On January 11, 2017, a major event occurred in El Salvador: no one was killed. The news of a day without violent deaths in the country where people kill more often and most of all in the world has swept across the globe. Usually about ten people are killed every day in the country. On less fortunate days, this number increases by about three times. Death surprises no one in El Salvador. It is read about every day in the newspapers, told on the radio, shown on television, it is discussed at dinner. Therefore, January 11 really became the day that was worth celebrating, remembering and understanding what exactly made possible a whole day without killings.

Latin America is the region with the highest level of urbanization in the developing world. By the beginning of this century, three-quarters of its population lived in cities – almost twice as many as in Asia and Africa. In addition, mass migration from the village occurred much faster than in other parts of the world. Social stratification, unemployment, inefficient public administration in the new conditions, the availability of firearms did their job: in 2017, about 140 thousand people were killed in the region. The governments of other developing countries are trying to prevent a repetition of the Latin American scenario.

Experts warn that despite the general similarity of the countries of the region, the situation in Central and South America is different, crime is fought here with different methods and with different success. In the south of the continent, the situation is better: in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay, there were up to ten murders per 100,2017 inhabitants in 50, while in El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela - more than <>. If the lessons of countries that are close to breaking the vicious circle are taken into account, all of Latin America will have a chance.

The independent research organization The Small Arms Survey has calculated several possible scenarios for the development of events by 2030. First, the trend doesn't change. Second, countries in which the situation is particularly difficult are gradually adopting the experience of those where crime is fought more successfully. Third, the success of states where the number of murders has been reduced will be temporary, and they will slide to the level of Honduras and El Salvador. The difference between the first and third option is estimated at 2.6 million lives.

Learn from New York
The heyday of crime in Latin America fell on its decline in developed countries - in particular, in the United States. There, by 1990, the number of murders on the streets had dropped dramatically. Sociologists explained this, among other things, by issuing more convictions, but this argument did not look convincing. After all, following the increase in the number of prisoners, the number of families in which someone sat also grew, and they turned into a source of new problems.

Developed countries, which eventually successfully coped with the problem, focused on collecting information on crimes. In the U.S., the authorities were able to reduce the number of crimes precisely because they knew where and why they occurred, and could use this data to prevent them. This approach instilled confidence in the police. They began to enjoy the trust of residents of criminal areas, who were now ready to cooperate and share information with the authorities – no one wanted to live among murderers and robbers.

At the same time, such strategies aroused distrust. The "broken windows theory," which argues that petty offenses affect crime rates in general, has been criticized for being too scrupulous: Just because someone threw a cigarette past an urn doesn't mean they'll start shooting tomorrow. On-site searches, which are still actively practiced, for example, in the American capital of Washington, are often criticized by liberal-minded citizens: most of those searched are young Afro- and Latinos.

With all the difference of opinion, these tactics converge in that they are based on specific information collected "in the fields". And they work.

In Latin America, events have evolved differently from the outset. While in the north of the American continent since the 1990s there was a struggle against crime, the south embarked on the path of democratization, developed rapidly and for the time being did not imagine what economic growth would turn out to be. Millions of rural dwellers headed to the cities, becoming the main engine of rapid industrialization. However, the countries, like the authorities, were not ready for mass migration of the population.

There were not enough schools and hospitals, the new townspeople flooded barracks, slums and favelas, from where the path to normal life was a little more winding than from other places. By the 2010s, the bloodshed in some cities had almost equaled what had been happening a decade earlier, when the region was torn apart by internal conflicts.

The main sources of the increase in the number of murders were showdowns between criminal gangs and drug wars. At the same time, both police officers and judges were poorly trained, they were paid little, and they did not refuse bribes. In some places, only one in 20 murders went to trial, and the authorities' penchant for brutal roundups only exacerbated the situation. Overcrowded prisons were hotbeds of new criminal gangs rather than correctional facilities. This led to the fact that a vicious circle was formed: the worse the situation became, the less effective the tough fight against crime was.

Experts are sure of one thing: where there are many murders, they are usually highly localized. According to Robert Mugah of the Brazilian think tank Igarapé Institute, about 80 percent of murders in large and medium-sized Latin American cities occur on just two percent of the streets. At the same time, in order to begin to control what is happening, you need to know what exactly is happening there.

Here, experts say, you can rely on the experience of New York and Los Angeles. All possible information about criminal areas was collected there: where exactly the crimes occur, whether they are related to alcohol and drugs, who suffered, what was stolen from the victim - and so on. The police analyzed this data to understand what to pay attention to. In most cases, this policy was successful: information became the main weapon in the fight against crime.

This is what the power structures of Latin American countries lack. In most of them, such information is not only not taken into account, but is not even collected. At best, the protocol indicates which weapon the murder was committed with, and in the "place" column only the city is indicated.

"This state of affairs is not an obstacle to solving the problem, it is the problem itself," criminologist Lawrence Sherman wrote in a report for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Another possible cause that is almost ignored is abortion. More precisely, their ban in most countries of the region. A few years ago, in the book Friconomics, economist Stephen Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner suggested that depriving girls from dysfunctional families of the opportunity not to give birth affects the growth of crime in the future.

"The most significant effect of the legalization of abortion, which was discovered only after many years, was its impact on crime. In the early 1990s, the first generation of children born after the Roe v. Wade trial reached adolescence. As you know, it is at this age that a person's criminal inclinations usually manifest themselves. However, it was then that the crime rate began to fall. Who was missing from this cohort? Of course, children who had the greatest chance to join the ranks of criminality. An entire generation reached a dangerous age, and crime rates continued to fall. And all because there were no children in it, whose mothers at one time did not want to give birth. So, the legalization of abortion leads to a limitation of the number of unwanted children, while unwanted children increase crime. Consequently, the legalization of abortion leads to a decrease in crime, "- this thesis of the authors of the study was severely criticized, but it is impossible not to take it into account.