Crime in Central America
Colburn, Forrest D.
S AN JOSE, COSTA RICA : The telephone rang; Danilo said, "Hello." "This is Barn-Barn. I hear you have lost something." "Yes, my car was stolen." "If you authorize me, if you authorize me,...
...FORREST D. COLBURN'S most recent book is The Vogue of Revolution in Poor Countries...
...In my rural neighborhood of Dulce Nombre in Costa Rica, even the local church was burglarized...
...Other states and the Federal District, home of Mexico City, also report a surge in kidnappings and other violent crimes...
...the police there just take offense at their state being used as a "body dump...
...Twenty-two days after being abducted, Stefano was released, an emotional wreck...
...Alternative explanations are offered...
...2) the movement away from authoritarian rule left weakened institutions unable to fight crime— a poorly trained and ill-paid police force, and judicial and penal systems sorely in need of reform...
...A former mayor of Mexico City said that trying to do anything in Mexico City was like trying to service a jet in midflight and, in fact, success has to date eluded Cardenas...
...the lack of civic education...
...Danilo got a 30 percent discount...
...Colombia's murder rate is nine times as high as that of the United States...
...But he was still surprised by Barn-Bam's audacity when they met: "Before you pay me, let us inspect the car to make sure there is no damage...
...The pernicious effect of crime on economic development is mostly ignored, as is the extent to which democracy's legitimacy depends on its ability to solve problems...
...It would be easier to proceed if we knew just why crime has risen in the last ten to fifteen years in Latin America...
...Hasn't there been an embrace of democracy and economic reform in Latin America...
...And in countries like Honduras and Ecuador, where kidnappings and extortion were rare, such crimes are now common...
...His family was asked to pay two million dollars for his release...
...When presented with a long list of potential obstacles to their activities, business leaders in Latin America reported that their gravest problems are: (1) corruption, (2) inadequate infrastructure, and (3) theft and other crimes...
...Moreover, 80 percent of respondents in Latin America reported that they did not feel confident that the state authorities protected them and their property from criminals...
...Others argue that what is decisive about the neoliberal model is not its economic import, but the extent to which "state capacity" has been undermined, or at least neglected...
...public officials need to think hard about how the surge in crime can be reversed...
...But why is there such a dramatic increase in crime throughout the region, in countries as different from one another as Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, and Argentina...
...In Ecuador the saying is, "The law is for the poncho [that is, the impoverished Indians who wear them...
...and (3) democracy, with its attendant liberalization, creates an "opening" for all sorts of activities, including criminal activity...
...In many Latin American countries, from Mexico to Argentina, there is, in fact, the susDISSENT / Summer 1998 27 picion that the police collaborate or even participate in such violent crimes as kidnappings, as well as more prosaic robberies...
...His "business" had soured only because he became such a celebrated figure —to the point of being asked for his autograph on the streets of San Jose—that the authorities had to act...
...Are there parallels with Russia and South Africa, two countries that have also recently made sweeping political and economic transitions and that also suffer from an increase in crime, much of it violent...
...Bam-Bam, a handsome young man with a ponytail, was finally arrested and given a modest prison sentence...
...Despite the gain of greater macroeconomic stability, especially in the control of inflation, there have been costs: battered social programs, rising unemployment, heightened income inequality, and the championing of a crass materialism...
...How can this surge in crime be explained...
...Building the moral authority of the state is an ambitious and longterm endeavor...
...Danilo handed over the cash...
...dislocations from mass migration and rapid population growth...
...Greater attention to crime is needed throughout the region...
...There was no damage...
...Isn't the region supposed to be off to a good start, finally, on the right road...
...This set of explanations is intuitively plausible...
...Latin American respondents had the highest rate of concern about theft and other kinds of crime: 90 percent of respondents stated that crime is a serious problem...
...Before assuming office as mayor of Mexico City, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the centerleft Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) announced that security would be his top priority...
...namely, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela (and perhaps, too, the Dominican Republic...
...So, the reasoning goes, if you can't get wealthy through privatization of state assets or through buying shares in a shopping mall, you will be tempted to rob someone...
...The kidnappers sliced off a section of his left ear, which they sent to the family...
...If you authorize me, if you authorize me, I will look for it, providing that you pay me a reward of $2,500 if I am successful in finding it...
...Three days later Barn-Barn called and told him that his car had been found and that Danilo must bring $2,500 in cash to a specified location...
...But there are DISSENT / Summer 1998 29 competing explanations and no way to prove their relative merits...
...A different explanation for the rise in crime is based on culture: the collapse of the family...
...It is understandable, surely, that there is still poverty, difficult to eradicate even with the best of economic models and with high rates of economic growth...
...A recent World Bank study titled "Institutional Obstacles for Doing Business" surveyed 3,600 entrepreneurs in 69 countries...
...Mexico's attorney general's office opened an investigation into the Morelos police, declaring that "it appears these individuals are involved in the protection of gangs dedicated to kidnapping and to narcotics trafficking...
...Kidnappings, whether of late-model Toyotas or children, are so common in contemporary Latin America at least in part because of the absence of competent police...
...It seems facile to connect the introduction of MTV music videos with rising crime...
...WHAT IS to be done...
...A telephone call threatened that a finger would be next, then a hand, and so forth...
...What is needed is a "lean but strong" state, capable of fulfilling the traditional responsibilities of government, including, prominently, the provision of public order...
...The rule of law was weak in the region's military governments, and those regimes have bequeathed to today's democracies antiquated laws, poorly trained police forces, and weak judiciary systems...
...The majority of rank-and-file police interviewed said that if they did not rob ordinary citizens and steal from—as well as collaborate with—criminals, they would be unable to support their families...
...Perhaps fault lies with the "neoliberal" economic model, which has curbed the role of the state and increased, in turn, the role of markets...
...Corruption in many public institutions, ministries, agencies, even police forces, is endemic...
...The wave of kidnappings is notable because this crime is rare in most wealthy countries, where good police work makes it all but impossible for perpetrators to avoid capture...
...The governor of the state of Guerrero paid a visit of consolation, but the police were of no help, unable even to tap the phone line...
...Guerrilla movements, civil wars, and military governments all led to violence...
...Indeed, Mexico City is now one of the most dangerous cities in the world...
...for my enemies, the law...
...The first has been weakened in Latin America by the transition from authoritarianism to democracy and the second has yet to be established by the new democracies...
...the priest's microphone and vestments were stolen (the neighborhood reaction: "The thieves will pass directly to hell...
...Those interviewed added that they were not overly concerned with the image they projected...
...Stefano's saga is far from an isolated case...
...Before you go, let me give you some tips on how to protect your car against future theft—although I personally guarantee that your car will not be stolen in the next six months...
...Citizens don't engage in crime for two reasons: (1) the coercive power of the state and (2) the moral authority of the state...
...Although it may be advisable to scale back the state's role in the economy, that should not be taken to mean—as it frequently has— that a weak state is desirable...
...and it is dangerous to augment their ranks with personnel from the armed forces, as has been tried in Mexico and Brazil...
...But he is one of the few ranking public officials in the region to recognize publicly the importance of crime...
...Prominent among his tips was the installation of an alarm, which Barn-Barn said could be done at a local shop where, he concluded, "You can tell them Bam-Bam sent you and you will get a 30 percent discount...
...Her explanations for South Africa are sug28 DISSENT / Summer 1998 gestive also for Latin America...
...their priority was money...
...In Argentina people joke that the national sport is tax evasion...
...But there are ingrained norms and practices in many parts of Latin America that do work against the rule of law and that may provide an amoral staging ground for criminal activity...
...Shortly after Stefano's release, the chief of the neighboring state of Morelos and two of his aides were arrested as they prepared to dump a corpse along a road in Guerrero— the tortured body of a seventeen-year-old member of a kidnapping gang...
...The murder rate in Caracas has increased fivefold in ten years...
...They reported, too, that personal safety and the security of property had decreased over the last decade...
...If one defines corruption as nothing more than "theft and other crimes" by public officials, then the dimensions of the problem are truly staggering...
...ALTHOUGH DATA on crime are often problematic, figures published by the World Bank confirm anecdotal evidence that crime is a serious—and growing—problem in Latin America...
...Crime in Latin America is widespread, a plague on all classes, including the poor...
...Given the sorry condition of many of the police forces and judicial systems in the region, this task cannot be accomplished just by adding to the ranks of the police...
...The only viable short-run policy seems to be effective law enforcement...
...In the slums of Caracas, Venezuela, armed robbers take the shoes from the feet of pedestrians...
...Stefano's father, Alberto, contacted the authorities...
...In ten of the thirteen countries in Latin America that keep credible records, crime has increased substantially in the last ten to fifteen years...
...A ransom was finally agreed upon, and Alberto divided the money (nearly all borrowed), as he was instructed, into two piles: half the sum in pesos and the other half in dollars...
...Ann Bernstein, a South African long involved in the struggle against apartheid and now director of the Center for Development and Enterprise in Johannesburg, has a number of explanations for why crime has dramatically increased in South Africa: (1) apartheid created criminals and fostered crime...
...Perhaps, too, the greater freedoms afforded by democracy, and the attendant constraints on coercion, have been exploited by those tempted by the quick gains of crime...
...Guerrero is likely no different...
...and, among other similarly diffuse forces, the spread of anti-civic norms from the United States, with its "gangsta rap," gangs, drug culture, and rampant consumerism...
...The family asked for a more manageable sum...
...For example, a study conducted in 1996 by Mexico's Secretariat of Administrative Development and Oversight, based on anonymous interviews with police and on payroll information, indicated that police, who earn less than $350 a month, spend four times their wages...
...But how does one explain the rise in crime even in those countries with a history of democracy...
...It was true...
...In Brazil there is an expression, "For my friends, everything...
...Although Danilo could find some humor in his costly encounter with Bam-Bam, other "kidnappings" in Latin America are not so benign...
...Guatemala and El Salvador's rates are fourteen times as high...
...Didn't the 1980s and early 1990s bring an end to thirty years of ideological conflict, of militarism, civil wars, and authoritarianism...
...the secularization of society...
...For example, in Panama and Peru homicides have multiplied by a factor of five...
...Police forces have to be completely rebuilt and judicial systems overhauled —these are among the first reforms that democratic rulers must seek...
...And, in any case, the prominent theories suggest Herculean projects: ending poverty or transforming the culture...
...Some guerrillas and some members of the "security apparatus" have continued to do the only thing they know how to do—use a gun...
...Danilo agreed...
...30 DISSENT / Summer 1998...
...Danilo had two friends, Noel and John, who had recovered their stolen cars after paying a "ransom...
...This past year there have been, according to the governor, over a hundred reported kidnappings in the state of Guerrero...
...His captors took him to a nearby mountain and chained him to a tree, keeping a machine gun aimed at his throat, feeding him cans of tuna fish...
...Stefano drove up to the still-charming Mexican city of Taxco and was abducted at gunpoint...
...Correspondingly, those interviewed in Latin America expressed little confidence in the region's judiciary system...
...So the burden for now falls on making the coercive power more consistent, fair, and effective...
...Those who resist are murdered...
Vol. 45 • July 1998 • No. 3
