As Border City Murder Rates Drop, So Do Violence Rankings
For the third consecutive year San Pedro Sula in Honduras has been named the world's most violent city. The ranking is based on homicide rates and is given by the Citizen Council for Public Security, Justice, and Peace, a Mexican think tank focusing on crime statistics.
San Pedro Sula had a homicide rate of 187 murders per 100,000 people in 2013. This was an increase from a rate of 169 in 2012. Boston.com has a photo gallery of images from Jorge Cabrera of Reuters and Esteban Felix of the Associated Press, who documented the violence in San Pedro Sula in March 2013.
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, was a former homicide capital of the world in 2008, 2009 and 2010. As the El Paso Times reports, its ranking has dropped in recent years. It was No. 2 in 2011, then No. 19 in 2012 and in 2013, with 505 reported homicides and a rate of 37.59 per 100,000 residents, Juarez was ranked No. 37.
Acapulco, Mexico, had the third-highest homicide rate at 113. Other Mexican cities on the list were Culiacan at No. 16, Torreon at No. 18, state capital Chihuahua at No. 21, Victoria at No. 22.
Border city Nuevo Laredo did drop from No. 8 in 2012 to No. 30 this year, but as one of the smaller cities on the list the homicides are more likely to reverberate through the community.
The top-ranked United States city was Detroit at No. 24 with a homicide rate of 47 per 100,000. New Orleans was No. 26, and Baltimore was No. 36.
The homicide numbers cited in the Citizen Council for Public Security, Justice, and Peace's report come from INEGI, a Mexican government agency that collects statistical data.
There has long been conflict in the reporting of crime statistics in Mexico, particularly homicides. According to a special report from the El Paso Times, INEGI simply records numbers reported from smaller agencies, but there is suspicion of underreporting.
Mexican media sources have for years compiled their own statistics based on things like news reports and death certificates. El Diario newspaper reported 485 Juarez murders in 2013 and 751 in 2012.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article has been modified to reflect the number of homicides in Juarez in 2013 was 505, according to the INEGI.
Updated 1/17/2014 at 3:39 p.m.
