Central America’s Violent Northern Triangle - What keeps Nicaragua so much safer? (crime, cost)
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When I think of gang-culture in Latin America; I generally think of El Salvador as being #1. It looks like it still is, I didn't expect Honduras & Guatamala being so close, and Nicaragua so distant.
What are your thoughts? What might keep Nicaragua from late being the next in-line? I think it's the different gov't, etc. But what keeps a different type of gov't from keeping things more under control in one place, and not so much in a different place?
Most of the L.A. gang members that were deported in the 1990s and 2000s were from El Salvador, and were deported back to El Salvador where they were put in prison and the culture flourished in that environment. Small country, tight quarters, all those criminals and pandilleros crammed into a small geographic space. If you ignore the gang element, is El Salvador any more corrupt than Nicaragua? Doubtful. All of central America has a lot of corruption, heavily involved in organized crime and drug trafficking. If any of those countries still have active guerrilla groups, then that will skew the numbers.
Permeability of borders. If Honduras is less vigilant about its borders than Nicaragua, that means more gang members from El Salvador (those not in prison) will make their way into Honduras.
If Nicaragua has more money to maintain better border vigilance, then it means fewer gangs moving in from El Salvador. This could be the case. I find it highly unlikely Nicaragua is any "less corrupt" or even "less violent".
I think Nicaragua is still suffering from political instability. Daniel Ortega was the dictator there in the 1980’s. Then he won a free election a few years ago and the people that voted for him are wondering why he doesn’t want to leave power. I wish I can make this up.
That country has remained rather calm in the whole region as far as crime is concerned. What many people say is unlike Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala; Nicaragua doesn't have a massive number of people living in the USA (they mean the ghettoes of that country.) Nicas prefer to migrate within the region, mostly to Costa Rica which shares a border along Nicaragua’s southern part. Not many people in the USA also means not many deportees from American ghettoes and prisons. The end result is not much of a contamination with that country.
Also, I think most of Honduras population (which borders most of Nicaragua’s northern side) and most of Nicaragua’s population is far from each other.
Lastly, Nicaragua is either the poorest or the second poorest country in the Spanish speaking world. Not much incentive to migrate there. Even Venezuelans largely avoid that country (except for Costa Rica and Panama, not many Venezuelans are moving to Central America to the point most countries there don’t have a “Venezuelan problem.”)
By the way, Nicaragua was flourishing until they got an earthquake in the 1970’s that basically destroyed that country’s capital city. It hasn’t been the same ever since. The country still wonders what it would be like if it wasn’t for that earthquake.
Also, I think most of Honduras population (which borders most of Nicaragua’s northern side) and most of Nicaragua’s population is far from each other.
I don't know what the geography of that area looks like but depending on the layout of borders it might be easier or more difficult to get from one to the other. Dunno. Just throwing out ideas.
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Lastly, Nicaragua is either the poorest or the second poorest country in the Spanish speaking world. Not much incentive to migrate there.
Not an incentive for normal people, but definitely a draw for drug trafficking gangs. But my understanding is most of the Salvadoran gangs - at least the ones deported from the U.S. - are locked up in prisons in El Salvador, so they're not going anywhere, just killing eachother in prison.
Most of the L.A. gang members that were deported in the 1990s and 2000s were from El Salvador, and were deported back to El Salvador where they were put in prison and the culture flourished in that environment. Small country, tight quarters, all those criminals and pandilleros crammed into a small geographic space. If you ignore the gang element, is El Salvador any more corrupt than Nicaragua? Doubtful. All of central America has a lot of corruption, heavily involved in organized crime and drug trafficking. If any of those countries still have active guerrilla groups, then that will skew the numbers.
Permeability of borders. If Honduras is less vigilant about its borders than Nicaragua, that means more gang members from El Salvador (those not in prison) will make their way into Honduras.
If Nicaragua has more money to maintain better border vigilance, then it means fewer gangs moving in from El Salvador. This could be the case. I find it highly unlikely Nicaragua is any "less corrupt" or even "less violent".
Summed up nicely. El Salvador was tied at the hip to Los Angeles, but those ties are becoming less and less these days. Honduras and Guatemela also have strong ties to Southern California, so there is that obvious pattern. Nicaraguans city of choice was Miami in the 80s and overall, they had far less refugees than the other three immigrate to the US.
1980s L.A. was about the worse place they couldve chosen.
Maybe the government of Nicaragua doesn't want the data to get out:
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Nicaragua: N/A
In 2017, Nicaragua registered a homicide rate of 7 per 100,000 people, with 431 total murders, continuing a positive trend of lower violence seen over several years.
However, levels of violence soared in 2018 due to the brutal repression of civilian protesters by the regime of President Daniel Ortega. Incomplete statistics of killings have been provided by civil society and non-governmental organizations. The Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (Asociación Nicaragüense Pro Derechos Humanos – ANDPH) recorded in July that at least 448 had been killed and 595 people disappeared. Further information from the group has not been issued since it closed its offices in Nicaragua in August due to consistent government threats.
Summed up nicely. El Salvador was tied at the hip to Los Angeles, but those ties are becoming less and less these days. Honduras and Guatemela also have strong ties to Southern California, so there is that obvious pattern. Nicaraguans city of choice was Miami in the 80s and overall, they had far less refugees than the other three immigrate to the US.
1980s L.A. was about the worse place they couldve chosen.
Lastly, Nicaragua is either the poorest or the second poorest country in the Spanish speaking world. Not much incentive to migrate there. Even Venezuelans largely avoid that country (except for Costa Rica and Panama, not many Venezuelans are moving to Central America to the point most countries there don’t have a “Venezuelan problem.”)
Haiti, followed by Honduras, are the poorest nations in the Western HEmisphere.
Haiti, followed by Honduras, are the poorest nations in the Western HEmisphere.
Yeah, but Haiti isn’t a Spanish-speaking nation. Philippines doesn’t speaks Spanish as a nation, Spanish Sahara has been absorbed by Morocco (though there is a dispute over there), Southern Italy stop being Spanish a long time ago and they don’t speak Spanish over there, and the same with much of The Netherlands. There is one Spanish-speaking nation in West Africa, one mainly in Europe (the original one), and the rest in Latin America.
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