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.

City-state secession

In one of this blog's first posts, I said one possible long-term (100 year) future for the region would be for some countries to split apart with city-states taking a role.

To build on that: What is the first city to secede from its national government in Latin America or the Caribbean?

Here are a few criteria that I think would make it more likely. It would need to be a city that is not the capital or center of national politics. It would probably need to be a city with access to a coastline or at least a border, because being landlocked and surrounded would not be helpful. It would probably also need to be a city that has a different political, economic or social makeup from the capital or the national demographics.

In the context of modern Latin America, there is one city that fits all of those criteria: Guayaquil, Ecuador.  I could easily imagine a narrative that leads to it calling for separation from the national government in Quito in the coming decades.

There are a few other possibilities if you look 50 years out. There are some towns on the Caribbean coast of Central America, particularly in Honduras and Nicaragua, that could hypothetically call for full separation from the national government as they've been generally ignored throughout their history anyway. Rio or Sao Paulo or some cities in Northern Brazil (Recife?) could hypothetically make the attempt, though it's hard to imagine a political future today in which they do. I could also imagine an outlier scenario in which the Yucatan or Baja California areas of Mexico could make that attempt.

None of these scenarios are likely. I don't intend to predict that any of this will occur. However, whatever happens in the next 50 years to the borders of the region, it will be something that is considered an "unlikely" scenario today. Only by looking at the current map and imagining various possible futures can we really think about how Latin America can change 50 or 100 years out.

Could a country's land be bought?

Investors including China and Saudi Arabia have made Latin America part of the global land grab. Plots of land have been purchased or leased directly and indirectly for agriculture and other development. In response, Brazil, Argentina and others have passed laws to restrict foreign ownership of land.

What if a country made the opposite policy, making its land easier to buy for foreigners? And what if there was a rich and willing investor? This creates a hypothetical scenario in which well over 50% of a country's land is purchased or leased by foreign investors. At an extreme, a foreign power or corporation could buy an entire state or province and gain almost full control over it.

Does the rest of the region get a say in this? This is a question that goes right to the heart of the sovereignty debate in Latin America. On one hand, a country should have a right to sell, lease or give its own land to whomever it wishes. On the other hand, the idea that a country could literally sell its own sovereign territory and leave its neighbors dealing with a foreign power controlling a border area impacts regional security.