Recent events have demonstrated how far the region still has to go in improving transparency and civilian control over the intelligence services.
There are multiple causes for the escalating crime and violence that is sweeping the region and making Latin America the region with the highest murder rates in the world. Narcotics trafficking, weak states, misguided anti-narcotics policies are all partly to blame. But given the numbers of U.S.-purchased weapons turning up in crime scenes in Central America, the U.S.’s lax gun control laws are another.
