3 takeaways from the 2024 Global Safety Perceptions Survey

Latin America and the Caribbean remains the region with the worst citizen perceptions of security, according to an annual report, even though the region has improved over the past three years.

The Gallup Global Safety Report 2024 administers and analyzes a survey assessing citizens’ experiences with violent crime (robbery, assault, assault), their perception of safety in general, and their trust in law enforcement during the last year. According to the report, among all respondents surveyed in 140 countries, people in Latin America and the Caribbean feel the most unsafe and have the least trust in the police.

Since Gallup began conducting these surveys in 2015, Latin America and the Caribbean has consistently ranked among the regions with the worst perceptions of safety. Drug trafficking, organized crime and corruption have fueled this feeling of vulnerability among the region’s residents.

Overall, regional figures have shown a slow but steady improvement since 2017. But each year, perceptions of safety vary significantly among countries in the region.

Among 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. On the other hand, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador saw their scores drop, while Venezuela and Mexico maintained their rankings.

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

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

Chile:

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

Citizens’ loss of perception of security corresponds to the growing influence of organized crime in the country. The homicide rate increased 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.

Additionally, the expansion of transnational criminal groups such as Tren de Aragua in Chile has worsened this crisis. There, the gang, originally from Venezuela, became involved in criminal economies such as drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and microtrafficking.

SEE ALSO: How Tren de Aragua controls the fate of migrants from Venezuela to Chile

A clear example of the escalation of criminal activities of transnational groups is the March 2024 kidnapping and murder of a former member of the Venezuelan army in Santiago, Chile, allegedly carried out by Tren de Aragua.

Public unrest has generated growing demand for stronger measures to combat organized crime. In response, the government has stepped up security operations. But some analysts warn of the risks this approach could pose 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 behind South Africa and Liberia. In the Law and Order Index, Ecuador scored 55, one of the lowest scores in the world.

SEE ALSO: Durán: a window into the explosion of organized crime in Ecuador

In Guayas province, one of the country’s crime hotspots, only 11 percent of residents feel safe walking at night, the lowest figure in the world outside active war zones. The results coincide with a survey conducted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in mid-2024, which found that 68% of Guayaquileños do not feel safe in public spaces such as parks, plazas and the streets.

Once seen as an oasis of peace between cocaine-producing giants Colombia and Peru, Ecuador now faces an unprecedented security crisis fueled by drug trafficking and organized crime. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Ecuador has become a key point for cocaine trafficking to Europe, which has contributed to a surge in violence, particularly in cities like Guayaquil, Guayas, where Homicide rates in 2023 have reached almost 50 murders per person. 100,000 inhabitants.

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

El Salvador

El Salvador’s citizens’ perception of security has transformed in recent years. According to the 2024 Gallup Index, 88% of Salvadorans say they feel safe walking alone at night, a figure that sets an all-time high for the country and positions it as one of the safest in the world in terms of public perception .

El Salvador achieved a public order score of 89, the highest score in Latin America and above the global average, even surpassing historically high countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and Spain.

This improvement in figures follows the muscular 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. security, leading to mass warrantless arrests and military intervention in gang-dominated areas.

SEE ALSO: State of (perpetual) emergency in El Salvador: how Bukele’s government brought the gangs under control

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

However, these militaristic policies have also led to human rights violations, such as arbitrary detentions. In November 2023, Dalila Johana Flores, a young woman arrested in January 2023 for alleged gang ties, was released after those allegations were found to be unfounded.

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