Stemming the Tide of Youth Violence in the Northern Triangle

A regional effort is needed to tackle the problem of youth violence in some Latin American countries.
In recent years, a great deal of attention has been paid to the escalating cartel-related violence in Mexico. While this certainly warrants the attention of the international community, the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras continue to receive much less scrutiny, despite experiencing an epidemic of violence of much greater proportions. In 2011, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Honduras led the world in homicides, with 91.6 per 100,000 people. Rates are also alarmingly high in El Salvador and Guatemala, at 69.1 and 38.5 per 100,000 people, respectively.A particularly troubling aspect of this trend is the degree to which youth violence plays a role. A report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that Latin America had the highest levels of youth violence in the world and that the youth homicide rate is more than double that of Africa. A multitude of factors have influenced this trend, with high levels of youth unemployment, inadequate school systems, the abundance of and easy access to weapons and drugs, and the desire for increased social status being the main culprits. The glorification of drug traffickers and gang members, who defy the much-feared police and refuse to suffer from the poverty and exclusion common to their communities, also plays a significant role.In Central America, maras (youth gangs) are responsible for approximately 48 percent of crimes in Guatemala City. In Honduras, maras are being recruited by the Mexican Cartels to kill or intimidate competitors for cheap, further worsening the public security situation in a country where a homicide occurs every 88 minutes. The problem of youth gangs also extends to southern Mexico, mainly in the impoverished state of Chiapas. There, gangs extort, rob, and rape migrants on their way north to the United States, and participate in other criminal activities like drug trafficking.While these reports paint a decidedly bleak picture of the region, all hope is certainly not lost. There are a number of key measures that leaders can and should pursue to reverse these trends and revitalize the region. First, the mano dura approach, which has resulted in the incarceration of thousands of youths for minor infractions like displaying gang-affiliated tattoos, should be discarded. While this approach still enjoys a certain degree of popularity, indiscriminate incarceration has actually reinforced gang structures and increased levels of violence. Leaders should instead take a more nuanced approach that focuses primarily on arresting gang leaders and repeat violent offenders.Second, police reforms must be pursued more judiciously than they have in the past. These reforms must include measures to weed out police corruption while creating a clear delineation between the roles of the police and military. Initiatives must also include efforts to disbar any applicants with questionable human rights records stemming from the region's previous intra-state conflicts. Community policing models, which create collaborative partnerships between the police and the organizations and people they serve, should also be implemented in order to repair the police's badly damaged public image.Third, leaders must bolster support programs that are designed to target at-risk youth. These programs, which often include conflict resolution workshops, jobs skills seminars, and one-on-one or group mentoring, have done much to foster social inclusion and community engagement in countries facing similar issues. In addition to decreasing the levels of violence, these programs would have the added benefit of creating a more productive and educated workforce.It is important that these reforms not be viewed as a panacea for youth violence in the region. Rather, these initiatives are a starting point for engaging communities that have long felt neglected by their political leaders and for restoring a faith in public institutions that has been sorely lacking. Undoubtedly it will take many years for the region’s security situation to fully stabilize, but there is no reason to believe that a swift and forceful regional effort cannot, at the very least, begin to stem the tides of youth violence.

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