3 Takeaways from 2024 Global Security Perceptions Survey

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Latin America and the Caribbean continue to be the region with the worst citizen perception of security according to an annual report, although the region has improved over the past three years.

The Gallup Global Safety Report 2024 administers and analyzes a poll evaluating citizens’ experiences of violent crime (robberies, assaults, muggings), their perception of safety in general, and their trust in law enforcement over the past year. According to the report, people in Latin America and the Caribbean feel the most insecure and have the least trust in the police out of all the respondents surveyed in 140 countries.

Since Gallup began taking these surveys in 2015, Latin America and the Caribbean has regularly ranked as one of the regions with the worst perception of security. Drug trafficking, organized crime, and corruption have fueled this sense of vulnerability among the region’s inhabitants.

As a whole, regional figures have shown a slow but steady improvement since 2017. But perceptions of security each year vary widely across countries in the region.

Of the Latin American countries included in the 2024 index, El Salvador, Uruguay, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, and the Dominican Republic showed an improvement in their scores compared to the previous year. In contrast, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador saw their scores decline, while Venezuela and Mexico maintained their rankings.

However, the Gallup data is not comprehensive. Not all countries are included in the index, for example, Haiti, which has suffered a severe security crisis since 2021.

Below, InSight Crime analyzes the data from the 2024 report on the three countries in the region with the most noteworthy results: Chile, Ecuador, and El Salvador.

Chile: The 2024 Gallup report reveals that only 36% of Chileans feel safe walking at night, a figure that has fallen dramatically compared to previous years. Gallup calculated Chile’s Law and Order Index score at 68, falling below the global average.

Citizens’ falling perception of security corresponds with the growing influence of organized crime in the country. The homicide rate has grown from 3.2 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2014 to 5.1 in 2022, according to official statistics. The last decade has also seen a 135% increase in kidnappings in Chile, from 361 kidnappings in 2013 to 850 in 2023.

In addition, the expansion of transnational criminal groups such as Tren de Aragua in Chile has deepened this crisis. There, the gang, which originated in Venezuela, has become involved in criminal economies such as drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and micro-trafficking.

SEE ALSO: How Tren de Aragua Controls the Destiny of Migrants from Venezuela to Chile

One clear example of how criminal activity by transnational groups has escalated is the March 2024 kidnapping and murder of a former member of the Venezuelan military in Santiago de Chile, allegedly perpetrated by Tren de Aragua.

Public unrest has generated growing demand for more forceful measures to combat organized crime. In response, the government has stepped up security operations. But some analysts warn of the risks this approach may have for human rights and the country’s democratic stability.

Ecuador The situation in Ecuador is alarming. According to the 2024 Gallup Index, only 27% of Ecuadorians feel safe walking at night, the lowest figure recorded in Latin America and below South Africa and Liberia. On the Law and Order index, Ecuador received 55, one of the lowest scores worldwide.

SEE ALSO: Durán: A Window into Ecuador’s Organized Crime Explosion

In Guayas province, one of the country’s crime hotspots, only 11% of residents feel safe walking at night, the lowest figure anywhere in the world outside of active war zones. The results coincide with a survey conducted by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in mid-2024, which revealed that 68% of Guayaquileños feel unsafe in public spaces such as parks, plazas, and streets.

Once perceived as an oasis of peace between the cocaine producing giants, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador now faces an unprecedented security crisis driven by drug trafficking and organized crime. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Ecuador has emerged as a key point in the trafficking of cocaine to Europe, which has added to a rise in violence, particularly in cities like Guayaquil, in Guayas, where homicide rates in 2023 reached nearly 50 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.

The port of Guayaquil, now a central hub for cocaine exports, has been the scene of a brutal fight between gangs for control of the drug trade. This violence has even reached public servants. On September 12, the director of Guayaquil’s Penitenciaría del Litoral, the country’s largest male prison, was murdered while driving a vehicle.

El Salvador Citizen perception of safety in El Salvador has transformed in the last few years. According to the Gallup 2024 Index, 88% of Salvadorans reported feeling safe walking alone at night, a figure that sets a historical record for the country and positions it as one of the safest in the world in terms of public perception.

El Salvador obtained a Law and Order score of 89, the highest score in Latin America and above the global average, even surpassing historically high-scoring countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain.

This improvement in the numbers has followed the heavy-handed policies implemented by President Nayib Bukele since 2022. Under a repeatedly extended state of emergency, the government has suspended certain constitutional rights and granted additional powers to security forces, resulting in mass arrests without warrants and the intervention of the army in gang-dominated areas.

SEE ALSO: El Salvador’s (Perpetual) State of Emergency: How Bukele’s Government Overpowered Gangs

By the end of 2023, 67.1% of the members of the MS 13, 65.1% of the Barrio 18 faction known as the Sureños and 54.3% of the faction known as the Revolucionarios had been captured by the authorities.

However, these militaristic policies have also led to human rights abuses, such as arbitrary detentions. In November 2023, Dalila Johana Flores, a young woman who was detained in January 2023 for allegedly having gang ties, was released after these claims were proven unfounded.

Featured image: Members of the Chilean Investigative Police make an arrest in 2019. Credit: El País

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