Southern Cone: little violence, a lot of concern (BBC, April 7, 2011)
This Thursday there will be a demonstration against insecurity in Montevideo called by a civil organization that aims to draw attention to the Uruguayan authorities. They say it is a problem that is compounded.
"The issue is very worrying, people from different social classes can not even leave their homes," he told BBC Janio Paiva, coordinator of Safe Uruguay, organized the protest.
In Argentina, the issue is also a concern. On a daily basis we hear mention it among the population or through the private media.
Ironically, both countries have some of the lowest crime rates in the continent.
Official statistics show that in 2008 and 2009 in the Uruguayan capital's homicide rate remained at 6.4 people per 100,000, while in Buenos Aires was also less than 5 per 100,000 inhabitants.
But public debate seems closer to that given in the main cities of countries like Venezuela, Colombia and El Salvador, to name a few cases where violent deaths are up to ten times higher.
victimization and perception
The difference between what is perceived and what actually is has been studied by scholars of social sciences through public opinion surveys.
This week the topic was discussed in an exchange between research centers in 17 countries in Latin America as part of the Iberoamerican Network for Data Analysis Crime (RIADD).
"In the talks one of the main issues that emerged is that in the Southern Cone is a perception completely out of step with the hard facts of crime" , told BBC Concaro Carola, Director, Instituto Latinoamericano de Seguridad y Democracia , Buenos Aires-based agency that is part of RIAD.
"Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are the top ranking in victimization, but they are the lowest homicide rate," he added.
Victimization is a survey that seeks to know what proportion of the study population has suffered a criminal act, with a methodology endorsed by the UN.
His counterpart is the perception of insecurity index that seeks to determine how people feel safe where you live.
In 2010, a study of AmericasBarometer left Peru as the country where people said they felt more insecure and Argentina in second place.
Argentina: the largest gap
"But Argentina has the largest gap in the region between the public perception and victimization," he told BBC Lodola Germain, one of the authors of the research.
"does not mean that there is a problem, but there are factors that shocked most people, such as media activity," he said.
"To now have news channels more often, the news of a taxi driver (taxi driver) died airs 20 times a day and it seems that were 20 taxi driver (taxi drivers) who died," he added Lodola.
Delving into the discussion about the insecurity in Uruguay, the argument is exemplified Lodola the organizer of the protests on Thursday in Montevideo. Paiva
acknowledged that his group does not handle crime data, but "if you look through the daily media have robberies, bank robberies, victims, crime deaths.
"The statistical information would be studied, we rely on real facts," said Paiva.
Where Paiva and academics agree on is that the statistics disclosed cirminalidad that governments do not necessarily reveal the reality.
"Sometimes reliability is called into doubt by the degree of corruption that may be on the compilation of data. And the level of reporting in Latin America is very low in general, so we do not know its exact magnitude, "said Concaro.
"Hence the calculation of victimization serves to complement the official record," he says.
addition, intercede Lodola is "the use electoral politics by the issue of insecurity that contributes to the perception of insecurity."
For many scholars of social sciences, and specifically the area of \u200b\u200bcrime, there is also a fundamental problem.
Knowing how many dead there, how many violations were reported and how much is recorded robberies in a year or country does not fight crime, they say.
more Policy
effective"When it comes to crime policy this data is of little use. It gives you a descriptive and reliable picture of reality, but does not record the dynamics of the modus operandi of the crime for which no use for policy" says Concaro. Organizations like RIADD
look exactly the rethinking of policies that are more effective in combating crime.
The goal is what is called the criminal market.
"We need to study the criminal market. Who are the actors, what alliances exist, if there coexistence with the State, what are the financial networks. Because it is proven that when you attack a about crime this is finished moving the other way, does not disappear, "says the director of the Instituto Latinoamericano de Seguridad y Democracia.
" But this requires cooperation between government agencies and political will, which has been hard to find " he added.
percentage of victimization 2010
Peru: 31.1%
* Ecuador: 29.1%
* Venezuela: 26.2%
* Bolivia: 26.2%
* Argentina: 26.2%
Source: AmericasBarometer
Perception Index
insecurity
* Peru: 53.8
* Argentina: 52.0
* El Salvador: 49.7
* Venezuela: 49.2
* Belize: 47.4
* Ecuador: 46.6
* Dominican Republic: 46.5
* Bolivia: 46.1
* Mexico: 43.5
* Paraguay: 41.7
Source: AmericasBarometer
0 comments:
Post a Comment