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Crime and violence are amongst the most urgent concerns that the Honduran population face. For several years Honduras has had one of the highest murder rates in world, reaching its peak in 2012 with 20 homicides a day on average. The main causes behind the violence in the country are drug trafficking, which consists on cocaine, heroin and marijuana flow between Latin America and the U.S; and gangs, mainly the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and Barrio 18.

Violence in Honduras increased after the Plan Colombia succeeded and after President Felipe Calderón declared the war against drug trafficking in Mexico. As a result of crime and increasing murder rates, the flow of migrants from Honduras to the U.S. also went up.

Although there have been lots of efforts from the Honduran government and also from countries like the U.S. to work for crime prevention, and although homicide rates have been decreasing since 2012, Honduras is still considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

In 2012 Honduras had the highest murder rate in its history, and highest murder rate in non-war countries. 7172 homicides were recorded and were responsible of 68.9% of external deaths, placing murder as the first cause of death in the country. In 2012 there were 20 homicides a day on average, 6.2% higher than the previous year. The 83.4% of this homicides were committed with firearms.

Since 2011 to 2015 murder rate in Honduras decreased by 30%. Homicides went down from 88.5 per 100,000 residents to 60.0 per 100,000. This decrease in homicides stopped in 2016 when the murder rate does not present any significant differences from 2015. In the first semester of 2016 a partial rate of 14 deaths per day equals the murder rate in 2015.

The decrease in murder rate has been attributed to different reasons such as negotiations and agreements between criminal groups than with government action, economic aid given by United States Agency for International Development  to fund crime prevention programs, or to the Mano Dura laws implemented in 2003.

There have been discrepancies between UNAH’s statistics from those released by the Honduran Security Ministry.

The high majority of murders in Honduras are never punished, this is due to the high levels of impunity in the country, in the last years only 4% of homicides have ended in a conviction. The lack of justice has produced a lack of trust in the police and other authorities figure, which is no good for creating civic participation. The fear and insecurity, created by violence, among the Honduran population have also been an obstacle for organizations focused on crime prevention because there is barely any active or social participation.

By location

Although Honduras is among the most violent countries in the world, crime and murders are not spread around all the country. They are concentrated in mainly two hotspots: San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa. In 2015, these two cities, plus another municipality, La Ceiba, held more than 40% of the homicides in the country. The main reason for the concentrated violence is that these are the cities where most of the majority of Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 members live.

Crime prevention

United States Agency for International Development and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs have joined efforts to reduce the crime rate in Honduras. Crime prevention has been done in different ways.

The U.S. has sent $200 million dollars in aid sent to Honduras since 2009. The economic aid started when the Honduran coup d'état took place and the right wing got to power. In 2015 around $18 million dollars went to the Honduran police and military. However, even though the aid has been constant since 2009, in the summer of 2016 there was a bill introduced in Congress to cut the funding given to Honduras. The reason behind the suspension of the aid is the corruption and human rights violations that the money causes when given to the military or the police.

Other ways in which the aid has been distributed is through programs that identify children who present risk factors of joining gangs (such as a violent family environment, drug or alcohol abuse or having being victim of crime) and giving them counseling. This program, runned by Creative Associates International, has a 77% of success related to amount of children that are do not get involved in crime or substance abuse after going through the program. Another tactic has been creating centers that promote vocational training, these institutions provide mentors to Hondurans, teaches them skills as barbers, electricians or bakers and then helps them to find jobs.

In Honduras, only 6% of collected taxes are spent in programs that reduce or prevent violence. $125 is the amount of money invested by each economically active member of the population (EAP) in terms of the national security budget. In contrast with Nicaragua where each EAP contributes with $497. The difference between homicides rate between these two Central American countries is significant, so it can be argued that investing in security can actually reduce the indices of violence.

Another contribution from the US government is funding the nonprofit Association for a More Just Society which focuses on creating the conditions for crimes to be prosecuted, because the great majority of criminals end up with no punishments.

Effects of crime on migration

The rise of violence has had a considerable impact on Honduran migration. In the past, the reason behind Central Americans traveling to the U.S. was merely economic, young men traveled in search of the American Dream and sent revenues to their families back in Honduras. Today the main incentives of migration are violence and crime. But not only the reasons behind migration have changed, migrants themselves are not longer only men, but women and even children. Whole families travel from Honduras to the U.S. in search for a more peaceful life. By 2015 174,000 people, 4% of the country's households had left Honduras.

For several years Honduras was the Central American country that sent the most unaccompanied children to the United States illegally. But since the murder rate started decreasing the number of children traveling alone has also been reduced by half, for that reason Honduras is now the third country in Central America that sends the most unaccompanied children to the US, sending around 18,000 in 2016.

As a consequence of the increse in the migrant´s flow from the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) Mexico has increased the security and migration laws in its boarder with Guatemala. To stop the large wave of illegal immigrants Mexico implemented the Southern boarder Programme in 2014, which was effective. Between 2013 and 2015 the number of undocumented migrants who were deported was doubled (from almost 87,000 in 2013 to 200,000 in 2015).