Most of Latin America has left
behind decades of civil war, insurgencies, and dictatorships that characterized
the region throughout much of the 20th 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 20th 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 18th 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.
