HomeNewsBriefNicaragua Homicide Rate Drops to 11 per 100,000
BRIEF

Nicaragua Homicide Rate Drops to 11 per 100,000

HOMICIDES / 31 MAY 2013 BY MARGUERITE CAWLEY EN

Nicaragua's police chief has attributed a drop in the country's national homicide rate to an increase in police operations, although reports of criminal activity on the coastline paint a different picture of the country's security situation.

According to police, Nicaragua's homicide rate dropped from 12 to 11 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2012, giving the country one of the lowest murder rates in Central America. Police chief Aminta Granera Sacasa said that, in addition, 48 of the country's 153 municipalities experienced no homicides in 2012, while the homicide rate was lower than the national average in 12 departments, as El Nuevo Diario reports.

Granera said that for the first time since the 1980s, police patrols have been implemented in each of the country's municipalities, with some 7,500 anti-crime operations carried out by police, and 15 domestic criminal groups reportedly dismantled. 

InSight Crime Analysis

Historically, Nicaragua has struggled less with crime-driven violence than its Northern Triangle neighbors -- Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador -- which have some of the highest homicide rates in the world. Successful crime prevention schemes -- among other factors -- have allowed Nicaragua to maintain its status as one of the Central American countries most effective at combating insecurity.

The 2012 homicide and crime statistics appear to reflect this, but are not representative of the situation on Nicaragua's coastlines, where there are signs that drug trafficking -- long-present -- is now increasing and evolving. Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast is reportedly becoming an important transit site for drug flights between South America and Honduras, while the South Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAS) saw a 2011 homicide rate far above the national average, at 42.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, attributed largely to organized crime. Meanwhile, the recent dismantling of an international drug trafficking ring reportedly run by Mexico's Zetas indicates a more significant presence of transnational groups than previously thought.

[See InSight Crime's special on organized crime in Nicaragua]

Judicial corruption is also a major problem across the country, with judges and magistrates frequently granting concessions to suspected drug traffickers, including reduced prison sentences.

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

COCAINE / 18 NOV 2022

Ecuadorean prison authorities quietly released Dritan Rexhepi, Albania's most notorious cocaine trafficker, last year.

ARGENTINA / 8 NOV 2022

Argentina’s most violent city, Rosario, looks set to beat its homicide record set one decade ago. But the city’s criminal…

ARGENTINA / 30 SEP 2022

The capture of a young member of the Cantero family, leaders of the Monos, underlines their persistence in Argentina.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…