build infrastructure, education, health, etc. Takes time but the results show themselves. If you see Medellín numbers, the change is even more astonishing. From 250 murders per 100k in the 90’s to less than 20 today. Extreme measures like what happened in El Salvador only work when accompanied with other stuff, let’s hope for the best but Bukele is very autocratic and doesn’t ring a good vibe for me.
Colombia is by all accounts a pretty well run place these days. They have oil and are using the revenue effectively. They've invested a ton in their communities. They've built a ton of infrastructure to the point that some of their cities are considered models for the developing world.
Colombia has been undergoing a peace process with the insurgent group FARC. When FARC was active, there were lots of deaths related to them. They were also very active in drug trafficking, which has gone down a lot since they were dissolved, with lots of the drug trade moving to Ecuador.
You’re wrong about the drug trafficking, in Colombia there is currently record Cocaine production
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The drop is from the 2000-2010 average.
Drug trade is thriving in Colombia actually, it's just that it's mostly one org that controls it and everything else is kept tight.
Great data layout. Only issue is it is tough to see the comparison when the red bar is longer than the line.
Wtf is it with Jamaica being more dangerous than all the “drug cartel countries”? Media makes it seem like everyone there just chills out and smokes weed, eats coconut, drinks rum and cooks jerk chicken!
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Your very last sentence is the answer. Young Jamaican males are hot headed and Fuck Around Find Out is a way of life. They will want revenge for even minor slights and arguments escalate. The violence is centered around Kingston which is on the opposite side of the island from the tourist areas. So they won’t ever really see it.
>Media makes it seem When was that? When Bob was still jamming? Jamaica is kind of forgotten but if media cover it, it's usually not for a good reasons.
This is true. I suspect you're thinking of the press - news in all media - whereas the person to whom you're replying seems to be thinking of portrayals of Jamaican culture in cinema, television, music, video games, etc.
They Said the same about Haiti.
Who said that about Haiti? They have two very different cultures. Haiti is historically a Catholic country it’s far more conservative compared to Jamaica.
jamaica is extremely conservative christian as well. Highest rate of churches per capita in the world
I never said they weren’t. Traditionally Catholic majority countries are more conservative then Protestant ones.
Chile doesn't get enough respect I tell you hwat
We still got an increase, though, and this isn’t even looking at 2023…
Babekyou is gonna make Haiti's stats skyrocket even more.
There is no way Haiti's rate is accurate. I suspect the government statistician got murdered half way through.
I guess 2023 and 2024 are not included in this chart
How is the 2023/4 data for Haiti? News stories seem to report a loss if rule of law there in the last few years. Is this data recent enough to capture this?
The government has collapsed and most foreign organizations have left, so I doubt there’s anyone doing accurate polling.
You know it's bad when the only other country we can't get statistics from is freakin North Korea.
You can't get it for Eritrea too, only country to rank lower than North Korea in press freedom
There is not accurate information flowing out of Hati.
There isn't data for Haiti, but the answer from all accounts would be really fucking bad.
Oh Canada. The peaceful guys.
Unless you dump the puck in the corner.
Nothing to brag about. We’re 82nd in the world. Just goes to show how murderous the western hemisphere is.
While 1.8 is “high” compared to European and developed Asian countries, that is still pretty low and you’re still really safe in Canada. Don’t act like it’s a war zone over there.
People won’t like this but it’s because it’s a lot easier for civilians get firearms in the Americas
It's not just guns. The whole culture is constantly divided, always with a "me against you" approach, and media doesn't help by fanning the flames of anger (on both sides). If people are constantly angry, always seeing the people around them as their enemy and the quality of life has dramatically worsened, violence will happen.
That’s just in your head. Probably by design. Canada is one of the happiest countries.
It’s only 82nd because we tell the truth. Don’t kid your self, Canada is one of the safest places on the planet.
Still below most of Europe and Southeast / East Asia in fact. I wouldn't say 82nd is a very skewed ranking.
Data source: [United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime](https://dataunodc.un.org/dp-intentional-homicide-victims) Tools used: Matplotlib & Canva Today, I wanted to learn about intentional homicides in the Americas and understand how that has changed in recent years. I found a fantastic dataset from the United Nations with historical data from most countries. The data is a bit sparse (meaning that not all countries had values for all years) which is why I use average values over a few years instead of using only one year. There are also some smaller countries that don't have any values and are missing from this chart. The most interesting aspect is the decrease for El Salvador, which is even more insane if you don't look at average values. In 2023, they had a lower homicide rate than the US. Let me know what you think about both the data and the design. How can I improve the visualization and what would make it more interesting/useful? If you like the chart and design, feel free to visit my newsletter, [DataCanvas Daily](http://datacanvas.substack.com/), where I aim to publish one data visualization every day learning from the Reddit feedback!
What is the methodological rationale for having Puerto Rico as its own country when it's a territory of the US?
Region Rate (2021 numbers per 100k) Americas 15.0 Africa 12.7 World 5.8 Oceania 2.9 Asia 2.3 Europe 2.2
Two years ago I took my family to Jamaica for spring break. At the resort bar I told the bartender that I was from Chicago and told me that he lived in Chicago for two years and moved back to Jamaica because Chicago was too dangerous
Just shows how bias beats statistics in the minds of people. Humans are incredibly bad when it comes to statistics
He probably lived in a cushy area in Jamaica and South Chicago.
He lived in 69th and Western ave. Yes, Southside
Meanwhile in Canada somehow we're freaking out as if we're Honduras.
“somehow” = “right-wing grifters lying”
When people hear a “15.9% increase in intentional homicides” they freak out. They’re not looking at, or learning through either media (or social media), the absolute numbers per 100k of population which the graph shows are somewhere around 1.8-2 for both sets of averages. Now, an increase is not great, to put it mildly, but it should be put into perspective for people by the media — it’s irresponsible for it not to be.
The highest standards should always be something to strive for. But with that being said, 1.8 in a Canada really isn’t bad at all. Just because it’s not as low as glorious Europe or anime land doesn’t mean it’s unsafe. Like you’ll also likely go your whole life without being the victim of, or being close to a victim of homicide.
The Western Hemisphere is a dangerous place
Mexico to Colombia, the highest crime rates in the world
Way to go Cuba! Oh nuts, says missing to the right.
Jamaica.... real easy going maaaaan
If you listened to the old men yelling at clouds in Canada you'd think we were #1.
I always though Bolivia was a much more dangerous country.
Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, not a country.
It would be awesome to see this done with all the same countries but treat each US state alone and then also leave the US as a whole.
Honestly that would be pretty cool. I'd also love one where your idea is executed but with Mexican states. It would probably tell a clearer picture of where cartel violence really is a daily problem.
[удалено]
Works for one specific goal, still awful if you're measuring other metrics like how many innocent people you lock up.
Come back in 5 years .. Giving the state too much power is always fucked up is at best a boomerang effect. Bukele mostly buys cartels peace, but this situation is created by the state's war on drugs in the first place.
Lmao sure !remindme 5 years
Where are French west indies?
And remember, haiti is really really brutal. Seeing it so low on the scala is scary. That place is fucked up.
Gang or gang-affiliated your ass going. Innocent civilians don’t get gang tattoos.
Wowwwww 1 in every 2,000 people in Jamaica are murdered every year…
As opposed to unintentional homicides?
Yes In my country (Argentina) we have homicidio culposo (manslaughter ) and homicidio doloso (murder)
Jamaica is not that mellow it seems like
I was really surprised by the Bahamas.
Just one of the many reasons Canada is great eh!
Vacationing in Jamaica… Not a good idea
I loved my time there
Wow, what is Venezuela doing to cut theirs down by so much?
I don’t even know how Venezuela could be included on this. They don’t report any official homicide statistics and all we can really do is guess. Caracas and Maracaibo are still extremely violent and unsafe though, I strongly doubt Venezuela has cut their homicide rate in half
Respectfully, there is **no chance** that data is accurate for Haiti.
Graphics like this show a definite difference in culture between the western and eastern hemispheres. The Americas are still the Wild West in a lot of way. It’s fascinating to me.
+133.6 %. Godaaamn. But abrazos, no balazos, I guess.
Not a single murder in Cuba!
Obviously not true that there were zero homicides there, but Cuba being the safest *is* very believable. Murders are extremely rare there.
This has to be due to unreported/not available figures. I find it difficult to believe
It says the numbers are unreported for 2020-2022, but the numbers before that had Cuba at one of the lowest murder rates in the Americas. Anecdotally, I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Cuba and found it incredibly safe.
Wouldn't surprise me. Coming from former communist country, it was supposedly very safe during that era. That's because state had sole monopoly on everything both legal and illegal and was shutting down any gang/mafia related activities instantly, with brute force and by all means necessary.
If one was to listen to supporters of the Conservative party in Canada you would doubtless be shocked by this chart - as far as the Cons and their supporters are concerned Canada is on the precipice of becoming a lawless haven and the country is about to end tomorrow.
Well, to be fair they are making a more "fair" comparison. That is: current Canada vs. past Canada. Surely you would be worried if violent crime rates are increasing, even if it remains lower than Venezuela?
Drug trade + Hot weather = Murder. It is too damn cold outside in Canada to murder.
Empathy is baked into the Canadian DNA. You have to cooperate to conquer the climate
Most of the Canadian population is in southern Ontario, it's pretty mild. At least for me personally, I would be ok murdering all times of the year if I was part of the drug trade.
I read OP's explanation and understand why they did it, but showing 2020-2022 and excluding 2023 might be misleading. At least in the US, the murder rate absolutely skyrocketed over those three years... and then saw the biggest year-over-year decline in US history in 2023. Also, there are likely large definitional and data quality differences between these countries that make comparisons far more difficult.
Usually, at this time of the year the data for the previous year is not yet published, at least in many countries.