No surprise Caracas named 'murder capital of world'

[Bacchus39]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/12/31/Venezuela.murder.capital/index.html

At least 510 people were killed in Caracas, Venezuela, in December, giving support to a recent report that called the city the murder capital of the world.


A chalk message reads No More Murders as a student protests killings in Caracas in this file photo.

It's against that backdrop that the country's minister for Interior Relations and Justice announced efforts this week to combat crime in 2009.

Minister Tareck El Aissami said Monday he will form 50 community police units in Caracas and take other measures so that "we can have in a short time a culture of peace, tranquility and calm for all the Venezuelan public."

By all accounts, it will be a tall order.

Foreign Policy magazine said in September that Caracas tops the list of five murder capitals of the world, with an official tally of 130 homicides per 100,000 residents. The city, which is Venezuela's capital, has about 4 million inhabitants.

Foreign Policy is owned by The Washington Post Co. and published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The United States made the magazine's top five, too, with New Orleans, Louisiana coming in at No. 3. Its murder rate is estimated as 67 per 100,000 by its police department and 95 per 100,000 by the FBI.

Still, the rate in Caracas comes in far ahead of the following four murderous capitals.

"Caracas has become far more dangerous in recent years than any South American city, even beating out the once notorious Bogota, ," Foreign Policy said.

"What's worse, the city's official homicide statistics likely fall short of the mark because they omit prison-related murders as well as deaths that the state never gets around to properly 'categorizing.'

"The numbers also don't count those who died while 'resisting arrest,' suggesting that Caracas' cops -- already known for their brutality against student protesters -- might be cooking the books," the magazine said.

CNN affiliate Globovision TV reported this week that officials reported 510 killings in Caracas this month, capping a particularly brutal year.

"It's shocking," said Jennifer McCoy, director of The Americas Program at the Carter Center in Atlanta. "It's the biggest concern of the population -- crime and security."

Federico Welsch, a political science professor at La Universidad de Simon Bolivar in Caracas for 25 years, has seen that crime up close.

"Violence is the major problem for Venezuelans, according to any source you use," Welsch told CNN on Tuesday. "It's doubly sad because, primarily, the deaths occur almost exclusively in the poor sectors, and, secondarily, it's among youth under 30 years old."

McCoy points out that the killings are "basically poor on poor."

From the 1970s to the 1990s, the poverty rate nearly tripled, from 25 percent to 65 percent, McCoy said. Even though the poverty rate declined during the oil boom that started in the 1990s, she said, the rate remains high.

"It's a combination of economic-driven crime ... with other types of gangs, to police abuse," McCoy said. "The police are not properly trained and not properly equipped."

Anti-crime efforts in Caracas also suffered, she said, when the national government took over the city's police force in 2002.

"There has been trouble getting the police force back to par," she said.

Welsch said he doubts the anti-crime measures El Aissami announced Monday will work.

"You can't resolve this problem with police," Welsch said. "The government is co-responsible for there being so many firearms. There is no good gun control, there are no permits and there is no good control over the militias."

The problem, Welsch and McCoy said, transcends the drug trade and gang battles.

"You don't have the guerrilla problems," McCoy said. "You don't have drug cartels. You don't have a large mafia."

Welsch lays much of the blame on the 10-year-old government of socialist President Hugo Chavez.

"The government discourse," he said, "is that if you are lacking something it is because of injustice. Then look for it, take it away from those who have it. You can obtain justice with your own hands."

The magazine lists, in descending order, Caracas; Cape Town, South Africa; New Orleans; Moscow, Russia; and Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, as the top five murder capitals in the world.

[Dave From Canada]

1. They probably spoke out against Chavez.

[struggle4progress]

2. Comparing such statistics is always problematical. For example, are the

data collected consistently in different countries? And a change in homicide rates following a change in administration may reflect new reporting standards or data handling methodology, rather than a change in underlying criminal sociology. For a number of epidemiological studies, interpretation of the actual data may be obscured by the fact that cases from a larger area are attributed to the locale that actually collects and reports the information. And, there is always the problem of manipulation: as you know from our previous discussions, for example, Colombia's former statistics director resigned after accusing Uribe's administration of manipulating Colombia's homicide statistics

Critics say Colombia's president manipulating statistics to make country appear safer
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=405&topic_id=3883&mesg_id=3892

Articles, such as the one you posted, typically involve choices which may be political. Ciudad Juarez, in Mexico, has a population of about 1.5 million; it has long had a high murder rate. In 2008, there had been 600 homicides by June and 1000 by September; this suggests a total of about 1200 - 1300 murders in 2008; 1200 would correspond to a annual homicide rate of 80 per 100000, rather above the 2004 Port Moresby figure cited in the Foreign Policy article, yet somehow Ciudad Juarez, plagued by violence for years, does not qualify as a murder capitol. Similarly the 2006 figure for Baghdad is in the range of 245 violent deaths per 100000, but Baghdad for some reason doesn't make the list. And El Salvador, as a country, has a high murder rate (58 per 100000 in 2006 according to the 10th UN Survey of Crime trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems), roughly the same as the Port Moresby figure, but it does not figure on the list, apparently because El Salvador (oddly) reports a much lower rate for its cities.

The List: Murder Capitals of the World
Posted September 2008
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4480

Thursday, September 9, 1999 Published at 21:55 GMT 22:55 UK
World: Americas
Mexico's murder town
... Juarez is one of the most dangerous places on earth ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/442618.stm

Skulls and faces: Investigations and the pursuit of justice for women in Juarez
by Kent Paterson
Posted on July 11, 2008
http://www.thejuarezproject.com/

Violent Death Rate in Baghdad: 35 times Higher Than New York City
By MannyGoldstein at Fri, 2006-05-26 19:44
http://blueworksbetter.com/ViolentDeathRateBaghdad

International Homicide Statistics (IHS)
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/ihs.html


Here is an alternate view of murder rates:

Murder rate highest in Latin America: Survey
Steven Edwards, Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, November 26, 2008
UNITED NATIONS - Latin America has the highest homicide rate for young adults in the world, with the Caribbean a close second, a global study by a Brazilian research group shows ... Based on figures from 83 countries, a person age 15 to 24 is almost 15 times more likely to be murdered in Latin America than in Canada, says the group ... The most dangerous country studied is El Salvador, where the annual murder rate for young people is 92 per 100,000, and rising ... After El Salvador, countries with the next highest murder rates for every 100,000 young adults were Colombia (73.4), Venezuela (64.2), Guatemala (55.4) and Brazil (51.6) ... http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=a8600533-1b68-4c91-84d6-553df505a227

[Bacchus39]

3. young adults doesn't tell the whole story

all those countries have high murder rates, and Venezuela is not exempted because of who their leader is. Chavez has been in power 10 plus years so change in administration isn't an issue here. although I would support a change in Venezuela's administration.

[struggle4progress]

4. Wow. That's, like, completely unresponsive to any of the issues I raised -- and contains

absolutely no useful information

[Bacchus39]

5. I concur that all those countries you listed have high murder rates

I would also say its a safe bet to assume that reporting data is not always complete shall we say. Venezuela is no exception. That's my response.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. And South Africa has been free of apartheid for longer than that

Crime rates always go up when people's situations improve after a period of repression, because their expectations rise and of course cannot be met immediately. That's certainly the situation in South Africa.

Under the South African apartheid regime, crime was low because the police were utterly brutal and non-whites could not move freely outside their own designated areas.

Now, with the old social order destroyed (rightfully) and the police no longer able to do whatever they want with suspects, South Africans initially assumed that everything would now be wonderful. But economies don't change overnight.

When the poor were still poor years after achieving the promised end of apartheid, their frustrations led to crime.

Crime rates rose in the U.S. after the Civil Rights Law was passed, and for much the same reason. The law did nothing to change the existing social attitudes and economic structures, and for many years, there were urban riots every summer.

And I think we've had this conversation before.

[Bacchus39]

7. I don't think changes have been that drastic in Ven as in South Africa

and crime is not an indicator of prosperity looking at countries in Europe and Asia. although repression certainly is a means of maintaining low crime rates.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. A better comparison is to the U.S. after the Civil Rights Act was passed

Rising expectations were frustrated because a whole society can't change over night.

Poor Venezuelans still have plenty to be frustrated about, especially the rich obstructionists.