Are you interested in testing our business solutions? Homicides decreased by 2% . [29] A non-governmental organization known as the Venezuelan Violence Observatory (OVV), which collects crime data from seven different universities around the country, provides data of homicide rates in Venezuela. The 2010 ranking placed Venezuela at number 164, out of 178 ranked countries. Crime in Venezuela is widespread, with violent crimes such as murder and kidnapping increasing annually. The best of the best: the portal for top lists & rankings: Strategy and business building for the data-driven economy: Show sources information Maracaibo, Venezuela. [6] Upon Chvez's death in 2013, Venezuela was ranked the most insecure nation in the world by Gallup. [50] In Venezuela's prisons, inmates will use "telemarketing" strategies, creating fear in individuals so that they will pay before possibly being kidnapped. [96] Videos circulated on social media showing colectivos threatening protesters and shooting in the streets;[97] two protestors were shot. Lesotho (41.2 per 100,000) Lesotho is a small country found in southern Africa. There's a lot of poverty in the country, which can lead to desperate measures taken by some people. The higher the value, the more survey respondents believe it is high in their country. Coronil, F. (1988), World Prison Brief (n/d). [88] An Organization of American States report on human rights violations in Venezuela stated that colectivos murdered at least 131 individuals between 2014 and 2017 during the anti-government protests. If the value is 0, it means it is perceived as very low . [45], In leaked government INE data for kidnappings in the year 2009, the number of kidnappings were at an estimated 16,917, contrasting the CICPCs number of only 673,[43] before the Venezuelan government blocked the data. In the areas where most kidnappings occur, the government set up so-called "peace zones" where official police withdrew and criminal gangs took over;[51] according to NBC News, "experts say the government has armed these groups [who] control large territories, financed through extortion and the drug trade". By one estimate the country has the highest per-capita murder rate in the world. Retrieved from, Last edited on 14 December 2022, at 22:16, United States Drug Enforcement Administration, Minister of the Popular Power for Interior, Justice and Peace, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, "Latin America Scores Lowest on Security", "Venezuela es el pas ms inseguro del mundo, segn un estudio", "With 28,479 killings, Venezuela takes second spot on world murder ranking", "Tres fases de la violencia homicida en Venezuela", "Chavez leaves Venezuelan economy more equal, less stable", "For Venezuela, Drop In Global Oil Prices Could Be Catastrophic", "Why Venezuelans worry more about food than crime", "Looting and violence on the rise in Venezuela supermarkets", "On Venezuela's highways, a disabled truck increasingly means a looted truck", "Venezuela murder rate dips, partly due to migration: monitoring group", "Venezuela, otra vez el pas ms peligroso de Amrica Latina: registr 16.506 muertes violentas en 2019", "Venezuelan beauty queen gets carjacked at gunpoint", "Venezuelans regret gun ban, 'a declaration of war against an unarmed population', "Crime is so bad in Venezuela that even soldiers were ordered to avoid driving at night", "Los venezolanos creen vivir en el pas ms peligroso del mundo", "Reports of kidnapping in Venezuela nearly double in 2016", "Venezuela rocked by killing of beauty queen Monica Spear", "Venezuela se desangra: rcord de homicidios en 2013", "Venezuela's Homicide Rate Rises, NGO's Report Says", "Venezuela, More Deadly Than Iraq, Wonders Why", "Venezuela sufre 2000 muertes violentas por mes", "Venezuela's Maduro launches civilian disarmament plan", "Observer group: Venezuelan homicide rate rose in 2015, rivaling El Salvador as world's highest", "Venezuela first among the most violent countries in LatAm", "Attorney General's UN Gaffe Reveals Venezuela's Record-High Murder Rate Violence at Epidemic Levels Based on Government's Own Figures", "Venezuela's escalating violence seen in killing of Carolina Herrera's nephew", "One in 10 girls sexually abused worldwide: UN", "Venezuela favorece a los familiares de fallecidos que no informan a la prensa", "Hubo 16,917 secuestros en 2009 en Venezuela", "SeguridadPblicayPrivada VenezuelayBolivia", "Venezuela: Gravsima Crisis de Seguridad Pblica by Lexys Rendon", "Segn el Cicpc el 2011 cerr con 1.150 secuestros en todo el pas Sucesos", "Welcome to Venezuela, the kidnap capital of the world", "Taking no prisoners in the kidnap capital of the world: On the streets of Caracas with an elite police squad", "EN EL 2009 SE COMETIERON MS DE 16.000 SECUESTROS EN VENEZUELA, SEGN EL GOBIERNO LOCAL", "Venezuela y los secuestros diarios que no se reportan", "Ubican a Venezuela en el quinto lugar en riesgo de secuestros", "For Venezuelans, Kidnappings Are Simply Business As Usual", "Agentes de inteligencia venezolanos operan bandas de secuestro y extorsin", "FARC Computer Files Are Authentic, Interpol Probe Finds", "$300 Million From Chavez to FARC a Fake", "Interpol Analysis of FARC Laptop Authenticity Will Not "Prove" Links Between Venezuela, Rebels", "Treasury Targets Venezuelan Government Officials Supporting the FARC", "National Assembly removes Justice Aponte Aponte", "Venezuelan official: Ex-judge 'sold his soul' to the DEA", "Corrupt military officials helping Venezuela drug trade flourish", "Fuente AP: Aponte Aponte est en contacto con la DEA. Venezuela crime rate & statistics for 2016 was 58.31, a 12.06% increase from 2015. Deaths in street crime are so common that one of Venezuela's principal NGOs, the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, is launching an advertising campaign featuring . ", "Venezuela election is a high stakes affair for local vigilante groups", "Colectivos de paz accionan armas de fuego en la Rmulo Gallegos ante mirada de la GNB", "Colectivos estaran involucrados e12 homicidios 25/03/14Caracas", "Venezuela violence puts focus on militant 'colectivo' groups", "Nights of terror: Attacks and illegal raids on homes in Venezuela", "OAS says to present evidence of Venezuela rights violations to The Hague", "Colectivos en Venezuela: Organizaciones sociales o criminales? [5] Chvez's government sought a cultural hegemony by promoting class conflict and social fragmentation, which in turn encouraged "criminal gangs to kill, kidnap, rob and extort". Following this year, the population is expected to start growing again for the next few decades. The State Department also states that the "Government of Venezuela does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking" explaining that Venezuelan authorities trained government officials about trafficking, but the Venezuelan government "did not publicly document progress on prosecutions and convictions of trafficking offenders or on victim identification and assistance". In 1990, 31,861 violent crimes, 184,126 property crimes, and 6,405 drug crimes were reported. Due to the Venezuelan government not complying to the standards of stopping human trafficking, the State Department placed Venezuelan on its "black list" as a Tier 3 country, which opened the possibility of Venezuela facing sanctions. [120], Venezuela's judicial system has been ranked the third most corrupt in the world by Transparency International[129] and according to the World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index 2021, Venezuela had the worst rule of law in the world; having the second worst civil justice system in the world and the worst criminal justice system in the world. [63] On 15 February 2014, a commander for the Guard was stopped while driving to Valencia with his family and was arrested for having 554 kilos of cocaine in his possession. [136], The Acarigua prison riot in 2019, left 29 prisoners dead, and 19 guards injured. Edgardo Lander on Reality Asserts Itself (7/9)", "IACHR Reiterates Need to Prevent Acts of Violence in Venezuelan Prison", "Ria colectiva de Uribana cobra dos vidas y deja 128 heridos", "Coliseo en Uribana sigue y llega a 128 heridos", "Venezuela prison riot kills at least 40, including warden", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crime_in_Venezuela&oldid=1127469872, This page was last edited on 14 December 2022, at 22:16. Many people are victimized by crime because of fear and the perceived inability of Venezuela's criminal justice system to prevent crime. Still, if there is a uniting factor, it has to do with Venezuela's searing rate of violent crime, including . [50] Criminals will cut off access to family members and then report to the family that they have been kidnapped, demanding a ransom without actually imprisoning an individual. Profit from the additional features of your individual account. [48] In 2013, consulting firm Control Risk ranked Venezuela 5th in the world for kidnappings, only behind Mexico, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. But drug interdiction efforts and law enforcement pressure . [57], Independent analyses of the documents by a number of U.S. academics and journalists have challenged the Colombian interpretation of the documents, accusing the Colombian government of exaggerating their contents. Homicide rate in Venezuela from 2014 to 2022 (in number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants) [Graph]. While municipal police are tasked with responding to crimes, it is the national police that are responsible for investigating and prosecuting the cases. The facility had been overcrowded by more than three times its designed capacity.[147]. Use Ask Statista Research Service. Crime levels in the Greater Caracas area remain severe and widespread. San Pedro Sula, in the northwest of the country, is at the center of much of this small Central American country's violence. [63], In September 2013, an incident involving men from the Venezuelan National Guard placing 31 suitcases containing 1.3 tons of cocaine on a Paris flight astonished French authorities. [102][103] A 2013 Gallup study showed that only 26% of Venezuelans have faith in their local police. [63] Venezuelan officials have also been allegedly working with Mexican drug cartels. [130], The majority of Venezuelans surveyed in the Rule of Law Index 2015 believed the judicial system was corrupt with 98% believing the correctional system was ineffective while 100% thought the government had improper influence in the criminal justice system. Three in every four Venezuelans live in extreme poverty , a study has said, as a years-long severe economic crisis in the oil-rich nation continues.According to the report, the National Survey of Living Conditions (Encovi . Geography - note. Professor Neelie Perez from the University of Caracas explained how it is difficult for the government to control prisons without resorting to violence, therefore recognizing and legitimizing high ranking prisoners as heads of prisons. [117][104] The United Nations has stated that the Venezuelan government is lacking 20,000 investigative police. Venezuela has a high crime rate. Petty theft often ends in murder. Crime statistics indicate the crime rate rose from 700 per 100,000 population in 1972 to 1,300 per 100,000 population in 1990. [78] In 2013, the government negotiated with large criminal gangs on how to prevent violence and agreed to avoid policing gang territory in what were known as "peace zones", reinforcing criminal behaviors and making gang practices de facto law. They explained that "Weak security, deteriorating infrastructure, overcrowding, insufficient and poorly trained guards, and corruption allow armed gangs to effectively control prisons". Ministra asegura que el sistema penitenciario venezolano es el mejor del mundo", "23 Inmates Killed in Venezuelan Prison Uprising, Says Rights Group", "Venezuela prison riot leaves more than 40 dead", "In Venezuela's prisons, inmates are the wardens", "The Modern History of Venezuela, Why Still So Much Crime? [51][52] Available data underestimates the amount of express kidnapping, where victims are typically released in less than two days after relatives pay a quick ransom. "The perception of petroleum as the cause of Venezuela's corruption had become widespread during this period." Palast suggests that the "300" is supposedly a reference to "300 prisoners" (the number involved in a FARC prisoner exchange) and not "300 million", as Raul Reyes was one of the Farc's main negotiators for prisoner exchanges. [140][141], Edgardo Lander, a sociologist and professor at the Central University of Venezuela with a PhD in sociology from Harvard University explained that Venezuelan prisons are "practically a school for criminals" since young inmates come out "more sort of trained and hardened than when they went in". They also mentioned that hundreds of violent deaths occur at Venezuelan prisons each year. Crime in Venezuela can be attributed to several factors; poverty, retribution, drugs, gangs, and politics. From 1917, "greater awareness of the country's oil potential had the pernicious effect of increasing the corruption and intrigue amongst Gomez's family and entourage, the consequences of which would be felt up to 1935 B. S. McBeth (2002). Most violent crimes in Caracas, especially murder, involve firearms. Prosecutors rarely brought cases against perpetrators of unlawful killings. Between 1998-2006, there were 90.027 of murders in Venezuela. [81] Some weapons given to the groups include assault rifles, submachine guns and grenades. Many unaffiliated criminals are also increasingly involved in kidnappings, either dealing with victim's families directly or selling the victim to terrorist groups. According to United Nations, the homicides rate in Venezuela was 53.7 murders per 100,000 persons in 2012; that's higher than figures for many other Latin American countries, including Colombia . [24] InSight Crime says the crisis has "all too often been obscured by the government's reluctance to release damning crime statistics". Police authorities cite a lack of resources, under-staffing, payroll issues and lack of response by the judicial and corrections systems, as the key reasons why response times are delayed and a significant amount of criminals go unpunished. marked by a further increase in the number and rate of violent deaths" showing that in four years, the murder rate had increased from 25 per 100,000 in 1999 to 44 per 100,000 in 2003. . The crime rate in the United State is 47.77 which is more than 55 countries. [69][70][71][72][73][74], According to the Trafficking in Persons Report 2014 by the State Department of the United States, "Venezuela is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor". [27], In 2010, The New York Times stated that according to news reports, data from human rights groups, such as the OVV's statistics, may actually be undercounting the number of those murdered in Venezuela. [66][67] Due to the fact that the "sobrinos" (nephews in Spanish) of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were arrested for narcotics trafficking, the media described the nephews as the narcosobrinos. Crimes vary widely between states and countries, with crime rates much higher than in the USA's largest . [142], In Venezuelan prisons, inmates partake in gladiatorial matches to settle disputes. A nongovernmental group that tracks crime in Venezuela says the homicide rate climbed in 2015, putting the country on track to be one of the most violent in the world. Areas of Caracas suffer from extreme poverty which provides gangs and criminal elements with an environment that is conducive to crime. In 2015, 17,778 people were murdered in Venezuela; however, the VOV revealed that those numbers were as high as 27,875. Venezuela Crime Rate & Statistics 1990-2023, Venezuela crime rate & statistics for 2017 was, Venezuela crime rate & statistics for 2016 was, Venezuela crime rate & statistics for 2015 was, Venezuela crime rate & statistics for 2014 was. In 2014, the United Nations attributed crime to the poor political and economic environment in the countrywhich, at the time, had the second highest murder rate in the world. Many people are victimized by crime because of fear and the perceived inability of Venezuela's criminal justice system to prevent crime. The discovery of oil worsened political corruption,[98] and by the late 1970s, Juan Pablo Prez Alfonso's description of oil as "the Devil's excrement" became a common expression in Venezuela. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. A lock ( "Homicide Rate in Venezuela from 2014 to 2022 (in Number of Homicides per 100,000 Inhabitants). By 2008, those countries had maintained roughly the same homicide rate while Venezuela's had skyrocketed to 50 murders per 100,000 citizens. Victims do not have a role in sentencing unless they initiate the prosecution. The U.S. Department of State has issued a Level 4 travel advisory for Venezuela, indicating that it is unsafe to travel to the country, and travelers should not travel there. [16], According to Sanjuan, 95% of Venezuela's homicide victims are men with 69% of them being between ages 15 and 34. @media only screen and (min-device-width : 320px) and (max-device-width : 480px) { Overview and forecasts on trending topics, Industry and market insights and forecasts, Key figures and rankings about companies and products, Consumer and brand insights and preferences in various industries, Detailed information about political and social topics, All key figures about countries and regions, Market forecast and expert KPIs for 600+ segments in 150+ countries, Insights on consumer attitudes and behavior worldwide, Business information on 60m+ public and private companies, Detailed information for 35,000+ online stores and marketplaces. A decades-old problem in Venezuela, armed robberies, kidnappings and murders climbed during the 1999-2013 rule of . United States of America. 32 references, 810 Seventh Street NW, Washington, DC 20531, United States, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, United States, Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, United States. [5] By 1993, Venezuela's murder rate stood at 21 homicides per 100,000 people. [55], In 2007, authorities in Colombia claimed that through laptops they had seized on a raid against Raul Reyes, they found documents purporting to show that Hugo Chvez offered payments of as much as $300 million USD to the FARC. [5] In the 1960s following the restoration of democracy, insecurity rose when FALN leftist guerrillas participated in violent confrontations with the government, though such clashes subsided due to lack of public support for the guerrilla movement. ", InSight Crime, Homicide rate in Venezuela from 2014 to 2022 (in number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants) Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/984669/homicide-rate-venezuela/ (last visited March 04, 2023), Homicide rate in Venezuela from 2014 to 2022 (in number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants) [Graph], InSight Crime, February 8, 2023. [78], In the World Report 2014 by Human Rights Watch, the organization stated that "Venezuelan prisons are among the most violent in Latin America". 18 December 2020. An overview of the Petare neighborhood of Caracas, which has one of the highest crime rates, July 29, 2015. [40][41] It was also reported that police would intercept the families of the victims and take them to the library of the University Institute of the Scientific Police (IUPOLC) where authorities offered families ways to "streamline procedures and advise them not to give information to the press in return for their aid". February 8, 2023. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in murders per 100,000 people, the country is surpassed only by Cte d'Ivoire, El Salvador, and Honduras. [19] The Chvez government banned private gun ownership in 2012[20][21] but overall crime rate has kept increasing since. [110] In June 2016, it was reported that the town of Cuman was under effective curfew after an outbreak of mass looting. . [78], Due to the largely unofficial economy that exists in Venezuela in which nearly every citizen participates, organized crime thrived as smuggling has been assisted by Colombian gangs, the Bolivarian National Guard and government officials. The age of criminal responsibility is 18 years. Dec. 28, 2015. Chart. [46] Wealthy Venezuelans invest in armored vehicles and bodyguards, while middle class Venezuelans change routes to work frequently, refrain from wearing jewelry in public, and never travel on foot alone. If you use our datasets on your site or blog, we ask that you provide attribution via a link back to this page. [92] According to the International Crisis Group, colectivos may be involved in drug trafficking, arms dealing, and car theft. Armed assaults and robberies continue to be a part of normal everyday life. Business Solutions including all features. Accessed March 04, 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/984669/homicide-rate-venezuela/, InSight Crime. [Online]. In 2013, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published the homicide report, and Venezuela was positioned as the second highest homicide rate in the world with a 1. Challenging infrastructure problems and prolific corruption within law enforcement and the judicial system, continue to be important factors with regard to crime response and prevention. [5] Following the "institutional crisis" surrounding the Venezuelan government and the socioeconomic issues shown during the Caracazo riots in 1989 and Hugo Chvez's 1992 coup attempts, homicides increased in Venezuela.