Geography as a Predictor of Violence in Latin America
Why targeting guerrilla groups and cartels doesn’t stop violence in Latin America – but focusing on geography might | The Conversation | by , , , and
A study featured in the Conversation analyzed patterns of homicide in many Colombian municipalities from 2010 to 2020, and found that environmental and geographic features—coca cultivation, gold mining, and proximity to transportation corridors like roads, rivers, ports, and border crossings—predict local murder rates. These predictions are independent of the presence of nonstate armed actors such as FARC, its dissident factions, ELN, or other criminal syndicates in an area.
Our results showed that environmental and geographic features were significant predictors of the local murder rate, independent of whether organized crime groups were present.
Pires, Spencer, Del Rio, and Guerette found that many municipalities with heavy armed-group presence in eastern Colombia had relatively low homicide rates, while violence hot spots clustered in the western corridor where illicit economic activity and transport routes converge. Violence also spilled over into neighboring municipalities based on nearby coca and mining activity.
Environmental features, it turns out, facilitate much of the violence in Colombia.
The findings challenge the long-standing “kingpin strategy” used against figures like Pablo Escobar and El Chapo, suggesting that removing individual criminal leaders does little to reduce violence if the underlying geographic and economic conditions that make crime profitable remain unaddressed. The researchers argue this dynamic also explains why violence persisted after Colombia’s 2016 peace accord with FARC, as rival groups moved into the vacated territory.
If murder rates are driven by the geographic distribution of illicit economic opportunity, then removing individual criminals from those environments does little to change the underlying conditions that make violence profitable and persistent.
The article thus argues that policymakers ought to prioritize place-based interventions—crop substitution, alternative jobs in mining communities, stronger security in trafficking corridors—over reactive, offender-focused strategies.
Rather, methods that address the underlying conditions that attract organized crime groups may be more effective. This could include crop substitution programs in coca-growing regions, legal job opportunities for mining communities, and a strengthened security presence along trafficking corridors, as well as in areas where the national government has little to no footprint.
They note limitations including reliance on municipality-level averages over the full decade rather than annual, neighborhood-level data, and plan to test whether the same pattern holds in Mexico and Central America.
For the full study, see here in the journal Crime Science.
For SWJ’s coverage of surging crime in Latin America, see here.
