Over the past 13 years the num­ber of crimes in Venezuela has grown at an as­tound­ing rate, mak­ing the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic one of the most vi­o­lent and dan­ger­ous places in the world. The US State De­part­ment and Venezuela's in­te­ri­or min­is­ter es­ti­mate that mur­ders oc­cur at a rate of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 65 per 100,000 peo­ple, while some in­de­pen­dent cal­cu­la­tions sug­gest that the fig­ure ac­tu­al­ly ap­proach­es 70. Venezuela now claims the un­for­tu­nate dis­tinc­tion of hav­ing the third-high­est mur­der rate in the Amer­i­c­as, fol­low­ing Hon­duras and El Sal­vador. Just with­in the past year, ac­cord­ing to In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Tareck el Ais­sa­mi, the num­ber of homi­cides in­creased from 14,500 to al­most 19,000. Firearms con­sti­tute the weapon of choice in about 90 per cent of the mur­ders, a fig­ure sug­ges­tive of both the il­le­gal pro­lif­er­a­tion of firearms and the cul­ture of vi­o­lence that has de­vel­oped. The Econ­o­mist re­ports that Venezuela's kid­nap­ping rates sur­pass both Mex­i­co and Colom­bia with over 3,000 in­ci­dents each year. This sta­tis­tic, though, like­ly does not re­flect the re­al­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion, as many homi­cides and kid­nap­pings are nev­er re­port­ed. Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties strug­gle to con­trol the vi­o­lence, large­ly cen­tred in the na­tion's cap­i­tal and on the Colom­bian bor­der, while many gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials have en­gaged in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Ef­fects of the vi­o­lence

As a re­sult of the alarm­ing­ly high num­ber of homi­cides, Venezuela has fall­en in­to what the Unit­ed Na­tions calls the "vi­o­lence trap," ev­i­denced by pub­lic loss of trust in state po­lice forces, pro­lif­er­a­tion of pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty, and an over­whelmed and in­ef­fi­cient ju­di­cial sys­tem. An ex­tra­or­di­nary mur­der rate of 108 per 100,000 has ren­dered Cara­cas, the na­tion's cap­i­tal, an ex­treme­ly vi­o­lent and dan­ger­ous city. As a re­sult of the wide­spread per­cep­tion of cit­i­zen in­se­cu­ri­ty, the pri­vate-se­cu­ri­ty in­dus­try has ex­plod­ed as Venezue­lans in­creas­ing­ly take per­son­al safe­ty in­to their own hands. Cor­re­spond­ing­ly, gun sales have grown ex­po­nen­tial­ly over the past sev­er­al years. The con­stant threat of vi­o­lence is tak­ing a dev­as­tat­ing toll on civ­il so­ci­ety. Venezue­lans have lost pub­lic space in which they can de­bate, ex­press con­cerns, or even gath­er recre­ation­al­ly. In poor­er neigh­bour­hoods, where most of the vi­o­lence oc­curs, the prob­lem be­comes self-per­pet­u­at­ing. As crime oc­curs, ill-equipped Venezue­lan se­cu­ri­ty forces re­spond, lead­ing to more clash­es. Over time, the gov­ern­ment in­evitably los­es con­trol and crim­i­nals face no li­a­bil­i­ty for their ac­tions. Lib­er­ta­dor, a mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty with­in the cap­i­tal presents a per­fect ex­am­ple of this trag­ic phe­nom­e­non. The num­ber of homi­cides in Lib­er­ta­dor, the most vi­o­lent area of Cara­cas, jumped by 64 per cent in just a year, clos­ing out 2011 with a rate of 133 homi­cides for every 100,000 in­hab­i­tants. In­sight Crime re­ports that En­ero 23, one of Lib­er­ta­dor's most vi­o­lent neigh­bour­hoods, in ef­fect has be­come a "mi­cro-state," run by about 300 armed para­mil­i­taries who op­er­ate en­tire­ly out­side of the gov­ern­ment's purview.

These bands of heav­i­ly-armed men (al­so known as colec­tivos) take over im­pov­er­ished neigh­bour­hoods like En­ero 23 and at­tack op­po­si­tion groups, of­ten with the com­plic­i­ty and fi­nan­cial sup­port of the gov­ern­ment. The dis­mal state of the Venezue­lan pe­nal sys­tems fur­ther un­der­mines any po­ten­tial le­git­i­ma­cy of the po­lice and the ju­di­cial sys­tem. The Venezue­lan Ob­ser­va­to­ry of Pris­ons (OVP), re­ports that over 48,600 in­mates have over­whelmed the na­tion's prison sys­tem, which op­er­ates with a ca­pac­i­ty of on­ly 15,000. What re­sults is a sit­u­a­tion not un­like that of En­ero 23. Ac­cord­ing to the State De­part­ment's Hu­man Rights Re­port for 2011, the se­vere over­crowd­ing has led to "harsh con­di­tions due to poor­ly trained and al­leged­ly cor­rupt prison staff as well as vi­o­lence and al­leged ex­tor­tion by guards and in­mates, some gang-re­lat­ed and fu­eled by traf­fick­ing in arms and drugs." The panes, or gang lead­ers, over­see drugs and firearms ex­changes, mak­ing pris­ons among the most dan­ger­ous lo­ca­tions in the coun­try. In 2011 alone, over 560 pris­on­ers died as a re­sult of un­san­i­tary con­di­tions, vi­o­lence, and ri­ots. The in­fa­mous Rodeo de La Plan­ta, a con­flict that start­ed with a fight be­tween two heav­i­ly-armed prison gangs, quick­ly erupt­ed in­to a 27-day bat­tle be­tween po­lice and the in­mates of the La Plan­ta prison last June. At one point, 4,000 mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Guard at­tempt­ed to storm the prison, but on­ly man­aged to re­move about 2,500 in­mates, while the re­main­ing 2,000 locked them­selves in­side. In the end, 34 in­mates died and 87 es­caped, in­clud­ing one of the gang lead­ers and 26 of his clos­est fol­low­ers.

Prob­a­ble caus­es

Ob­vi­ous­ly, there is no sin­gle an­swer as to why crime has be­come so per­va­sive in Venezue­lan so­ci­ety, how­ev­er, one can point to a num­ber of struc­tur­al, in­sti­tu­tion­al, and po­lit­i­cal sources of in­sta­bil­i­ty. With 93 per cent of Venezue­lans liv­ing in cities and a siz­able pro­por­tion of that pop­u­la­tion re­sid­ing in the few largest met­ro­pol­i­tan ar­eas, a num­ber of in­fra­struc­tur­al and so­cial prob­lems in­evitably arise, par­tic­u­lar­ly in poor and over­crowd­ed sec­tors. Vast dif­fer­ences in wealth mag­ni­fy these is­sues and cre­ate ten­sion. Struc­tur­al analy­sis, how­ev­er, on­ly goes so far. As Rober­to Briceño-Leon, a so­ci­ol­o­gist at the Wil­son Cen­ter for In­ter­na­tion­al Schol­ars, notes, tra­di­tion­al eco­nom­ic in­di­ca­tors that tend to mir­ror crime rates do not re­flect the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela. The coun­try's lit­er­a­cy and em­ploy­ment rates have risen while its Gi­ni co­ef­fi­cient (a com­mon mea­sure for in­come dis­tri­b­u­tion) has fall­en, demon­strat­ing grow­ing equal­i­ty. Yet, in spite of these im­prove­ments, vi­o­lent crime has grown ex­po­nen­tial­ly in the past sev­er­al years, sug­gest­ing that the roots of the prob­lem re­side else­where. The con­di­tion of state in­sti­tu­tions, es­pe­cial­ly in the ju­di­cial sys­tem and the po­lice force, tells quite a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, po­lice salaries are small and they have lim­it­ed pres­ence in crit­i­cal ar­eas, es­pe­cial­ly those gov­erned by the op­po­si­tion par­ty.

More­over, un­bri­dled cor­rup­tion plagues the po­lice and armed forces. Even the gov­ern­ment ad­mits that of­fi­cers may com­mit up to one-fifth of all crimes. Un­of­fi­cial­ly, how­ev­er, many sources re­port much high­er rates. Of­ten, these crimes go un­pun­ished, es­pe­cial­ly when high-rank­ing of­fi­cials are the per­pe­tra­tors. Provea, an or­gan­i­sa­tion ded­i­cat­ed to pro­tect­ing hu­man rights in Venezuela, re­ports that from 2010 to 2011, there were 173 deaths re­sult­ing from abus­es by se­cu­ri­ty forces. Very few of these in­stances were even re­port­ed. In­ad­e­quate staffing and fund­ing plague the ju­di­cial sys­tem, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for pros­e­cu­tors to process crimes and in­dict per­pe­tra­tors. A short­age of judges al­so leads to tri­al de­lays and an over­whelmed ju­di­cial sys­tem, the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of which ob­vi­ous­ly ex­tend to the pe­nal sys­tem.

Ac­cord­ing to tes­ti­monies giv­en be­fore the In­ter-Amer­i­can Court on Hu­man Rights, of the near­ly 2,000 crim­i­nal com­plaints that an av­er­age pros­e­cu­tor re­ceives, 50 are in­ves­ti­gat­ed, 20 go to court, and two end in con­vic­tions. Op­er­at­ing un­der such con­straints and pres­sures, the judges and pros­e­cu­tors of­ten on­ly pur­sue the cas­es from which they can de­rive the most prof­it, leav­ing due process by the way­side. The vi­o­lence, per­haps, al­so has roots in the chav­ista pro­gramme and re­flects much of the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal zeit­geist. Vi­o­lent im­agery and lan­guage forms an in­te­gral part of Hugo Ch&aa­cute;vez's regime build­ing. Chav­is­tas, in a re­flec­tion of val­ues, reg­u­lar­ly por­tray and en­cour­age forms of vi­o­lence as an es­sen­tial el­e­ment of the po­lit­i­cal strug­gle. Even a glance at Ch&aa­cute;vez's Twit­ter ac­count, which reach­es over three mil­lion fol­low­ers, re­veals re­peat­ed use of im­pas­sioned and ag­gres­sive rhetoric. There­fore, though it does not ex­plic­it­ly sanc­tion this vi­o­lent cul­ture which is hard­ly con­ducive to democ­ra­cy, the Ch&aa­cute;vez ad­min­is­tra­tion does lit­tle to pre­vent it. Mean­while, the gov­ern­ment of­ten re­frains from en­forc­ing stricter polic­ing meth­ods be­cause ac­tive use of the po­lice and mil­i­tary still car­ries the stig­ma of right-wing gov­ern­ments. With elec­tions fast ap­proach­ing, pol­i­tics in­creas­ing­ly po­laris­es the cit­i­zen­ry, lead­ing to more clash­es in the past year than ever be­fore. Stud­ies in­di­cate that po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty has risen while rule of law, gov­ern­ment ef­fec­tive­ness, voice, and ac­count­abil­i­ty have de­creased sig­nif­i­cant­ly. These in­di­ca­tors echo the find­ings of the 2011 UN glob­al study on homi­cide, which states, "the biggest changes in homi­cide rates oc­cur in coun­tries with a rel­a­tive­ly weak rule of law." The con­nec­tion be­tween chav­ista pol­i­tics and vi­o­lence be­comes even more dif­fi­cult to ig­nore con­sid­er­ing that the largest in­creas­es in crime have oc­curred over the past 13 years, rough­ly the length of Ch&aa­cute;vez's pres­i­den­cy.

Cor­rec­tive ac­tion

While the Ch&aa­cute;vez gov­ern­ment has be­gun to pub­licly recog­nise the prob­lem, its cor­rec­tive mea­sures have tak­en the form of words more of­ten than ac­tion. Iris Varela, the head of a new­ly es­tab­lished min­istry of pen­i­ten­tiary ser­vices, an­nounced pro­pos­als to al­le­vi­ate over­crowd­ing and vi­o­lence in pris­ons last year. These re­forms, how­ev­er, nev­er came to full fruition. More re­cent­ly, the gov­ern­ment in­sti­tut­ed a new round of re­forms, the ef­fec­tive­ness of which should be­come clear in the next sev­er­al months. These in­clud­ed re­stric­tions on arms, lim­i­ta­tions on the num­ber avail­able to po­lice forces and a ban on pri­vate­ly-owned guns with the aim of dis­arm­ing cit­i­zens. Now, on­ly pre-ap­proved groups can pur­chase firearms through the gov­ern­ment ven­dor. Ch&aa­cute;vez has al­so made sev­er­al ef­forts at ju­di­cial re­form by adapt­ing the Pe­nal Pro­cess­ing Code to Venezuela's "cur­rent re­al­i­ty." His al­ter­ations, he ex­plained, will in­volve the in­stal­la­tion of var­i­ous mu­nic­i­pal tri­bunals. The suc­cess or fail­ure of such amend­ments, of course, hinges on Ch&aa­cute;vez's health and the re­sults of the up­com­ing No­vem­ber elec­tion.

This analy­sis was pre­pared by Sarah Slater, re­search as­so­ciate at the Coun­cil on Hemi­spher­ic Af­fairs.