Skip to footer

Homicides down in Costa Rica and other Central American countries

The annual homicide rate dropped in Costa Rica for the first time in six years, writes guest blogger Mike Allison. Better governance could be a factor in regional progress.

  • By Mike Allison Guest blogger

Costa Rican authorities announced that the country registered its first yearly decrease in homicides in six years. The country registered 474 homicides in 2011, 53 less than 2010. That brings the rate per 100,000 down to 10.3 from 11.5.
 
 Homicides in Guatemala decreased in both 2010 and 2011 and it appears as if the trend will continue in 2012. Homicides look to be down between 10 – 20 percent compared to this time last year.
 
 While homicides did not decrease in El Salvador last year, the country will experience a sharp reduction in homicides for 2012 should the gang truce hold for the rest of the year. Homicides are down around 60 percent compared to the first few months of the year.

Homicides aren't the only measure of violence and the region's numbers are still higher than everyone wants. However, better governance and creativity can bring about improvements in the daily lives of the region's citizens.

– Mike Allison is an associate professor in the Political Science Department and a member of the Latin American and Women's Studies Department at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.  You can follow his Central American Politics blog here.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Homicides down in Costa Rica and other Central American countries
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2012/0604/Homicides-down-in-Costa-Rica-and-other-Central-American-countries
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe