Youth Violence in Latin America: An Overview and Agenda for Research

Abstract

It is a little-noted fact that the world has recently undergone a momentous demographic transition, whereby almost half of the world’s population is now under the age 25, with the overwhelming majority of these young people living in the developing world. The consequences of this situation are potentially enormous. As François Bourguignon, the World Bank’s Chief Economist, pointed out at the press conference presenting the organization’s 2007 World Development Report on the “Next Generation,” “Such large numbers of young people living in developing countries present great opportunities, but also risks.”¹ This World Bank report focuses mainly on the potential consequences of deficient education and skills training for a future work force, but there is also an increasingly widespread tendency to blame the so-called youth bulge for the rising levels of violence afflicting many parts of the developing world today (Goldstone 2001; Urdal 2007). Latin America is a case in point in this respect, with youth prominently associated with the region’s high levels of violence, both as victims and perpetrators (Briceño-León and Zubillaga 2002; Koonings and Kruijt 1999, 2004; Weaver and Maddaleno 1999). Certainly, according to the United Nations’ (UN) recently published World Report on Violence against Children (Pinheiro 2006: 357), Latin America suffers the highest regional youth homicide rate in the world. This trend is perhaps particularly evident in contemporary Central America; in El Salvador, for example, 93 percent of all homicide victims in 2005 were between 15 and 17 years old, while 15–24 year olds were deemed responsible for some 60 percent of all homicides in the same year (UNODC 2007).²