3 conclusions from the Global Security Perceptions Survey 2024

Latin America and the Caribbean remains the region with the worst perception of security by citizens, according to an annual report, although the region has improved over the past three years.

The Gallup Global Safety Report 2024 administers and analyzes a poll evaluating citizens’ experiences with violent crime (robberies, assaults, robberies), their perception of safety in general, and their trust in law enforcement over the past year. According to the report, people in Latin America and the Caribbean feel the most insecure and have the least trust in police of all respondents surveyed in 140 countries.

Since Gallup began conducting these surveys in 2015, Latin America and the Caribbean have regularly been ranked as one of the regions with the worst perceptions of safety. Drug trafficking, organized crime and corruption have fueled this sense of vulnerability among the region’s residents.

Overall, regional figures have shown slow but steady improvement since 2017. But perceptions of safety vary widely between countries in the region each year.

Of the Latin American countries included in the 2024 index, El Salvador, Uruguay, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay and the Dominican Republic showed an improvement in their scores compared to the previous year. In contrast, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador saw their scores drop, while Venezuela and Mexico maintained their rankings.

However, the Gallup data is not complete. Not all countries are included in the index, for example Haiti, which has been facing a serious security crisis since 2021.

Below, InSight Crime analyzes data from the 2024 report on the three countries in the region with the most notable results: Chile, Ecuador and El Salvador.

Chile:

The 2024 Gallup report shows that only 36% of Chileans feel safe walking at night, a figure that has dropped dramatically compared to previous years. Gallup calculated Chile’s Law and Order Index score at 68, which is below the global average.

Citizens’ declining sense of security corresponds with the growing influence of organized crime in the country. According to official statistics, the murder rate has risen from 3.2 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2014 to 5.1 in 2022. Over the past decade, the number of kidnappings in Chile has also increased by 135%, from 361 kidnappings in 2013 to 850 in 2023 .

Furthermore, the expansion of transnational criminal groups such as Tren de Aragua in Chile has deepened this crisis. There the gang, which originated in Venezuela, has become involved in criminal economies such as drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and micro-trafficking.

SEE ALSO: How Tren de Aragua controls the fate of migrants from Venezuela to Chile

A clear example of how criminal activities by transnational groups have escalated is the March 2024 kidnapping and murder of a former member of the Venezuelan army in Santiago de Chile, allegedly committed by Tren de Aragua.

The public unrest has led to a growing demand for stronger measures to combat organized crime. In response, the government has stepped up security operations. But some analysts warn of the risks this approach could have for human rights and the country’s democratic stability.

Ecuador

The situation in Ecuador is worrying. According to the 2024 Gallup Index, only 27% of Ecuadorians feel safe walking at night, the lowest figure in Latin America and lower than in South Africa and Liberia. On the Law and Order index, Ecuador achieved 55, one of the lowest scores in the world.

SEE ALSO: Durán: a window into the explosion of organized crime in Ecuador

In Guayas province, one of the country’s crime hotspots, only 11% of residents feel safe walking at night, the lowest figure in the world outside active war zones. The results coincide with a survey conducted in mid-2024 by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which found that 68% of Guayaquileños feel unsafe in public spaces such as parks, plazas and streets.

Once seen as an oasis of peace between cocaine-producing giants Colombia and Peru, Ecuador now faces an unprecedented security crisis caused by drug trafficking and organized crime. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Ecuador has emerged as a key point in cocaine smuggling into Europe, contributing to an increase in violence, especially in cities such as Guayaquil, in Guayas, where the number of murders rose to almost 50 in 2023 murders per year. 100,000 inhabitants.

The port of Guayaquil, now a central hub for cocaine exports, has been the scene of a brutal battle between gangs for control of the drug trade. This violence has even reached officials. On September 12, the director of the Penitenciaría del Litoral in Guayaquil, the country’s largest men’s prison, was killed while driving a car.

El Salvador

Citizens’ perception of security in El Salvador has changed in recent years. According to the Gallup 2024 Index, 88% of Salvadorans report feeling safe walking alone at night, a figure that sets a historic record for the country and positions it as one of the safest in the world in terms of public perception.

El Salvador achieved a Law and Order score of 89, the highest score in Latin America and above the global average, even surpassing historically high-scoring countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and Spain.

This improvement in the figures is the result of the heavy-handed policies that President Nayib Bukele has implemented since 2022. Under the repeatedly extended state of emergency, the government has suspended certain constitutional rights and granted additional powers to security forces, leading to mass arrests without warrants. the intervention of the military in gang-dominated areas.

SEE ALSO: El Salvador’s (perpetual) state of emergency: how Bukele’s government overpowered gangs

By the end of 2023, 67.1% of members of the MS 13, 65.1% of the Barrio 18 faction known as the Sureños, and 54.3% of the faction known as the Revolucionarios had been captured by authorities .

However, these militaristic policies have also led to human rights violations, such as arbitrary detentions. In November 2023, Dalila Johana Flores, a young woman detained in January 2023 for alleged gang ties, was released after these claims were proven to be unfounded.

Featured image: Members of the Chilean Investigative Police make an arrest in 2019. Credit: El País