Perception of Criminal Insecurity in Vulnerable Districts in Latin America

Abstract

Latin America, the world's most criminogenic region from the perspective of intentional homicide, is also the region with the highest perception of criminal insecurity. This situation negatively affects the quality of life of its inhabitants, influencing their decisions on the use of certain public spaces or the possibility of avoiding them due to the fear of being victims of a crime. This comparative analysis of three cases of intervention through situational prevention strategies and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design at the residential level, both in Chile and Honduras, seeks to establish the existence of a relationship between the socio-spatial modification of the environment and the impact generated from the implementation of these strategies in the levels of victimization, on the perception of insecurity and on the degree of social cohesion of the communities with which we work directly. To achieve this objective, a section was first developed with the main theoretical backgrounds related to Urban Security and the methodological proposal to measure the impact generated by situational prevention strategies and CPTED on intervened areas of the countries already mentioned. Then, the methodology used in this research is presented, which consists of three case studies with similar characteristics to each other, where each of these areas will also have their respective control group. It also includes the information collection techniques used, the design of the samples and the type of research to which this study corresponds. The analysis of the data allowed progress towards preliminary results, which are obtained mainly through the use of descriptive statistics, that is, by crossing variables relevant to the objectives of the research. While for the elaboration of conclusive results, inferential statistics were used through "chi-square", which led to the generation of statistically significant associations between variables, thus allowing evidence to be available impact generated by situational prevention methods and CPTED on the urban safety of the localities involved in both Chile and Honduras.