HomeNewsAnalysisMapping Guatemala's Murder Hotspots
ANALYSIS

Mapping Guatemala's Murder Hotspots

GUATEMALA / 31 JAN 2013 BY ELYSSA PACHICO EN

An analysis of Guatemala's homicide trends shows that homicides are unevenly distributed across the country, which may point to a spillover of violence from Honduras -- though drug trafficking is not necessarily to blame.

The interactive report, written by security analyst Carlos Mendoza of Central American Business News, and elPeriodico reporter Claudia Mendez, breaks down homicide rates by province, gender, age, motive, and various other factors. Mendoza relied on various sources for his statistics, including the police, the Interior Ministry, and the national forensics institute, Inacif.image 3

The analysis finds that most of the country's violence is concentrated in southeastern Guatemala, near the border with Honduras. Some 79 percent of all homicides take place in 10 provinces in the southeast, which have an overall rate of 59 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Two departments that border Honduras -- Zacapa and Chiquimula -- are in the top three most violent in Guatemala, with murder rates of 74 and 89 per 100,000, respectively.

Unsurprisingly, two northern departments strategic to the transnational drug trade -- Peten (bordering Mexico) and Izabal (which borders Honduras and Belize) -- are also among the top nine most violent departments, with murder rates of 50 and 59, respectively.image 4

Mendoz and Mendez go on to examine some common assumptions regarding trends in Guatemala's violence, including President Otto Perez's statement that between 40 to 50 percent of violence is linked to the drug trade. According to the authors, the president's spokesman explained that Perez quoted the figure from a weekly intelligence briefing by state intelligence agency SIE. As the analysis points out, police statistics say that just 1 percent of violent deaths in Guatemala City were related to the drug trade; at the national level, it is even less.

However, the police statistics may be flawed, as they are based on witness testimony rather than on full investigations. Going by the police figures, the bulk of Guatemala's homicides were due to "personal motives."image 1

The analysis even includes a breakdown for the days of the week and times of day mostly likely to see killings in the country's capital (see graph, right).

InSight Crime Analysis

Mendoza has published a series of critical takes on Guatemala's homicide statistics at his blog, and his collaboration with elPeriodico raises more questions. Perhaps one of his most relevant observations is that those who study the causes of Guatemala's killings are working mostly in the dark. As the police statistics are not based on the outcome of legal cases or on thorough investigations, their data on the motives behind Guatemala's killings is not entirely trustworthy. This makes it difficult to assess to what degree drug trafficking and organized crime account for Guatemala's homicide rate. While Perez apparently obtained his "40 to 50 percent" figure from state intelligence, it is worth questioning how the agency calculated this number.

This wouldn't be the first time that Perez's statistics have clashed with those kept by the police. Five months into 2012, the president and the police were reporting starkly different murder counts.

Mendoza's findings paint a picture of a Guatemala as a country with homicides concentrated in a few select areas, rather than a nation "overwhelmed" by violence. The stats could be read as supporting the argument that Guatemala is suffering from "spillover" violence from Honduras, given that most of Guatemala's killings appear to be concentrated in its southwest region, near the Honduran border.

Homicides have been steadily decreasing in Guatemala: 2012 marks the third consecutive year in which the murder rate has fallen, with a tally of 5,174 killings, or 35 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, almost on par with Colombia, which has seen its murder rate plummet in recent years. Some of these gains can been attributed to reformist Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, who has taken an aggressive stance on tackling organized crime.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COLOMBIA / 28 DEC 2022

Colombian President Gustavo Petro's Total Peace plan faces a very tough road ahead. Can over 20 criminal groups really all…

ELITES AND CRIME / 3 SEP 2021

A Guatemalan court has issued an arrest warrant for exiled anti-corruption prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval, ending any chance that he…

BRAZIL / 14 JUL 2021

Killings connected to a number of military police units in São Paulo fell to zero in June 2021 due to…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

All Eyes on Ecuador

2 JUN 2023

Our coverage of organized crime in Ecuador continues to be a valuable resource for international and local news outlets. Internationally, Reuters cited our 2022 Homicide Round-Up,…

WORK WITH US

Open Position: Social Media and Engagement Strategist

27 MAY 2023

InSight Crime is looking for a Social Media and Engagement Strategist who will be focused on maintaining and improving InSight Crime’s reputation and interaction with its audiences through publishing activities…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Receives Great Reception

27 MAY 2023

Several of InSight Crime’s most recent articles about Venezuela have been well received by regional media. Our article on Venezuela’s colectivos expanding beyond their political role to control access to…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Chemical Precursor Report Continues

19 MAY 2023

For the second week in a row, our investigation into the flow of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of synthetic drugs in Mexico has been cited by multiple regional media…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Chemical Precursor Report Widely Cited

THE ORGANIZATION / 12 MAY 2023

We are proud to see that our recently published investigation into the supply chain of chemical precursors feeding Mexico’s synthetic drug production has been warmly received.