Crime wave, police silence worry Caracas

When thieves shot and wounded Austria's consul in Venezuela as he entered his office Wednesday, it was just the latest in a string of high-profile crimes underlining how dangerous Caracas has become in recent years.

The crime wave sparked massive street protests after police found the bodies of three kidnapped boys and their bodyguard last month, and forced President Hugo Chávez's government into action, rounding up 21 suspects, including six Caracas police officers.

But the quick arrests in the case of the Faddoul children, whose Canadian father owns several shoe stores in Venezuela, provoked more questions -- such as why nothing was done to free the boys before they were killed -- and heightened concern about the Chávez administration's seemingly lackadaisical attitude toward rising crime.

(snip)

In the last year, there have been numerous reports of police and National Guard officers involved in kidnappings, drug trafficking and murder. In central Guárico state, for instance, the governor was linked to police-run death squads last year.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/14711906.htm

that should put an end to Caracas' crime

http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp#USMilitarySpending


Maybe there's a correlation to military spending and crime. :shrug:

If so, then that might explain why Cuba has such a low crime rate (especially violent crime).

lack of a justice system, government repression, and fear.

:rofl:

So, according to your logic, the less repression and the greater the justice system the more crime there is?

Jeezuz, its Rummy logic.

:crazy:

cite a presumed "wave of violent crime sweeping Venezuela" and then proceed to detail the two most recent kidnappings and murders, offering little in the way of statistics. Some claim the government no longer compiles statistics. If there are no statistics, how does one measure an increase in crime? This was in an article from the Guardian:


<http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,1747899,00.html>

Does anyone know of a reliable source that details crime statistics in Venezuela?

n/t

Caracas's 4m people have generated 200 killings a month this year, nearly all done with guns. There were 40 during the single weekend of October 15th and 16th. Official and public outrage ensued. But almost any weekend produces 20-30 such deaths to fill the capital's macabre Monday-morning crime pages: youths killed for their designer sports shoes; shoot-outs between rival drug gangs; muggings after payday.

...

At least the issue is now out in the open: in a recent poll, 45% of respondents named crime as their chief concern, with the cost of living and unemployment only a distant second and third. But how to deal with it? They may be putting the cart before the horse. Most of the violence comes from young men, even boys, in the barrios. Around 60% of Caraquenos live in these slums. Many are people, or their children, who flocked in from the countryside - even from other countries - in the oil-boom days of the 1970s. Then, as a local saying puts it, life was ``easier than a low-hanging mango''. Not now. The economy has shrunk - as has the flow of state handouts.

The economic planning minister, Werner Corrales, says that Venezuela is sitting on a ``social bomb'': unemployment is officially running at 13.5%; half of all jobs are in the informal economy; real income has been falling for 17 years. Mr Corrales recently unveiled a plan that supposedly will turn around the ailing economy and improve the life of the average citizen. It had better work. The interior minister, Ramon Escovar Salom, calls the recent revival of gloomy forecasts of social revolt a ``tropical fantasy''. But the bloody riots of 1989, when unofficial estimates claim that 2,000 people died in the crackdown, are not far from many people's thoughts. Army officers are muttering about police incompetence. The governor of the Caracas federal district fears the stage could be set for vigilantes and death squads. May he be wrong.

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Economist_Articles/venezuela-crime-wave.html

The national police virtually shut down their media office two years ago, and journalists and foreign diplomats alike struggle to obtain any data from the Justice and Interior ministries, keepers of the official crime statistics.

''They have no statistics,'' said one foreign diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue.

n/t