Analysis of the Situation of Violence and Citizen Security, 1st Semester 2020

In this document, UNDP InfoSegura, along with the governmental institutions charged with citizen security in their respective countries, are now focusing on understanding the changes and new dynamics in terms of insecurity and violence as a consequence of the measures that were implemented, using administrative records from institutions responsible for security and justice, complemented with survey results, and big data generated by hotline calls and Internet search engines.

Highlights

During the first half of 2020, the subregion recorded 4,088 homicides, which is 2,043 fewer victims than the same period in 2019. This reduction was almost immediately compounded by the measures restricting mobility and the lockdown that all countries put in place, as of mid-March. Simultaneously, other forms of violence, particularly violence against women, increased in the period under review.

The 33% fall in the number of homicides in Central America and the Dominican Republic in the first half of 2020 is sign of progress toward Sustainable Development Goals 16.1. However, countries still face challenges in getting the number in homicides and other crimes to continue to recede. Analyses also show that violence affects various population groups differently, and is not evenly distributed across territories.

Against this backdrop, the work of collecting and analyzing disaggregated data needs to continue, in order to strengthen gender-sensitive, territorially-targeted public policies for citizen security, prioritizing populations that are being left behind

Further progress will require more specific interventions integrating evidence beyond administrative crime records, such as data from health, justice, education and other systems, allowing for greater levels of disaggregation to reduce the current information gap, particularly in violence affecting women and girls, as well as youth and indigenous populations.

The pandemic context also made it necessary to expedite the digitization of various processes, not only telework, but also data processing and analysis. Digitization has also been fundamental for maintaining strategic communications and in the dissemination of knowledge products. On this matter, UNDP InfoSegura created the DATACTION online sub-brand, in order to emphasize the path from data to action that cuts across all the work undertaken. DATACTION has three outputs at present: DATACTION Webinar, a weekly online seminar; DATACTION Highlight, information briefings on social media to draw attention to citizen security data; and DATACTION Report, a collection of reports that systematize the information shared on the webinar, for instance, this document, as well as the quarterly analysis reports already published a few months ago, and the forthcoming Analysis of Human Mobility, Citizen Security and Sustainable Development.

These, and all UNDP InfoSegura outputs are supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and are the outcome of inter-agency cooperation with local leadership by UNDP offices in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Belize and the Dominican Republic, who work in coordination with the National Civil Police (PNC) of Guatemala, the National Statistics Institute (INE), the Office of Public Prosecutor General of the Republic (MP) of Guatemala, Sub-Secretary of Security for Inter-Institutional Affairs, the Office of Public Prosecutor General of the Republic (MP) of Honduras, National Civil Police (PNC) of El Salvador, Directorate of Information and Analysis (DIA), the Prosecutor General of the Republic (FGR), General Directorate of Statistics and Censuses (DIGESTYC), the institutions that make up the Interinstitutional Technical Commission for Statistics on Coexistence and Citizen Security (COMESCO), the Belize Crime Observatory (BCO), Belize Police Department (BPD), and the Citizen Security and Coexistence Observatory (OSC-RD).  The ultimate goal is ensuring data usefulness, and contributing to making people’s lives better with evidence-based public policies for peaceful, just and inclusive societies where no one is left behind.

See the full analysis below