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N.B. The opinions expressed in the article below are not necessarily those held by www.ryanrowe.com and its administration.


Subject: Re: Safest country in Latin America
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 04:17:13 GMT
From: Richard Ferguson
Organization: AT&T Worldnet
Newsgroups: rec.travel.latin-america

The numbers below suggest that Chile is the safest, with Brazil and Mexico less safe than the USA, and Columbia (sic) much less safe.

HOMICIDE RATES BY COUNTRY

90 Colombia
20 Brazil
18 Mexico
15 Venezuela
13 Trinidad & Tobago
12 Peru
11 Panama
10 Ecuador
5 Argentina
4 Costa Rica
4 Uruguay
4 Paraguay
3 Chile

These rates are an average of several years around 1990, and represent homicides per 100,000 people per year. The source is Robert Ayres of the World Bank, from "Crime and Violence as Development issues in Latin America and the Caribbean".

Homicides are almost always reported, so are frequently used to compare crime rates between different jurisdictions. In many areas, most crimes are not reported.

.....the following paragraph written by administration of www.ryanrowe.com (namely Ryan Rowe) to provide the Canuck perspective.....

For reference, the Canadian rate was 2.1 (per 100,000 population) in 1996, down to 1.8 in 2000. You can check for yourself at: Statistics Canada


The following United Nations statistics website also has homicide statistics.

United Nations

From the UN site, I compiled my own list of 1995 homicide rates:

90 Columbia (sic)
32 Russia
18 Mexico
12 Venezuela
10 USA
4.5 Costa Rica
3 Chile
2.8 Poland
1.7 Canada
1.4 China
1.3 Sweden
1.2 Germany
1.1 Netherlands
1.1 France
1.0 Spain
0.9 United Kingdom
0.6 Japan

On June 23, 2000, the Panamerican Health Organization, the Organization of American States, the International Development Bank, the World Bank, Unesco, and US Center for Disease Control signed an agreement to cooordinate their actions to reduce violence in Latin America, which has substantial social and economic costs. (Diario de Yucatan, 24 June 2000).

A June 7, 2000 article from the French press agency AFP reported that Honduras and El Salvador were some of the most violent countries in Latin-America.

Richard Ferguson
March 4, 2001