Latin American Urban Violence

In Latin American countries, they have a very unique culture. With their holidays, music, celebrations, and art, the countries in Latin America never cease to bring joy in people’s lives. Latin American culture is vastly different than other cultures in many ways. In Latin America, the languages of Spanish and Portuguese are dominant and most people speak them. However there are people who speak other languages as well. Latin America includes nineteen countries and several territories. There are a variety of different ethnicities in Latin America including Mexicans, Europeans, and Asians. Education inside the Latin American culture still struggles. Only a little more than half of kids ages 13-17 advance into secondary school. Because of this, the crime and violence rates in Latin America are at an all time high. These countries have been rated as one of the most dangerous regions in the world because of how high the rates of crime and violence are.

Chon reviews and tests Neapolitan’s Regional Subculture of Violence Thesis (1994). The finding from this study suggested the current multiple regression analysis did not support Neapolitan’s argument. However, structure factors are more of a predicator in determining high homicide rate in Latin America. Chon explains the nation’s high homicide rate comes from a multitude of sources. One explanation is constructed on the regional violent culture theory. The other explanation is structure factors, which are (a) poverty (GDP per capita), (b) income inequality, (c) literacy rate, (d) alcoholic consumption level, (e) age distribution. The researcher uses published reviewed sources to support the main argument as well as used Neapolitan’s Regional Subculture of Violence Thesis (1994). This journal article will serve to be useful for answering my research question because it uses structural factors in determining the cause of homicide rate. Also, this article focus specifically on Latin America and the countries I am studying are in Latin

This research establish weak governance as an enabler for the emergence of security threats in Latin America related to transnational organized crime. Lack of effective action of the administration to provide basic services and proper conditions for the population resulted in alternate ways to get them, with the consequent undermining of the institutions and norms.

Originating in the United States, ms-13 and similar gangs have had a devastating impact on central America. This article describes the origins from the United States and how through the Los Angeles Riots and other tough on crime policies had the effect of placing many immigrants and criminals back in their home country of central America. The deportees some of that might have been criminals and taken to the United States as children, united in desperation to become ms-13. The article further describes the brutality that the gangs have committed in the region. Through drug trade, smuggling and senseless murder, life in central America has been disturbed by gangs and have become a national security there. The dangers of gangs in central America

Thousands of U.S. citizens have visited Honduras every year to study, for business, and even tourism. However, the government lacks the resources to fully address crime and violence. The U.S. Department of State has issued a Travel Warning for Honduras since late 2012 (Miller, 2016). Honduras has one of the highest murder rates in the world. While not all the murder rates can be attributed to gang violence, there’s an estimated 7,000 street-gang members among approximately eight million people. They are not afraid to use violence and specialize in many illegal activities

Certain neighborhoods in Central America are under the control of various gangs. The women and children are live in a constant state of panic. Women especially fear that they will be attacked. If anyone angers the gang or doesn't pay whatever said gang says that they have to pay to live there they or their children are under threat to be attacked.

Violent crimes exist in both prosperous and deprived areas as well. The deprived areas are often referred to as “barrios”. It is in the barrios where organized crime leaders and street gangs set up operations. Due to criminal control or ownership of these areas, local authorities are not often capable of entering, making these areas safe havens for the criminally minded. This allows the freedom of movement within the area and results in mass criminal

The expansive empires of the Aztecs and Incas, came crashing down, upon the arrival of Spaniards in the New World. The birth of colonial nations came about in the same stride that death came to indigenous populations. Modern Latin America has conflict built into its system because that is what it has mostly seen for the past five hundred years. In Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America, John Charles Chasteen supports the argument that Latin America's problems developed due to its violent origins and history of conquest. From the conquest, through colonialism and revolutions, to modern day, violence has always been a main player in the advancement of Latin America. Chasteen has left me with a greater comprehension of our

The Central American counties of the Northern Triangle: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are considered the most dangerous countries in the world that are not at war. The region is very unstable due to weak governments and gangs. The gangs in these countries rule the streets taking innocent lives, sex trafficking and rapimg women and children, while the government does little to stop them. The violence started at different times in these countries. In Honduras during the 1980s the right- winged rebel group, the Contras housed themselves in the country. El Salvador’s violence dates back to 1979 with the Civil war. This war was between the government’s military and the leftiest

Violence seems to be a nationwide phenomenon. Almost all aspects of the Colombian population experience some degree of violence. Almost everybody is a potential victim; violence does not prefer a particular socioeconomic class, profession, race, or

Brazil has some of the most violent cities in the world. The murder rate in Brazil has been going through the roof each year. Some cities have a murder rate of 50 per 50,000 people. Most murder victims are usually male, poor and teenagers. Most of these crimes take place in the infamous favelas of Brazil. Murder is not the only crime leaking in the shallow streets of the favelas. High-profile rape cases, kidnapping, drugs, and weapons dealing in the favelas are the common headlines in Brazil (Griffin, Jo). These crimes are born in the favelas and spread through the streets of Brazil. The economic growth of Brazil over the years has benefited the rich puppeteers of the society, but it has made life more miserable for the poor (McCann, Bryan). Not just in Rio, but favelas have spread throughout many cities in Brazil and now they are the number one birthplace of different types of crimes in the country. In this paper, we will analyze an article published on the online version of ‘The Guardians” regarding the lives of people living in Brazilian slums (favelas).

“Violence has been a prominent social response to the application of structural adjustment policies throughout Latin America. There are societies in which, things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Violence is a shared disease that seems to arise in all societies where there are profound social differences and exploitation…Many Latin American societies are condemned to bloodletting by the precedents of violence and gross injustice that characterize their culture and their history.”

As the act of criminality is a global phenomenon, there must therefore be some explanation as to why this is; some schools of thought strive to explicate this by means of genetics, whilst others take a more socially influenced approach. Although at the time, the micro-criminological theories of Lombroso and Sheldon may have appeared credible, modern research has attempted to refute such notions. In an epidemiological context, the act of crime is seen by some as a positive contribution to society, as noted by Durkheim (Kirby et al, 2000), although too much will lead to social instability, or anomie. In contrariety to Durkheim's beliefs, a Marxist perspective would consider the mere notion of capitalism as criminal; thus deeming the vast

Unfortunately, it was estimated that roughly 1.2 billion people in 1993 lived in extreme or absolute poverty, that which Robert McNamara regards “‘a condition of life so characterized by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable standard of human dignity’” (Singer 219, 220). These estimates can be projected at nearly 2 billion today. A large majority of the people living in absolute poverty resides in underdeveloped countries. Among the nearly 4.4 billion people in these countries, “3/5 lives in societies lacking basic sanitation; 1/3 go without safe drinking water; 1/4 lack adequate housing; 1/5 are undernourished, and 1.3 billion live on less than $1 a day” (Speth 1).

Crime, death, and destruction is a big problem in Latin America. People are getting severely harmed and killed by many things, such as gangs drug, trafficking, human trafficking, not only those things but many others. A lot of people in the world are trying to help the people that are causing major problems to the world’s economy and the people living in it. Sadly, it doesn’t or won’t stop because people think they can do what they want and get away with anything they want without thinking that it’s bad enough not to go to jail. Although, the crime rate in Latin America is higher in some countries, like for instance Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Murders and violence are a big problem that need to be controlled and solved by not only government officials but the people themselves.