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Security & Strategic Review - December 2016 (ISSN 1741-4202)
El Salvador: Fall in homicide rate masks disturbing trends
All the signs are that El Salvador will finish 2016 with a homicide rate well below last year’s. After the inauspicious start to the year, with homicides rocketing by 118% year-on-year in January, this did not look likely. The government led by President Salvador Sánchez Céren attributes the decline in the homicide rate to its decision to implement ‘extraordinary measures’ in April to combat the country’s mara street gangs. But increased repression by the security forces, with evermore soldiers on the streets, has coincided with an alarming increase in extrajudicial killings and other human-rights violations, as well as, more recently, evidence of a growing number of murders of police officers as the gangs retaliate.
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- Unpicking Venezuela’s latest conspiracy
- Bolivia: Boosting security with other neighbours
- Brazil: Crime goes up as budget goes down
- Region: Establishing common front against trans-national crime
- Mexico: Ten years of blood and bullets
- Mexico: Cyber crime and identity theft rising
- El Salvador: Fall in homicide rate masks disturbing trends
- Honduras: MACCIH delivers a cautious first report
- Haiti: One of DEA’s most wanted elected to office
- Mixed news from Jamaica
- POINTERS