Author: Muggah, Robert
Title: Assessing and responding to youth violence in Latin America: Surveying the evidence
Summary: Violence is one of Latin America´s primary challenge in the twentieth century. A significant number of countries, cities and communities in Central and South American regions suffer rates of violence exceeding war zones. In some cases, violence is collective resulting in spectacular atrocities. In others, violence is interpersonal or domestic, contributing to more subtle, most no less significant, suffering. Many of Latin America´s 33 countries register firearm homicide rates that are amongst the highest on the planet. And while some countries in Latin America such as Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Peru and Uruguay report homicide rates closer to the global average, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela exhibit particularly high levels of insecurity.1 Youth violence is one of the top priorities facing Latin American policy makers. Young males from 15-29 constitute the large proportion of both the perpetrators and victims of homicidal violence. According to the United Nations World Report on Violence against Children, Latin America suffers from the highest youth homicide rates in the world (Pinheiro 2006). The costs of youth violence are profound – generating significant humanitarian and development costs spanning generations. The causes of such violence are also far-reaching ranging from social and economic inequality, juvenile un- and under-0employment and high school drop-out rates to disintegrated family structures, and absence of care and attention, the availability of drugs, alcohol and arms, and high rates of police impunity and incarceration. This overview paper is intended to set out the scale and distribution of youth violence in Latin America and highlight innovative strategies to prevent and reduce it. Far from exhaustive, the report highlights descriptive statistics on homicidal violence in countries that report such data. Likewise, it draws attention to direct and indirect interventions that are associated with declines in youth violence. Only those initiatives backed with robust data are noted in this paper, which is not to suggest that they are the only ones that yield positive outcomes. According to a recent review by the Igarapé Institute, there are just 21 robust evaluations of youth violence reduction efforts in Latin America (Moestue and Muggah 2013). The paper is intended to stimulate critical reflection and discussion at a forthcoming UN-led conference on the post-2015 development agenda in Panama.
Details: Rio de Janeiro: Igarapé Institute., 2013. 11p.
Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 22, 2013.
Year: 2013
Country: Central America
URL:
Shelf Number: 129141
Keywords:
HomicidesJuvenile DelinquentsViolent CrimeYouth Violence (Latin America) |
