Yes, and actually we talked about that. In my head when I write women, I am including transwomen (because well they are women) pero I need to be more transparent about that.

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vivir Latino and others. Vivir Latino said: Mexico is Not the Most Dangerous Latin American Country | VivirLatino http://bit.ly/dJ80eG [...]

I’ve a vague idea of why Mexico’s stastistics are lower than than the other nations: Mexico is much bigger, with a significant chunk of the population centered around Distrito Federal, where drug violence is less pronounced. Also, the deaths related to the drug violence seems to be concentrated for the most part to certain geographical regions.

Lastly, you are right–media probably picks up on Mexico more because it is closer and thus more likely to sell news stories than nations further away.

More specifically, the social experiment implented by the Chavez government has wreaked havoc on thesecurity of the system:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/39076195/Violencia-ciudadania-y-miedo-en-Caracas-Roberto-Briceno

For example, when the Chavez administration took power in 1999, there were 25 homicides per 100,000. Since then, the rate has steadily increased, reaching the current number 67.8 per 100k

Anecdotally, a couple years back in Caracas and Maracaibo, I had a couple of conversations with locals, who claimed that the security situation was so bad because the government didn’t invest anything into the system.

Bryan J.

“Poverty is of course a significant factor, but it does not account for differences in violence between, say, Venezuela and nations such as Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia.”

No,Poverty is not just a “significant” factor.
It is overwhelmingly -THE FACTOR.

National differences between Mexican,Venezuelan,Puerto Rican,Bolivian people are largely ludicrous,trivial and irrelevant and more often that not lead to racist interpretations that obscure and hide their principal human similarities… which is that they are all nations and peoples who have suffered tremendously the dangerous and destructive effects of US Imperialism.
Poor and exploited people are the same no matter if they are in Latin America,Africa or Asia.

The analysis of “dangerous” situations in Latin America is not to be found in american bourgeois academic “anthropology” or’”sociology” but rather in a socialist analysis and solution-that is to to change the conditions of poverty by socialist revolution and smashing American imperialism in Latin America.

Statistics and numbers are good indicators and help us follow the destructive effects of US imperialism -it’s NAFTA’s and other dangerous and exploitative policies.But they are not the root explanations for main causes.They are just that ..indicators and they can be useful if they are honest and legitimate and not cooked or spun by the forces and appendages of american imperialism.

Deciphering the particular causes of Latin American national social characteristics of violence and “danger” is placing too much emphasis on american bourgeois academics which is built on a foundation of racist paternalism.these are secondary and minor issues in the understanding of poverty and underdevelopment(over exploitation).
They intentionally and unintentionally ignore the MAIN causes of poverty,violence and danger-US imperialism.

Latin America has had enough of liberal paternalistic racist US “peace corp” and liberal academics types making their racist “diagnosis” of Latin Americans.

Latin America needs socialist revolution..they need to totally drive out American Imperialism.

Not be submissive patients to racist paternalistic american bourgeois academic “physicians”.

His analysis wasn’t empty. He’s saying that the root cause of poverty and other problems in Latin America are always ignored in any analysis of Latin America, and that the root cause is American imperialism. Latin America is always described as dysfunctional, or inherently violent, or underdeveloped, etc but the root cause of the misery is rarely discussed.

As for Chavez, whether or not he’s a real socialist ignores the fact that the US controls the region. Chavez, no matter what knd of leader he is, operates under the shadow of US imperialism and the globalized economy.

I didn’t see Chicano Future Tense dismiss the crimes, I read him saying that overall the cause in crime across and through borders in Latin America is the same. What is empty about that? What analysis are you looking for exactly Bryan?

That last sentence about the empty analysis was my way of not writing vulgarities because the “socialist revolution” as the only way is a bit of a jump.

Mainly, the root cause of violence being attribtued to U.S. imperialism is a conclusory statement that fails to address surely loads and loads of other factors. We are, after all, speaking of not just crime, but violent crime i.e. murders.

The reality is that there are very significant differences in the most violent of crimes from country to country. U.S. imperialism as the root cause does not account for the gigantic gap in murders per capita between Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, and Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru.

Also, take note that under the super-American friendly Uribe administration, violent crime took a precipitous fall. Say what one will about the broader policy prerogatives of the governments, but by ascribing all of the responsibility for everything wrong in Latin America, specifically violent crime, to U.S. imperialism, is to basically give up on reducing violent crime.

Here is an excerpt from that article

Pudiera tenerse la tentación de deriva r, a partir de esta cruda realidad, la conclusión de que la pobreza es la causa de la violencia. Sin embargo, no existe una
correlación tan clara y abierta entre estas dos situaciones, pues los países más pobres de América Latina, como los casos de Haití, Bolivia o Perú, no aparecen entre aquellos que tienen mayores tasas de homicidios.

Translation:
“One could have the temptation to derive, because of this cruel reality, the conclusion that the poverty is the cause of the violence. However, there is not a clear correlation between these two situations, since the poorest countries of Latin America, like Haiti, Bolivia or Peru, are not those nations that have the highest homicide rates”