An Institutional Perspective to Understand Latin America’s High Levels of Homicide

Numerous studies have suggested that socio-economic structural factors offer the main reasons for international variations in homicide levels—where socio-economic conditions are better, lower levels of homicide are observed. In countries in Latin America, social and economic conditions have improved, yet high levels of homicide have remained. In this article, we examine a new line of reasoning, hypothesizing that the effectiveness of institutions (such as government justice agencies and the police) and poor controls for corruption are key factors for explaining the high levels of homicide in Latin America. We apply a random effects panel regression using a sample of 54 countries from Latin America and other parts of the world, and data for a 13-year period (2005–2017). We examine the relationships between homicide, government effectiveness, corruption and several structural variables to determine if the relationships between these variables are more apparent for countries in the Latin American region. We find that structural factors play less of a role in explaining the international variation in homicide levels, and that government effectiveness and corruption are significantly related to the high levels of homicide experienced in the Latin America region.