Violent Crime in Nicaragua and the Northern Triangle of Central America

Most of Latin America has left behind decades of civil war, insurgencies, and dictatorships that characterized the region throughout much of the 20^th century. For the three countries that comprise the “northern triangle” of Central America—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—however, democratic governance has been accompanied by levels of violence that rival or surpass those experienced during periods of war. For those countries in the southern part of Central America (Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama), violent crime rates have been among the lowest in the region for decades.

Nicaragua provides an especially compelling mystery. Made famous in the U.S. during the late 1970s and 1980s following the Sandinista revolution and the ensuing contra war, Nicaragua contains many of the structural and historical elements that would lead one to expect the same levels of violence experienced in neighboring countries to the north. In fact, Nicaragua shares a colonial history similar to that of its northern neighbors; similar poverty, employment, and literacy levels; and experience with internal armed conflict—elements often associated with chronic crime and violence.

Poverty and underdevelopment, widespread throughout Central America, are especially acute in Nicaragua. In 2005, 46 percent of Nicaraguans lived in poverty—12 percent lived on less than US$1.25 per day—and the country had devastating unemployment and employment instability.

Looking at general (non-violent, or non-life-taking) crime including theft, drug use, assault, and extortion, Nicaragua does in fact appear very similar to their peers to the north. In the 2008 Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), 16.5 percent of Nicaraguans reported being victimized by a crime; in 2010, 19.2 percent gave the same response. Compare this to Guatemala, where 17.1 percent (2008) and 23.3 percent (2010) reported being victimized; or Honduras, where 13.7 percent and 14 percent were victimized by crime in 2008 and 2010, respectively.

However, in 2012, Nicaragua had a homicide rate of 12 deaths per 100,000 citizens, only a third of Guatemala’s rate of 38 per 100,000 and far lower than Honduras’ tragic 92 per 100,000 citizens—compared to 4.2 in the U.S. and a global average of 6.9. While higher than the global average, Nicaragua’s homicide rate is far below the northern triangle average of 56.

Why then does Nicaragua have a generally high crime rate, but a low murder rate?

While Central America (and Latin America, broadly speaking) has a long history with pervasive violence, the roots of current iterations lie in periods of civil war that raged throughout the region during the late 20^th century.

Hundreds of thousands of Central Americans fled the region, many of which settled in the United States, particularly California. As migrants settled in poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles faced with limited access to work or social services, an inability to speak English, precarious economic conditions, and rampant criminality, large numbers of youth joined gangs. The most prevalent of these were the largely Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, and the ethnically mixed 18^th Street Gang, known as Barrio 18 or simply Mara 18 (M-18).

Following the end of armed conflicts in Central America, many war refugees began returning home. In 14 months after Salvadoran peace accords, 375,000 Salvadorans returned from the U.S. Beginning in the mid 1990s, the United States also began deporting undocumented immigrants en masse, particularly following enactment of the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996. Large numbers of these deportees—20,000 between 2000 and 2004—had criminal, drug or gang related histories. As thousands of young gang associates landed in post-conflict settings beset by rampant criminality, no social support networks, devastated infrastructure and economy, many found themselves drawn to what they knew—crime and theft. Gang membership and criminal behavior was abetted by the widespread availability of firearms left over from the civil wars.

This wave of deportees from the U.S. brought a distinct brand of gang culture, associated with a particular lifestyle, including dress and tattoos. This culture was quickly imitated and adopted by small-time gangs throughout the region, who left their neighborhood-based pandilla identity for a more fearsome and attractive mara identity. As pandillas adopted the symbolic identity of maras, they found themselves drawn into gang warfare, something that increased cohesion among the “cliques” (Spanish clikas or franchises) that happened to share the same name, even when many of their members did not even know each other. This is the story of the northern triangle.

Nicaragua experienced its own civil strife and mass migration, but ended up with very different results. Between 1978 and 1980, thousands of Nicaraguans fled the country as Sandinistas fought and eventually ousted the regime of Anastasio Somoza. Crucially, the identity and class of people who left Nicaragua was very different from the profile of those who fled El Salvador and Guatemala. In the first surge of 1978 and 1979, during the revolution, it was largely wealthy Nicaraguans fearing the socialistic makeup of the Sandinistas, who left for the United States—specifically, Miami. During the Contra war, many more poor Nicaraguans fled the war-torn countryside for nearby Costa Rica. Very few ended up in the gang-ridden barrios of Los Angeles, and thus, really did not associate with the nascent mara culture.

Migration patterns explain why a historic regional phenomenon—pandillas (gangs)—have evolved or been usurped by maras in the northern triangle countries but not in Nicaragua. Nicaraguan pandillas, while engaged in their own mostly petty criminal enterprises and inter-gang conflicts, were not drawn into the all out gang warfare that is such an important part of marero identity—and they are simply less violent.

The effects of immigration, however, do not adequately explain the qualitative difference between pandillas and maras. Government policies towards vulnerable or at-risk groups (and self-declared mareros) in post-conflict transitions and police responses to delinquency and gang activity played a decisive role in both the development of maras and their involvement with violent crime.

In the early years of the new millennium, several countries adopted a series of legislative and law enforcement reform packages widely known as mano dura, or “iron fist.” This shift towards mano dura was decisive in the northern triangle, and contributed to a qualitative change in the nature of youth gangs in the region.

El Salvador began the shift towards mano dura with its Ley anti-mara (Anti-mara law), passed in 2003 under the conservative administration of Francisco Flores Pérez. The law went into effect in July 2003, and by August of the following year, over 19,000 individuals were detained for belonging to a gang. Guatemala and Honduras, facing rampant criminality and rising homicide rates, enacted their own set of anti-gang policies in 2003: plan escoba (“plan sweep” or “operation broom-sweep”) and Cero Tolerancia (Zero Tolerance), respectively.

While the mano dura policies enacted in the northern triangle were frequently popular and in some cases delivered a brief decline in crime and violence, their net effect was to major deteriorations in crime and violence. Honduras enjoyed a brief decline in homicides in 2003 and 2004, but beginning in 2007, the country’s homicide rate rose dramatically from around 45 murders per 100,000 to approximately 92 per 100,000 just four years later—more than doubling in that period.

This trend largely holds for Honduras’ neighbors. In Guatemala, the homicide rate actually increased between 2002 and 2003, and continued to rise until it peaked at just over 46 per 100,000 in 2009; its murder rate has remained near 40 since then. El Salvador however, actually saw its “least violent” year in the past two decades in 2002 (bottoming out at 47 per 100,000), the year before Flores Pérez’ mano dura took effect.

Prisons in the northern triangle became fertile recruiting grounds for large numbers of youth males, already disaffected by poverty, lack of economic or professional opportunity, and the humiliation of being criminalized by the legal system. The qualitative “leap” came when mareros from clikas throughout the region came together in prisons, recognizing a familiar set of symbols and identity—including a history of war with the opposing mara—a nationwide and, arguably, region-wide “institution” began to develop.

The Nicaraguan government, on the other hand, has largely focused its efforts vis-à-vis youth gangs on prevention and rehabilitation. Whereas in the northern triangle, nascent maras consolidated their brand in prisons, reintegration programs built around worker training, education, and demobilization programs stifled the evolution of Nicaraguan gangs. Finally, the complete breakdown of the Somoza regime and the development of a community oriented National Police enabled the state to maintain a large presence throughout most of urban Nicaragua, further inhibiting the large-scale institutionalization of gangs.

At first glance, the rise of maras in the northern triangle seems to have coincided with a dramatic spike in violent crime in the countries where they appear, while neighboring countries in the region (i.e. Nicaragua and Costa Rica) who do not host maras have not seen the same rise in violence. Indeed, a closer look at the fearsome and hyper-violent nature of the maras themselves, added to the fact that mareros are locked in a deadly gang war in a context where involvement in drug trafficking has added enormous arms and resources to the mix would seem to support the idea that maras are directly responsible for most of the violence sweeping the region.

However, a look at the geographical distribution of violence in each country complicates the assumed role of maras in creating the widespread violence apparent in the northern triangle. The distribution of homicides in Honduras, for example, does not clearly match with the largest centers of gang activity. The occurrence of large numbers of violent deaths outside of the major gang centers of San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa, for instance, points to the increasing involvement of narcotics traffickers in rural coastal areas and border departments.

In Guatemala, the rural departments of Zacapa, Escuintla, Santa Rosa, and Chiquimula all have murder rates of at least 75 per 100,000. These departments—Escuintla and Santa Rosa on the Pacific coast; Jutiapa, Chiquimula, Zacapa, and Izabal on the Salvadoran or Honduran border; and Petén, a major destination for illicit air traffic—all lie on major narcotics trafficking routes.

Human rights observers (international and domestic) and NGOs working in Honduras have documented a sharp increase in killings of several vulnerable groups, including journalists, LGBT activists, union leaders, and members of peasant organizations. Their deaths shed significant doubt on the possible involvement of gangs.

A more helpful way to think of the mara phenomenon vis-à-vis violent crime would be as a parallel force—an indirect, facilitating factor in the disintegration of rule of law, rather than the direct cause.

Gangs, including maras, have a corrupting effect on the state, and their ability to function despite mass incarceration of their members is particularly overwhelming for law enforcement and judicial institutions, which has lead to a situation of widespread impunity. 

Impunity is especially rampant in the most violent rural areas of the northern triangle, spaces where the state is largely absent (in the form of institutions, social services, police, etc.), and are filled by a range of illicit actors including gangs and organized crime who have the resources and a demonstrated willingness to kill on a huge scale. Countries in the region, such as Nicaragua, that have been able avoid the mara phenomenon, and perform better in countering impunity, experience lower rates of violent crime.