Crime and Violence as Development Issues in Latin America

Crime and violence have emerged in recent years as major obstacles to development objectives in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. The paper explicates an agenda for future work that may assist LAC countries by discussing 'policy domains' where action is required. Such domains include reducing urban poverty, targeting efforts on 'at-risk' groups, building or rebuilding social capital, strengthening municipal capacity for combating crime and violence, and reforming the criminal justice system.

This paper discusses this region ' s recent epidemic crime and violence as impediments to the realization of sustainable economic growth and the reduction of poverty. The primary focus of this paper is not to equate the problem of illegal drugs and narcotics trafficking with crime and violence but to demonstrate that illegal drugs and narcotics trafficking are part of a larger problem of economic and social decay. Regional data for crime and violence are grossly inadequate. It is necessary to enhance the knowledge-base about the nature, extent, and evolution of these pathologies. Crime and violence erode the development of both physical and human capital. This paper focuses on the following key policy domains of a development agenda: (i) programs to combat urban poverty; (ii) targeted programs in urban areas, in particular those targeted on vulnerable groups such as at-risk youth and women; (iii) programs designed to build or strengthen social capital; (iv) programs to improve the capacity of governments, especially municipal governments, to prevent and reduce crime and violent through community involvement and partnerships with civil society and the private sector; and (v) programs to reform the criminal justice system.