Violence occurs all over the world, but cities and other urban areas have long been linked
with the worst of it.
So where on Earth is the worst of the worst?
From third world towns to major U.S. hubs, here are some of the world's most violent
cities.
After World War II, Los Cabos’ popularity as a destination holiday spot skyrocketed,
in large part thanks to the patronage of Hollywood stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and John Wayne.
And the 21st century brought this Mexican hotspot another boom in tourism — along
with a plea from the U.S. State Department for tourists to exercise increased caution
when visiting.
While the Los Cabos Tourism Board has invested millions in increasing security, InSight Crime's
statistics state that the number of murders have nonetheless risen almost 300 percent
between 2016 and 2017.
That's triple the national average across the entirety of Baja California Sur, and most
of the violence is connected to the surge in organized crime, which can often spill
out onto the streets.
And here's the thing — these crime waves are also incredibly unpredictable.
In the summer of 2018, The Guardian was reporting that an increased police presence in the resort
town was actually working to decrease instances of crime in the area.
But by early 2019, that lull had ended.
According to the Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice:
"Such is the high level of violence and inter-cartel feuding that increasing numbers of high-ranking
Mexican drug traffickers are surrendering to US police for protection."
Worse still, both Los Cabos and nearby La Paz have seen the splintering of cartels and
an increase in the number of killings of journalists and human rights activists.
Caracas
According to Reuters, Venezuela's crime rate dropped slightly in late 2018, but an annual
report from the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence found the country still had the highest
murder rate in the world: 81.4 per 100,000 people.
And according to The Washington Post, a weird thing is happening in the country's capital
of Caracas.
The streets are empty, criminals can no longer afford weapons, and there's no point in robbing
many of the other city-dwellers, since most people don't actually possess anything of
value.
But the murder rate is still high, and even though theft crimes are down, there's been
an increase in the number of young men killed by police.
Specifically, the problem lies with an elite police force known as FAES, which the government
says is targeting criminals and that the human rights organizations have labelled as a death
squad.
And there's another huge problem in Caracas, too.
Starvation is so rampant that, although people aren't stealing money, they are stealing food.
Restaurants, grocery stores, and anyone carrying groceries or food is a prime target, and scores
of people are being forced into a life of crime driven by their need to put food on
the table.
An average of 73 people a day die in Venezuela, many of them victims of violence spurred on
by circumstance and starvation.
Acapulco
In 2017, The Washington Post called Acapulco "Mexico's Murder Capital," and they really
weren't exaggerating.
The problem has two heads: the major drug cartels and the smaller neighbourhood gangs.
"They decapitate innocent people, they hang innocent people.
They are not cartels, they are criminal groups."
Together, these groups are responsible for extortions, kidnappings, car thefts, human
smuggling, and all kinds of drug-related crime.
Local businesses are forced to pay as much as half their earnings in protection money,
and gunfire is a common sound in the streets.
It's said things started to get really bad back in 2006, when a neighborhood shootout
left corpses in the street and no doubts about the fact that Acapulco had become a major
stop on the drug routes that led to the US.
Consequently, Acapulco is no longer the seaside paradise it once was, and the activity of
rival gangs have driven thousands of businesses out of town.
The President of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Services, and Tourism has even
described the area as being in a state of "mass psychosis."
And sure, things have gotten better recently, but not by much.
As of early 2019, Forbes described Acapulco as being effectively an active warzone, with
countless days punctuated by threats from the city's criminals — threats occasionally
delivered in the form of a decapitated head, or a dead tourist.
St. Louis
When you think of crime-ridden cities in the US, St. Louis, Missouri might not be the first
to come to mind — but according to police data compiled by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
in 2019, not only is gun use on the rise, but violent crimes are more frequently ending
in deaths.
In 2017, the city had the highest murder rate in the country, with 66.1 people per 100,000
winding up as the victims of homicide.
St. Louis mayor Lyda Krewson blamed relaxed gun laws as being a huge part of the problem,
suggesting these laws aren't just making it easier for people to carry guns, but making
work harder for the police, too.
"I think that it makes policing really, really, really difficult as if it isn’t hard enough
already."
Also in 2017, The Guardian looked at data regarding the locations of St. Louis's homicides,
and found they could even pinpoint the street where most of the shootings happened: Natural
Bridge Avenue.
This long stretch of road has been mentioned in song lyrics, and some residents have described
it as feeling like a battlefield in Iraq.
When St. Louis Magazine compiled the crime stats for 2018 and compared them to the previous
year, they found they were down by 6 percent overall, up in certain neighborhoods, and
still pretty horrible.
There were a shocking 23,857 instances of crime reported in 2018, averaging about 65
reports per day.
Montego Bay
In 2018, the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom issued a dire warning to their
citizens who were vacationing in Jamaica: Do not leave your resort.
These warnings came in response to the country's declaration of a state of emergency, kicked
off by a military that was hoping to get a handle on the rampant arms trafficking and
violent gang activity in the area of St. James Parish.
By spring of 2019, the US government was also issuing severe warnings to tourists headed
to the capital of Kingston and resort towns such as Montego Bay.
They cited high instances of armed robberies and sexual assaults, and noted that these
events were happening more and more frequently even within the perceived safety of all-inclusive
resorts.
Even more troubling, some victims who have come forward have claimed the resort properties
themselves have offered free perks in exchange for victims' silence.
According to Business Insider, tourists were warned not to travel at night and to avoid
some neighborhoods completely because of the frequency of gunfire.
On top of that, they were also cautioned that law enforcement was stretched so thin that
the police would be unable to answer many of their calls and reports of violent crimes.
Cape Town
South Africa's problems with widespread violence are very well-known.
According to The Economist, there was a brief lull in violent activity in the years following
their move towards democracy in 1994, but in recent years that violence has once again
skyrocketed — particularly in Cape Town.
The murder rate in Cape Town has jumped 60 percent in the years leading up to 2018, and
in some areas, it's estimated that criminal activity hit 93 percent of households.
That was in 2016, and in 2019, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa sent in the army
after more than 2,000 people were killed over a span of just seven months.
The soldiers were slated to stay on patrol through the streets from July to October,
but residents interviewed by The Guardian insisted this wasn't enough.
Instead, they said that this was just a temporary fix that would do nothing in the long term
to fix the deep racial divide running through the city — or stem the tide of gang-related
violence that is tearing the streets apart.
Incredibly, Reuters reports that the military's move into the streets of Cape Town is really
nothing new for the city.
In fact, soldiers are often deployed during Christmas and New Year, when the crime rate
spikes so high that police need extra help.
Baltimore
In 2015, the death of Freddie Gray dominated headlines across the US.
And in Baltimore, Maryland, it kicked off a wave of violence that has been on the rise
ever since.
According to The Washington Post, there are now too many funerals and trials for the members
of Mothers of Murdered Sons and Daughters United to attend.
In fact, they've had to recruit more and more members who go to as many as four funerals
in a weekend.
The problem isn't just the skyrocketing murder rate, either.
It's also the fact that homicide arrests are down, and the causes of that are many.
Police are getting less and less help from residents, they're severely understaffed,
and riots and protests mean they're hesitant to leave the relative safety of their vehicles.
Experts say Baltimore is ripe for a crime rate that is only going to continue to rise.
Many residents struggle in poverty, segregation is still the norm, and given recent events,
the division between law enforcement and civilians is getting wider and wider.
That means in many cases, police know who the guilty party is, but they can't get an
arrest without witnesses.
Even as they try, riots and rallies turn bloody, and the violent crime rate rises ever further.
New Orleans
Memorial Day in 2019 was a bloody one in New Orleans, when ten separate incidents left
11 people injured and five killed by gunshots.
That raised the monthly number of shootings to 42, the highest in a single month since
the beginning of 2018.
Leading up to that was a weekend of violence that struck the city just days before Mardi
Gras.
For example, five people waiting at a bus stop were caught in the crossfire between
armed robbers and police.
This was just one of almost a dozen shootings, including one involving two teenage victims
and a man who died after being involved in a drive-by.
Law enforcement was quick to reassure residents of their safety, but reports suggest that
the gun violence has become so widespread that it's left a whole generation of young
residents vulnerable to developing PTSD.
"It's like this.
Either you go numb, or you become part of it either way."
Some spots in the city are worse than others, of course — for example, the Magnolia Projects
are well-known as a hotspot for murder, drugs and gang violence.
And inevitably, those who spend their childhoods in these areas are likely to struggle for
the rest of their lives without help.
And in the poorest neighborhoods of New Orleans, help is hard to come by, especially in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — the scars of which are still felt across the city today.
Rio de Janeiro
Brazil has a staggeringly high national murder rate: 27 people per 100,000.
But as of 2019, the city of Rio de Janeiro had gone even further above that, hitting
a murder rate of 39 people per 100,000.
Some have gone as far as to call the city the new murder capital of Brazil — because
the city is failing where the once-equally-violent Sao Paulo is succeeding.
There, increased security and better trained law enforcement has led to a massive drop
in crime, and experts are hoping to learn some valuable lessons that can be applied
to Rio.
But what's causing the violence in Rio de Janeiro?
Since 2016, the city has been hit with a series of misfortunes, including political scandals,
economic collapse, and ineffectual leadership.
Cutbacks have also hit the city hard, with ex-police officers even forming their own
militias and turning to extortion to make their money.
Estimates suggest as much as 40 percent of the city is under the thumb of these militias.
On top of that, what remains of the city's law enforcement have given gangs just enough
room to thrive and grow, and that's led to an unfortunate — and unsurprising — increase
in street violence.
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