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The boy is anxiously waiting to give his testimony. He looks at the camera with curiosity, takes a breath and waits for the horns to quiet down in 23 de Enero – one of the poorest and most populous neighborhoods in Caracas – before he starts talking. “Is it recording? Well, my name is Andrés López, I’m 15-years-old, and the only thing I’d like to change about Venezuela is the fear of violence”, he says. “If you walk down the street, you will be robbed, kidnapped; that’s what I hear my mom say every day. There’s a climate of terror.”

Although social inequality has dropped since Hugo Chávez came to power, insecurity continues to be a central issue – 61% of the Venezuelans think of it as one of the major problems the country faces today, according to the Chilean center of statistics Latinobarómetro. Moreover, it’s the main argument used by the government’s opponents. Some say that insecurity has increased with the election of the current Venezuelan leader; others believe that it has always been an issue.

“There are groups of residents that protect their zones, but in the wrong way, with guns and pistols”, continues Andrés, referring to the armed militia that are posted in the neighborhoods of Caracas. “They end up disseminating terror. There’s no peace in Venezuela”. Indeed, Venezuela is one of the most violent countries in the world, with a homicide rate of 49 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, according to government figures and UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime).

“We can see that, among the ten countries with the highest murder rates, eight are Latin-American, and Venezuela is the fifth, which shows us that social measures are not enough reduce the rates of criminal violence”, recognized Chávez last June, when launching the program Gran Misión a toda Venezuela (Great Mission for all Venezuela), aimed at reducing violence in the country. The total project budget is 287 million bolivars (about US$ 66 million).

“Something between 60% or 70% per cent of the crimes are committed by adolescents. This mission is focused on reducing what we call the production of young offenders, of young people that unfortunately end up committing crimes”, explained the minister of Interior, Tarek El-Aissami. In May, the government announced another public security measure: the prohibition of sales of civilian firearms. “Over 90% of the homicides that happen in Venezuela take place with firearms and that forces us to adopt radical measures”, said El-Aissami at the occasion.

Besides the large amount of weapons circulating, organized crime and police corruption are other concerns. One of the important measures of the Venezuelan government was to create, in 2009, the National Bolivarian Police. The government also launched the Global Index of Law Enforcement Agencies of Venezuela, which has more than 170 indicators to measure efficiency, respect for human rights and a series of other items related to police activity. They also founded the National Experimental University of Security (UNES) that provides college-level instruction to police corps.

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None of those measures were enough to quiet down the accusations from the government’s opponents, who chose public security as their main agenda for the presidential campaign. “Chávez says violence is originated in capitalism, in the movies, in soap operas, in the past governments. But he doesn’t take responsibility”, says Leopoldo Lopez, former mayor of Chacao, director of the Justice First party and one of the main campaign leaders of opponent Henrique Capriles. “It’s obvious that the matter is out of control”.

According to López’s figures, there were 150,000 homicides during 14 years of Cháves’s government – 140,000 of them left unsolved – and a 2500% increase in kidnappings.

An alarming scenario is also laid out by NGO Venezuela Violence Monitor (OVV), accused by the government of being financed by its opponents. According to the NGO, in 1999, the beginning of Chavéz’s mandate, the country registered about 6,000 homicides per year. In 2011, this rate went up 19,300 thousand murderers.

Perception of violence

Research of the Latinobarómetro, nevertheless, states that the increased perception of violence does not reflect the real scenario. The rate of victimization – percentage of the households where a member was a victim of at least one crime in the past 12 months – according to the center of statistics, returned to its historical rate, 31%, in 2011, after reaching its 50% peak between 2001 and 2007. In the same period, though, the perception of violence as the main concern went up from 8%, in 2003, to 61% in 2011.

This disproportion, which government authorities attribute mainly to the focus on the subject by the anti-Chávez media, reverberate differently in the distinct social stratums. Middle and upper classes see violence as the main reason to reject the president of Venezuela. Among the poorest, the responsibility over violence is seen as shared by national government and state and municipal administrations, which, in many cases, are controlled by government’s opponents.

In either case, the more violence became a matter of public opinion, the more violence became a matter of first importance in chavist plans. The release of Gran Misión a toda Venezuela (Great Mission for all of Venezuela) reflects this new approach, but there is argument over the contents of the program.

Chávez’s opponents claim for more restraining action and more police on the streets, besides ferociously pointing their fingers at the corruption in the security system. 

Although the government is presenting politics that strengthen the police system, it continues to connect the fight against crime with the improvement of social indicators, which should be achieved through services and opportunities provided by the State to the most vulnerable neighborhoods.

Andrés Antillano, teacher at CUV (Central University of Venezuela) and a criminology specialist, the solution must be connected to the recovery of the public space. “The origin of violence is social and it’s mainly present amongst the poorest”, he says. “Thus, it must be confronted with social politics and political organization, and combined with police action”.

Translation: Kelly Cristina Spinelli