So it´s the end of the year (almost) - and also almost the end of the first year of the new government in Guatemala. The government got into power with a number of promises to improve security - so I thought I´d have a bit of a search for stats to see what has changed. The governments own reports say that the murder rate has gone down by 13%, and this seems to be echoed by UN figures, which says Guatemala now has a murder rate of 38.5 per 100,000 people. Ever since I´ve been here in Guatemala, it has been around 45 - so this is a great improvement. (For the sake of comparison, Colombia has 33.4, South Africa 31.8, Mexico 16.9, USA 4.2 and the UK 1.2. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate for the full list.) Guatemala was also always in the top 4 on this list - but has now been relegated down to number 8!
Neighbouring Honduras and El Salvador´s rates have got worse - although I´ve also read elsewhere that El Salvador had improved because the 2 main gangs have a truce at the moment.
The British Embassy in Guatemala also report that the impunity rate has decreased from 97% to 72% in 2012.
So sometimes statistics bring good news!
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