Murders in El Salvador increase by over 10%?

On Monday, Salvadoran authorities released an update to the year's murder statistics.

El Salvador saw a post-civil war record number of murders in 2011, with at least 4,308 people killed in a crime epidemic in the country of 6.1 million, police said.

National police announced the figure late Monday, saying it topped the 2009 rate of 4,223 murders, making 2011 the deadliest year in recent memory for a small country still struggling to recover from a devastating civil war.

The latest number reflects a 9.3 percent increase in homicides from the previous year, according to national police director Carlos Ascencio.

We'll have to assume that the numbers reflect up to some date in December, but it's not clear in the article.

The increase in murders from 2010 to 2011 represents an increase of nearly 10%. They don't provide 2010's numbers. What they do provide are those for 2009 and when we compare 2011 to 2009, the increase is approximately 2% higher. Previously 2009 had been the most violent year on record.

However, once you take into consideration the population growth in El Salvador from 2009 to 2011, the murder rate will probably remain the same. (More people, more murders, rate per 100,000 remains the same).So you can look at it as things are getting worse or violence levels have returned to where they were two years ago.

Instituto de Medicina Legal Murder Figures for all but 2011

I don't have PNC murders over time. However, last year La Prensa Grafica provided murder statistics from the Instituto de Medicina Legal in El Salvador. As you can see, its numbers vary slightly from those reported by the PNC.

According to IML, 4,367 people were murdered in El Salvador in 2009. This number is 144 murders higher than that reported by the PNC. We'll have to wait to see whether the ILM also reports an increase in murders and, if so, by how much.

While the figure above does not take into consideration population differences, one can see similar upward trajectories in both El Salvador and Guatemala's total murders up to 2009. Both countries then made progress in reducing those numbers in 2010, but 2011 is a different story. Murders in Guatemala have continued to decrease while those in El Salvador look to surpass its 2009 highs.

How do I read these numbers? Guatemala has made significant progress in reducing the number of murders committed in both 2010 and 2011 (a largely unnoticed story). And in El Salvador, after experiencing some success in 2010, murders are back to where the Funes administration began, maybe even a little higher.