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Guns in Latin America: Key Challenges from the Most Violent Region on Earth
Abstract
Latin America has been labeled as one of the most violent regions on Earth. With only 8% of the planet’s population, the region is the site of 33% of the world’s homicides. These homicides are mostly concentrated in four countries: Brazil, Colombia, México, and Venezuela. The main objective of the chapter is to present a general overview of the problem of gun trafficking in Latin America and its relation to violence. More concretely, it aims to examine the relationship between violence and arms availability among civilians in Latin America. The article is divided into three main parts. The first section examines the background to the security challenge in the region. The second presents the most important security challenges and examines key lessons learnt from these challenges. The final section offers three specific policy recommendations to address gun trafficking and violence in Latin America. Overall, the chapter contributes to the research fields of violence, criminality, and security in the region and calls for further comparative and empirical research that might address the main questions around the complex relationship between violence and small arms in Latin America.
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Public spending has climbed in Latin America and the Caribbean. Riding a commodity
windfall and low interest rates, many governments in the region tried to spend their way into the future. Unfortunately, the party is over and policymakers must find a way to keep their economies growing and their citizens happy in a fiscally sustainable manner. The traditional answer to this moment of truth has been to simply cut spending across the board. This book suggests there is another way out. Even if governments need to spend less in aggregate, the same or even more services can be provided if ways are found to be smarter about spending, to be more efficient, in short, to make every penny count.
The first step is to achieve better outcomes with the same or fewer resources. The second
is to allocate better, by analyzing the composition of spending and finding the right mix of
transfers to meet today’s needs and investments to prepare for tomorrow. For governments that are bigger, it’s time to make them better. Still, efficiency is not only about spending less. Some countries in the region actually spend too little for their level of development, yet they find it difficult to raise expenditure because their citizens balk at paying higher taxes when governments are not efficient. Governments must regain the trust of their citizens; efficiency can help them do that.
The author examines the main dimensions of urban violence in the case of Rio de Janeiro, which includes criminal prosecution of violent collective actors and the participation of policemen in the offer of "political merchandise" to the same actors that the police repress.
La policía comunitaria es una institución de los pueblos indígenas de Guerrero conocida por su capacidad para enfrentar a la delincuencia y generar alternativas de paz social., através de un sistema de justicia y seguridad autónomo. En los últimos años, sin embargo, el sistema comunitario enfrenta el acoso de actores diversos vinculados al incremento de la violencia y la inseguridad que se vive en el país y especialmente en el estado de Guerrero; dicha situación está impactando a la institucionalidad comunitaria, obligando a su redefinición.
En este trabajo destaco aspectos centrales de dicha conflictividad así como las respuestas que han dado los comunitarios para hacer frente a las tareas de justicia y seguridad en el marco de nuevos contextos marcados por el despojo neoliberal y la impunidad de actores estatales y no estatales. En este proceso se actualiza la relación de la policía comunitaria con el Estado revelando el peso de la ambigüedad legal y los juegos del poder así como los usos contra-hegemónicos del derecho para disputar la justicia.
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SEGURANÇA E JUSTIÇA SOB ACOSSO EM TEMPOS DE VIOLÊNCIA NEOLIBERAL: respostas do policiamento comunitário de Guerrero
O policiamento comunitário é uma instituição dos Povos Indígenas do Guerrero conhecidos por sua capacidade de lidar com o crime e gerar paz social de forma alternativa, usando um sistema próprio de justiça e segurança. Nos últimos anos, no entanto, o sistema da UE enfrenta assédio de várias autoridades envolvidas no aumento da violência e da insegurança que reina no país e, especialmente, no estado de Guerrero; essa situação está afetando as instituições comunitárias, forçando a sua redefinição. Neste artigo, destaco os principais aspectos do conflito e as respostas que têm a comunidade para lidar com as tarefas da justiça e da segurança no contexto dos novos contextos marcados por pilhagem neoliberal e a impunidade de atores estatais e não estatais. Neste processo, a relação de policiamento comunitário com o estado é atualizada, revelando o peso da ambiguidade e dos jogos de poder legais, além de usos contra-hegemônicos do direito de disputar a justiça.
Palavras-chave: violência neoliberal; Guerrero; comunidades indígenas
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SECURITY AND JUSTICE UNDER HARASSMENT IN TIMES OF NEOLIBERAL VIOLENCE: responses of the Community Police of Guerrero
The community police is an institution of the Indigenous Peoples of Guerrero known for its ability to deal with crime and generate alternatives for social peace, using a system of justice and self security. In recent years, however, the EU system faces harassment from various people responsible for the increase of violence and insecurity within the country and especially in the state in Guerrero; this situation is impacting instituitions in the community, forcing their redefinition. In this paper I highlight key aspects of the conflict and the community's responses to deal with the tasks of justice and security in new contexts marked by neoliberal plunder and impunity of the state (as well as non state figures). In this process, the relationship of the community police with the state is updated revealing the weight of legal ambiguity and power plays, as well as counter-hegemonic use of the right to dispute justice.
key words: neoliberal vilence; Guerrero; indigenous people.
Criminologists and other researchers have attempted to understand whether there is a connection between firearm prevalence and crime. Some experts have argued that prevalence of firearms increases crime, while others have argued it reduces crime. The purpose of this study was to further investigate and clarify this relationship. The current analysis used suicide by firearm as a proxy for firearm ownership. Examining violent crime, homicide, rape, robbery, and assault for 1,997 counties in the United States, the findings indicate that increased prevalence of firearms was associated with increased violent crime, homicide, rape, robbery, and assault. The results of this study suggest that a decrease in prevalence of firearms has the potential to decrease violent crime in the United States.
This article analyses the factors behind the paradoxical result of the Brazilian gun-control referendum. It adopts a qualitative approach to explore the dissemination of ideologies surrounding crime, gun control and security. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with activists involved in the referendum's campaign. The results reveal that ideologically driven campaigns in a context of corruption scandals, high levels of violence and fear influenced the result. The neoliberal discourse of individual freedoms played a role, as did the phrasing of the referendum's question, fragile confidence in public institutions and unequal campaign funding and regulation.
According to Laub (2004), criminology has a developmental life course with specific turning points that allow for innovations in how we understand and respond to crime. I argue that criminology should take another turn in direction, focusing on microgeographic hot spots. By examining articles published in Criminology, I show that only marginal attention has been paid to this area of study to date—often termed the criminology of place. I illustrate the potential utility of a turning point by examining the law of crime concentration at place, which states that for a defined measure of crime at a specific microgeographic unit, the concentration of crime will fall within a narrow bandwidth of percentages for a defined cumulative proportion of crime. By providing the first cross‐city comparison of crime concentration using a common geographic unit, the same crime type, and examining a general crime measure, I find strong support for a law of crime concentration. I also show that crime concentration stays within a narrow bandwidth across time, despite strong volatility in crime incidents. By drawing from these findings, I identify several key research questions for future study. In conclusion, I argue that a focus on the criminology of place provides significant opportunity for young scholars and has great promise for advancing criminology as a science.
A tese é composta por três artigos. No primeiro, vários indicadores inéditos no Brasil foram produzidos para analisar a dinâmica dos homicídios no país entre 1980 e 2007 e documentar os fatores importantes que impulsionaram a sua prevalência. No segundo artigo, produzimos uma análise microeconométrica para estimar a elasticidade da difusão de armas de fogo emrelação a vários crimes contra a vida e contra o patrimônio. No terceiro artigo, estimamos o custo de bem-estar doshomicídios e analisamos como os resultados mudam ao considerar herogeneidades relacionadas à questões de gênero, regionais e de escolaridade.
The volume of firearms sold in USA and trafficked across the US–Mexico border is notoriously difficult to estimate. We consider a unique approach using GIS-generated county-level panel data (1993–1999 and 2010–2012) of Federal Firearms Licenses to sell small arms (FFLs) to estimate the realized demand for firearms based on the distance by road from the nearest point on the US–Mexico border. We use a time-series negative binomial model paired with a post-estimation population attributable fraction (PAF) estimator. We do so to control determinants of domestic demand. We are able to estimate a total demand for trafficking, both in terms of firearms and dollar sales for the firearms industry. We find that nearly 2.2% (between 0.9% and 3.7%) of US domestic arms sales are attributable to the US–Mexico traffic in the period 2010–2012, representing 212,887 firearms (between 89,816 and 359,205) purchased annually to be trafficked.
This article discusses situational crime prevention and routine activity theory as well as the application of these theories to organized crime. Furthermore, it introduces the contributions to this double special issue of Trends in Organized Crime.
The risk posed by organized crime is a central concern of governments around the world. The infiltration and control of legal and illegal markets and products is a major concern in nearly every country. New agencies and initiatives are under way in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, and elsewhere, with the specific purpose to better predict and detect organized crime activity. This article proposes a model to assess the risk of organized crime. It employs a different unit of analysis from most current models, focusing on illicit markets rather than groups, and it offers a practical alternative for determining the presence of organized crime in areas that may or may not have a history of organized crime involvement.
Despite the institutional efforts, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) in Colombia has been accompanied by harsh criticisms and controversies among scholars, practitioners and civil society. In the following analysis, some of these frequently expressed perceptions are discussed with reference to existing literature and fieldwork experience.
This paper presents a systematic review of the impact of police strategies to reduce illegal possession and carrying of firearms on gun crime, including directed patrols, monitoring of probationers and parolees, weapon reporting hotlines, and others. Four studies met the inclusion criteria, reporting a total of seven nonrandomized tests of directed patrols focused on gun carrying in three American cities (five tests) and two Colombian cities (two tests). Six of the seven tests (not all of which were independent) suggest that directed patrols reduced gun crime in high-crime places at high-risk times. However, conclusions and generalizations must be qualified based on the small number of studies, variability in study design and analytic strategy across the studies, preintervention differences between intervention and comparison areas, and limited data regarding factors such as implementation, crime displacement, and long-term impact.
Much of crime mapping is devoted to detecting high-crime density areas known as hot spots. Hot spot analysis assists police in identifying high-crime areas, types of crime being committed, and the best way to respond. Hot spot analysis depends on several factors which vary. These varying factors or elements necessary in analyzing hot spots include: analysis focus, spatial dependence, crime type, time intervals, barriers, output display, and software. In addition, establishing a stronger link between theory and practice will help avoid the arbitrary approaches to hot spot analysis and give an analyst a scientific foundation from which to work. The report is comprised of three main chapters. Chapter 1 is targeted to novices in crime mapping defining crime hot spots; what they are, why they exist, and how to map them. Chapter 2 is more advanced discussing the methods and techniques for understanding crime hot spots. The third chapter is geared to those highly experienced analysts providing spatial analysis tools for identifying hot spots. The report can be used as a companion to a 1999 National Institute of Justice report, entitled Crime Mapping: Principle and Practice.
In an era when the global community is confronted with challenges posed by violent nonstate organizations—from FARC in Colombia to the Taliban in Afghanistan—our understanding of the nature and emergence of these groups takes on heightened importance. This book offers an analysis of the dynamics that facilitate the organization and mobilization of one of the most virulent types of these organizations, paramilitary groups (PMGs). It reconstructs in historical context the organization of PMGs in Colombia, El Salvador, and Mexico, identifying the variables that together create a triad of factors enabling paramilitary emergence: ambivalent state officials, powerful military personnel, and privileged members of the economic elite. Nations embroiled in domestic conflicts often find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place when global demands for human rights contradict internal expectations and demands for political stability. The book elucidates the importance of such circumstances in the emergence of PMGs, exploring the roles played by interests and policies at both the domestic and international levels.
Since its independence in the nineteenth century, the South American state of Colombia has been shaped by decades of bloody political violence. In The Para-State, author Aldo Civico draws on interviews with paramilitary death squads and drug lords to provide a cultural interpretation of the country’s history of violence and state control. Between 2003 and 2008, Civico was given unprecedented access to some of Colombia’s most notorious leaders of the death squads, whose words and life stories he chronicles. He also conducted interviews with the victims of paramilitary’s violence, with drug kingpins, and with vocal public supporters of the paramilitary groups. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, this riveting work demonstrates how the paramilitaries have, in essence, become the war machine deployed by the Colombian state to control and maintain its territory and political legitimacy.
The Small Arms Survey 2012 seeks to increase our scrutiny of what is changing, and not changing, in relation to armed violence and small arms proliferation. Chapters on firearm homicide in Latin America and the Caribbean, drug violence in selected Latin American countries and non-lethal violence worldwide illustrate that security is a moving target; armed violence, both lethal and non-lethal, continues to undermine the security and wellbeing of people and societies around the world. The goal of curbing small arms proliferation, embodied in the UN Programme of Action, appears similarly elusive. Chapters on illicit small arms in war zones, trade transparency, Somali piracy and the 2011 UN Meeting of Governmental Experts highlight some of the successes, but also the continuing challenges, in this area. Country studies on Kazakhstan and Somaliland, along with the final instalment of the authorized transfers project, round out the 2012 edition.
Abordamos as operações interagências como políticas com estratégias cooperativas na agenda de defesa nacional e mostramos como o Sistema Proteger desenvolve ações especificas para promover a defesa das EETer e da população em grandes eventos. Analisamos a implementação do SISFRON e sua importância para o processo de monitoramento e fiscalização das fronteiras brasileiras
The premise that where crime has occurred previously, informs where crime is likely to occur in the future has long been used for geographically targeting police and public safety services. Hotspot analysis is the most applied technique that is based on this premise – using crime data to identify areas of crime concentration, and in turn predict where crime is likely to occur. However, the extent to which hotspot analysis can accurately predict spatial patterns of crime has not been comprehensively examined. The current research involves an examination of hotspot analysis techniques, measuring the extent to which these techniques accurately predict spatial patterns of crime. The research includes comparing the prediction performance of hotspot analysis techniques that are commonly used in policing and public safety, such as kernel density estimation, to spatial significance mapping techniques such as the Gi* statistic. The research also considers how different retrospective periods of crime data influence the accuracy of the predictions made by spatial analysis techniques, for different periods of the future. In addition to considering the sole use of recorded crime data for informing spatial predictions of crime, the research examines the use of geographically weighted regression for determining variables that statistically correlate with crime, and how these variables can be used to inform spatial crime prediction. The findings from the research result in introducing the crime prediction framework for aiding spatial crime prediction. The crime prediction framework illustrates the importance of aligning predictions for different periods of the future to different police and prevention response activities, with each future time period informed by different spatial analysis techniques and different retrospective crime data, underpinned with different theoretical explanations for predicting where crime is likely to occur.
Introduction This author is a strong advocate of using sophisticated information technology and the latest research findings to guide decisionmaking in police organizations. Hence, this article begins with a brief acknowledgment of the potential benefits of hot spot policing in theory, followed by a serious critique. The thesis of this chapter is that, while the concept of hot spots policing is attractive, we should be disappointed in how scholars have narrowly defined it in theory and research and how police organizations have narrowly practiced it. This approach has failed to embody the fundamental principles of either problem-oriented policing or community policing, which many scholars believe represent the basic pillars of “good policing” in the twenty-first century. Acknowledging the benefits The concept of hot spots is indisputable as a criminological phenomenon and suggests the need for focused responses. From the very beginning of criminological inquiries in nineteenth century France, scholars noted that criminal activity is not randomly distributed, but rather varies by geographic area such as regions, states, and communities (see Eck and Weisburd 1995). More recent micro-level analyses have focused on sizable variations between and within urban neighborhoods. Hence, a sensible policy implication is to recommend the concentration of more resources in these high-crime areas, including police resources (Sherman, Gottfredson, MacKenzie et al. 1997). The most important question, however, is not whether we should assign more resources to problem areas, but rather, what resources should be deployed and how should they be deployed? © Cambridge University Press 2006 and Cambridge University Press, 2009.
In this article, we join three distinct literatures on crime control—the deterrence literature, the policing literature as it relates to crime control, and the environmental and opportunity perspectives literature. Based on empirical findings and theory from these literatures, we pose a mathematical model of the distribution of criminal opportunities and offender decision making on which of those opportunities to victimize. Criminal opportunities are characterized in terms of the risk of apprehension that attends their victimization. In developing this model, our primary focus is on how police might affect the distribution of criminal opportunities that are attractive to would-be offenders. The theoretical model we pose, however, is generalizable to explain how changes in other relevant target characteristics, such as potential gain, could affect target attractiveness. We demonstrate that the model has important implications for the efficiency and effectiveness of police deployment strategies such as hot spots policing, random patrol, and problem-oriented policing. The theoretical structure also makes clear why the clearance rate is a fundamentally flawed metric of police performance. Future research directions suggested by the theoretical model are discussed.
Objectives To test the generalizability of previous crime and place trajectory analysis research on a different geographic location, Vancouver BC, and using alternative methods. Methods A longitudinal analysis of a 16-year data set using the street segment as the unit of analysis. We use both the group-based trajectory model and a non-parametric cluster analysis technique termed k-means that does not require the same degree of assumptions as the group-based trajectory model. Results The majority of street blocks in Vancouver evidence stable crime trends with a minority that reveal decreasing crime trends. The use of the k-means has a significant impact on the results of the analysis through a reduction in the number of classes, but the qualitative results are similar. Conclusions The qualitative results of previous crime and place trajectory analyses are confirmed. Though the different trajectory analysis methods generate similar results, the non-parametric k-means model does significantly change the results. As such, any data set that does not satisfy the assumptions of the group-based trajectory model should use an alternative such as k-means.
The empirical observation that a small number of micro places generate the bulk of urban crime problems has become a criminological axiom. Explanations for the persistence of high-crime places have traditionally drawn upon opportunity theories of crime. In a new book, Weisburd, Groff, and Yang suggest that social disorganization could also be a powerful explanation for the uneven distribution of crime within neighborhoods. In this article, we explain briefly why their empirical work considerably sharpens knowledge about crime concentrations in the city. We then offer a critique of their conclusions concerning the relative contributions of social and situational variables in explaining crime hot spots and the preventive implications they draw from these findings. Finally, we suggest new research that could invigorate the debate on the formation and persistence of high-crime places and could support interventions that seek to change the situational precipitators and facilitators of crime.
I want to thank Steven Taylor for his thoughtful comments on the volume Daniel Goldstein and I edited. In this response I will address two key points he raises that help to highlight some of the key differences in our approaches.
The Plan Nacional de Vigilancia Comunitaria por Cuadrantes (PNVCC) is a new police patrolling program introduced in the eight major cities of Colombia in 2010 by the National Police. The strategy divides the largest cities into small geographical areas (cuadrantes), assigns six policemen to each, establishes a new patrolling protocol involving more community contact, and holds officers accountable for crime in their assigned area. The plan warranted a comprehensive training program for over 9,000 police officers aimed at improving interpersonal skills and implementation of the new patrolling protocols. By staggering the training schedule between three randomly chosen cohorts of police stations, we generate experimental variation in the exposure to training and in the effective implementation of the new police protocols induced by the Plan Cuadrantes. Comparing the 4 months immediately after training with the same months from the previous year, we find a significant reduction in several types of crime attributable to the training program, ranging from around .13 of a standard deviation for homicides to .18 of a standard deviation for brawls. These impacts are driven by very large effects in high crime areas and very small -or zero- effects in low crime neighborhoods. Once we take into account the high spatial concentration of crime, the estimated effects account for an overall reduction in the number of homicides of about 22%. We suggest that the training program affected crime by increasing the patrol police’s sense of accountability to the population and also possibly through higher police motivation. Large efficiency gains in public service provision may be attainable with relatively inexpensive interventions that bring public servants closer to their clients.
Two key themes of this special issue are: how violence challenges democracy and how democratic politics might, over time, diminish violence. This paper explores how violence(s) embedded in Latin America's state formation process are multiplied rather than diminished through democratization, generating a securitizing logic which fundamentally distorts democratic principles. Known for its high levels of historic violence(s), Latin America today is second only to Southern Africa in levels of homicide in the world. Some see contemporary violence in the region as a rupture from the past: ‘new violence’ characterized by its urban and social nature in contrast to the rural and political nature of the past. Violence, however, has a reproductive quality, by which it is transmitted through space as well as time. This article argues that rather than reflecting a rupture with the past, violence in Latin America has merely accelerated its complex reproduction in many forms across (gendered) spaces of socialization. The paradox is that the proliferation of this violence has occurred alongside democratic transitions. Although the state is not directly responsible for all the violence which is taking place, this article argues that in many countries it is the very trajectory of the state-formation process which has facilitated this rapid reproduction of violence. I call this process ‘perverse’. Democracy is increasingly subject to the fears and insecurities of the population, enabling the state to build its authority not on the protection of citizens' rights, but on its armed encounters and insidious collusions with violent actors in the name of ‘security provision’. Categories of people become non-citizens, subjected to abuse by state, para-state and non-state violent actors. If this process continues, democracy will ultimately be securitized.
Police practitioners and academics alike have heralded hot spots policing as evidence-based practice. It has encountered few hurdles in its path to widespread implementation in the United States. Examining the social construction of its diffusion, including the empirical, theoretical, social-political, technological, and media contexts that converged to promote its diffusion, reveals a partial, positively skewed image perpetuated among the public, scholars, and policymakers. Through a different lens, hot spots policing might have led to concerns about legitimacy, discussion of bias, and lack of public support. Instead, the infectious popularity of this reform may thus far have buffered it from critical consideration of the potentially disproportionate impact of hot spots policing on disadvantaged community members and its consequences for police legitimacy—evidence that should be important to evidence-based practice. This article promotes a research agenda that extends beyond short term crime-reduction to investigate these important unstudied consequences.
While most scientific studies on disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants focus on the countryside, the case of the paramilitaries in Medellín, Colombia, provides an exceptional opportunity to study such a process in a metropolitan environment. Analysis reveals how an urban DDR-process may lead to highly contradictory results: a strong decrease in the number of homicides and at the same time a consolidation of networks of criminal groups. Extralegal combatants, especially in an urban environment, are able to form extensive networks with criminal organisations. Although DDR-approaches warn of the risk that ex-combatants may resort to violence, scholars tend to disregard existing networks of groups of combatants and powerful criminal organisations in their analyses. Taking theories on DDR as a starting point and reflecting on earlier local peace initiatives, this article analyses the process with paramilitaries in Medellín. It argues that although, the local peace process has led to some significant results, it has to date failed to address the wider network of criminal organisations within which former paramilitaries were and continue to be involved.
The article offers a descriptive analysis of strategies of crime control in contemporary Britain and elsewhere. It argues
that the normality of high crime rates and the limitations of criminal justice agencies have created a new predicament for
governments. The response to this predicament has been recurring ambivalence that helps explain the volatile and contradictory
character of recent crime control policy. The article identifies adaptive strategies (responsibilization, defining deviance
down, and redefining organizational success) and strategies of denial (the punitive sovereign response), as well as the different
criminologies that accompany them.
The Military Is Back in Brazil
- Michael Albertus
Demilitarizing Gun Control in Argentina
- Martín Angerosa
Roadblocks to the Implementation of Problem Oriented Policing in Montevideo
- Federico Castillo
- Del
Crime Concentration and Hot Spot Dynamics in Latin America. Inter-American Development Bank
- Laura Jaitman
- Nicolás Ajzenman
Making Cities Safer: Citizen Security Innovations from Latin America
- Robert Muggah
- Ilona Szabó De Carvahlo
- Nathalie Alvarado
- Lina Marmolejo
- Ruddy Wang
A Colombia Arms Deal and the Perils of Blowback
- Kathi Austin
- Jason Felch
Por Una América Latina Más Segura: Una Nueva Perspectiva Para Prevenir y Controlar El Delito
- Caf
Do Stricter Gun Laws Reduce Gun Violence in Latin America?’ InSight Crime
- Marguerite Cawley
Seven Misconceptions of Situational Crime Prevention
- Ronald V Clarke
- Kate Bowers
Small Arms in Brazil: Production, Trade, and Holdings. Special Report
- Pablo Dreyfus
- Benjamin Lessing
- Marcelo De Sousa Nascimento
- Júlio Cesar Purcena
Trafficking Firearms into Honduras. InSight Crime
- Steven Dudley
Decadencia Y Supervivencia de Las Rondas Campesinas Del Norte Del Perú
- John Gitlitz
Firearms Trafficking to Guatemala and Mexico
- Colby Goodman