Impunity, poverty blamed for Venezuela's soaring murder rate

[spanza]

Article from last june by Radio France Internationale (public)


More than 20,000 people were killed last year in Venezuela, a murder rate higher than in some war zones. Crime is the key issue for Venezuelans and there is little evidence that anything is changing.

....

Venezuela’s murder rate has soared since the late president Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999. The government does not release official figures but independent organisations, such as the Venezuela Violence Observatory, run by Roberto Briceño-León, have collated their own statistics.

....

While the issue is high on everybody's list of gripes about Venezuela, there is little political incentive to get it sorted. As long as people like Kevin see no repercussions from killing people for their smartphones, the country will continue to suffer.



http://www.english.rfi.fr/americas/20130619-impunity-leads-soaring-venezuela-crime-rate

[spanza]

1. 20,000 homicides for 30 million people = 66,6 homicides per 100,000

Colombia? Half as much.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. yeah, that Colombia reports article doesn't make much sense

It was misleading as Colombia's homicide rate has greatly reduced over the past 10 years while Venezuela's has greatly increased.

[Bacchus4.0]

3. Plug in the numbers on the UN site and see that Col and Ven have inverted

over the last decade.

http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=UNODC&f=tableCode%3A1


Data is only through 2010 and 2012 was the worst year for Ven.