Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves during a public event in San Jose May 8, 2022. Manuel Arnoldo Robert Batalla (Getty Images)
The latest murder caught on camera was committed last week by three men on a motorcycle who approached an SUV in broad daylight in Escazú, a wealthy neighborhood, and shot it, breaking the windows and knocking out the driver. a bodyguard known for his security firms in high circles in Costa Rica.
It happened on Tuesday and the murder raises the number of homicides that could reach the record set in 2017 in 2022 and take the death rate to over 12 per 100,000 population, with the added problem that there are regions where the indicator exceeds 33 exceeds that of the Central American countries of the Northern Triangle or that of Mexico.
“The homicide issue is getting out of hand,” Rodrigo Chaves, president of the country that has been considered the least unsafe in Central America for decades, said weeks ago. “It looks like something that doesn’t look like Costa Rica,” he added, after meeting with presidents of other powers to deal with the wave of insecurity accelerated by the escalation of the drug trade and its acts of hired assassins attribute more than half of the murders. The violence is also more extreme, said Criminal Investigation Director Wálter Espinoza, to MPs: “We have seen burned, decapitated, people who had their eyes gouged out alive and then killed (…) the country has a problem,” said Espinoza.
But the problem goes beyond organized crime and touches on social decay. The press is still talking about the murder of two young people in San Jose by minors who tried to rob them. The trial for the rape and fatal attack on a doctor at the hotel where she was staying in Manuel Antonio, a small tourist town in the Pacific, is also reported daily, in one of the various crimes against women that sparked warnings about the special case have danger for women.
The reaction of the population was not long in coming. 65% consider their country to be “little or not at all safe”, but the difference is striking when comparing the group of women to that of men: 72% of them and 57 of them, according to a report published by the United Nations on Thursday Survey Program for Development (UNDP). 44% of respondents said they rated the likelihood of being attacked with a gun outside their home as high or very high, particularly among women. They feel more likely to be victims of a criminal attack, as has happened to foreigners in coastal areas in recent years, a factor of particular concern to the country’s famed tourism industry, which sells itself with the slogan “pura vida”.
74% of female respondents avoid going out alone at night and 46% try not to go out during the day either. “Nothing can happen to me, but I feel like it’s going to happen to me at any moment and you won’t be able to go home in peace,” lamented Daniela Campos, 19, who tries not to enroll in her English classes at night to avoid risks the economic cost of paying a taxi so as not to be late going to central San José. “My sister is 10 years older and checked in at night, but everything is different now,” she laments.
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Police resources are insufficient. Despite the fact that in Costa Rica the majority of the population still trusts the public authorities, the majority of respondents question their ability and the effectiveness of the judiciary in prosecuting criminals. Households and businesses are now investing more in protective systems, but propensity to own guns is still in the minority: 88% say they don’t own one, and just as many think they are more likely to be a risk factor in domestic violence. “There continues to be support for the role of the state and a willingness to work in an articulate way from within the community space,” said Randall Brenes, human development and governance officer at UNDP’s San Jose office. A segment of the population expresses support for violent options, including 40% who would support the death penalty, according to another poll released weeks ago by a National University institute.
The problem is more complex as it is linked to deteriorating social fabric and wealth inequality, experts warn. The state has lost ground in certain regions of the country where drug trafficking has already penetrated, while the economic situation pushes many young people to commit crimes and leaves the government with limited financial capacity to invest in security and social policies . One of the Chaves government’s proposals is to legalize marijuana for recreational use in order to reduce the profits of criminal groups and divert police efforts to other tasks of greater importance, the president reasoned when announcing his bill, which MPs announced just starting to study. It also intends to tighten controls in the ports of export in the Caribbean, as they are an important exit point for the business established in the country of cocaine trafficking to the United States or Europe, as the gangs take advantage of Costa Rica’s strategic geographical position.
Despite widespread concerns about insecurity, it ranks fourth on the list of respondents’ reported problems in the country, surpassed by the economy (23% poverty across the country), cost of living (7% drop in shopping). power) and unemployment (12%), issues that help professionals explain some of the deterioration in security.
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