Solve murder cases

Currently, there are numerous countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with absurdly high impunity rates. Less than 10% of murders and other violent crimes are solved in some countries, and there are several countries where reaching a 90% impunity rate would be a significant improvement. Nearly every expert agrees that one key step to reducing the rates of violent crime is to reduce impunity.

This is an area where the region should aim big. There is no reason to believe that this problem is unsolvable. Let's flip the current number around and make the goal for every country in the region that 75% of new homicide cases are investigated and prosecuted. Set the timeline at 10 years. 

I'm tempted to say "solve every murder," because the thought of allowing one out of four killers go free is rather depressing. I also hate to say "new homicide cases" because that leaves a lot of cold cases open from the past. Still, I want to set something that is both ambitious and yet still achievable if a significant effort is taken.

Even in the US today, only about 60% of murders are solved according to national police statistics, and in some urban areas that number is under 30%. The US should be a part of this program and would be measured against whether they could reach the goal as well.

Beyond political will, what would it take to get 75% of all new homicide cases solved and prosecuted? I think some of the basics are recommendations that most analysts already know:

1) More and better police

2) More and better prosecutors and judges

3) Improved witness protection programs

4) Improved statistics on violent crime

5) Information sharing within countries and across countries

6) Forensics labs

7) Better technology

8) Etc. I'm sure I'm missing several items

Many of those recommendations are already being nominally implemented by countries, at times with the help of the US and other international donors. I'm sure the first criticism some will have of this post is that "We're already doing x!" One problem here is of scale and ambition. Sure, Mexico (with its impunity rate around 97% according to independent analysts) just funded a new forensics lab and has new police training programs, but does anyone think the resources currently being spent by Mexico and the US will help the country reach 75% of murders solved within 10 years? No. I think setting the ambitious goal should help us realize that the current level of resources spent on these recommendations is nowhere near enough. More needs to be done in all of these areas.

Additionally, the challenge is making these recommendations effective in an environment where corruption is an ever-present problem. To counter this, I'm going to make a more unorthodox recommendation: The hemisphere needs a regional crime-solving unit working in parallel with national authorities. While others have recommended a group similar to the CICIG for Honduras, El Salvador or for the Central American Northern Triangle, I'm recommending setting up a region-wide group that any country can work with. This regional group should include police, investigators, prosecutors, scientists, IT people and some very gutsy leadership. Rather than wait for approval of one or more countries, the hemisphere's leaders (specifically, the US, Mexico and Brazil) should build the group first and give it the resources to start investigations, which should encourage countries to join in.

To summarize:

1) We need to set the ambitious goal to end impunity. My suggestion is 75% of all new homicide cases solved within ten years.

2) We need to collect and allocate the resources to match the goal.

3) We need to organize and fund a regional organization that can investigate violent crimes, preferably in coordination with other governments.

Economic warfare vs food speculators

Recent food price spikes were largely driven by speculators. Another spike is expected in 2013 and there are fears that a food price bubble could impact the entire global supply chain.

Could a Latin American country use deception and economic warfare to fight back? Regulating the speculation market, one of the leading and more sensible recommendations, is playing defense. It will take significant resources while speculators work to get around regulations.

All it takes is a few vindictive leaders with resources and motivation to finally break the speculator's economic games for that war to begin. One leader of a major economy or a few key countries from smaller economies could coordinate to distribute misleading information and try to force speculators into making mistakes. A country attempting to manipulate the market prices to throw off speculators and harm their businesses would be criticized by most major economies, but it's likely they would have reached a point where they don't care.

This sort of deception and economic warfare would be difficult, but not impossible. More troubling, like real wars, the ongoing dispute if done correctly would likely cause world markets to shake violently, leading to a number of second and third order consequences that would likely hurt everyone.

It's best if we don't get to that sort of economic war moment that impacts the food everyone needs. However, the food price speculation debate is usually put in terms of regulate or not regulate. If a group of countries force that debate into terms of regulate or economic warfare, it would draw attention to the issue and create a more likely environment for regulation.

Like most things on this blog, I'm not recommending any country go down this route, just speculating on an out of the box scenario.

Will there be caudillos in 100 years?

For almost the past 200 years, Latin America has transitioned through democracies, dictatorships and numerous points in between. Yet, the concept of caudillo, the charismatic leader, seems to have remained fairly constant throughout. It's a concept that is taught in every Latin American politics, history and literature course.

Is that still true in 2112? Will the region, or parts of it, still be cycling through charismatic populist leaders? This is, of course, an impossible question to answer, but it's fun to speculate. If you believe that progress on better governance can or will happen, then you probably think it is at least possible for the region to move past the caudillo mindset. If you believe that past trends do a pretty good job of predicting future trends, then there's probably more than a few leaders proclaiming themselves the next Simon Bolivar in the century ahead.

Then again, maybe the analytical concept of caudillismo is too simple to use. Today's populist leader isn't the same as the one in 1950 or 1850, but we throw them under the same broad historical framework of "caudillo" to give the analysis a bit of coherence over time. Historians and political scientists may very well use the term caudillo in 2112 to describe some charismatic leader, but it will look nothing like today, much less Facundo.

A parallel OAS, but no presidents allowed

One of the common complains about the OAS and the democracy charter is that it is an organization of presidents. They'll jump up and down if a president is threatened, but they generally ignore cases in which legislatures, judiciaries or civil society is threatened by the executive branch.

This has long been an area for potential reform, but never moves forward. Why? Presidents are the ones in charge and don't want to restrict their own power.

Instead of continuing to try and fail to reform, what if legislatures simply decided to create a separate and parallel organization to the OAS. The legislatures around the hemisphere that wanted to participate could send representatives to a big Summit that paralleled the Summit of the Americas. They could agree to hold meetings and to pass resolutions as a group.

There are numerous political and constitutional challenges to creating such an organization. The first challenge is that presidents wouldn't allow it. Across the hemisphere, presidents would veto or otherwise block any potential legislative agreements to join such an organization. In some places, the legislatures may have to join over the president's objection, which could create tensions.

If just a few countries' congresses could get together to begin the group, declaring it the co-equal branch of regionalism to the OAS and working to fill in the gaps where the OAS fails, it could gain some momentum. They could pressure the OAS to reform its policies or they could just start working on their own to improve hemispheric relations in areas where presidents can't.

At its strongest, it's a regional push against the presidentialism that dominates much of the Americas. Some particularly powerful presidents might even call it a type of regional coup or revolution. At its weakest, the organization fails. But it's not a particularly resource intensive initiative. Why not try to form it and fail rather than list reasons why it won't succeed and never try.

Who will be back in 20 years?

A number of current and recent Latin American leaders were also in power in the 1980's: Alan Garcia, Oscar Arias, Daniel Ortega, Desi Bouterse.

So which of today's leaders have a shot of leaving power and being back around 2030 or so? Age plays an important role in this question, but political strength clearly doesn't. If anything, Alan Garcia and Daniel Ortega prove that a leader can leave in disgrace or face serious scandal and make a political comeback anyway.

Just based on age, top picks should be Mauricio Funes, Laura Chinchilla, Rafael Correa, Ollanta Humala, and Michel Martelly.