Violence in Latin America: a reality without solution?

Abstract

In most Latin American countries homicide rates are much higher than in developed countries. It increases in some countries, decreases in others or stabilizes. It growths strongly in a few cities but decreases significantly in others since the beginning of the years 2000. The drug traffickers and the evolution or criminal organizations play a special role. The causes of the increase and the reduction of violence are many and complexes. To reduce violence when it reaches the level that we know in many Latin American countries is a bit like trying to do the squaring of the circle. That is the difficulty. There is a set of prerequisites to make a more cohesive society and to reduce violence: substantially reduce socio-economic inequalities, to promote a more egalitarian income distribution, to develop a primary, secondary, and vocational quality education, to invent the city policies, to improve the quality of institutions, including and especially that of justice and police, to develop a policy of the city as it was done in Bogotá and as it starts to be done in the «pacified favellas» in Brazil in contrast to what is observed in Mexico where repression is privileged and corruption is very high. Classificação JEL: I3; O2 Artigo recebido em set. 2012 e aceito para publicação em out. 2013.