Does the Surge in Disappearances Reflect Gang Violence in El Salvador?

As I mentioned over the weekend, over 2,000 Salvadorans disappeared in 2011. I wanted to follow up on a few things that Hannah Stone at InSight Crime said about these numbers. 

First, she says that 

If the vast majority of those missing are now dead, as El Diario de Hoy reports, then this would increase the country's murder rate, which stood at 65 per 100,000 in 2011, by one-third. This would bring it into line with neighboring Honduras, which has a rate of over 80 per 100,000 -- the highest in the world.

Unfortunately, that's not quite accurate. If we take El Salvador's population for 2011 at 6,162,000 and its murders at 4,354, the country has a murder rate of 71 per 100,000. However, if we add another 2,007 to the murder country's murder total for 2011, its murder rate jumps to 103 per 100,000. I think that would put it in a league of its own. That is unless Honduras has its own problem with disappearances which would bring its murder rate up as well. 

Second, I'm not entirely convinced that the increased number of disappearances is "sign of growing gang violence." They might be. I just want to see some evidence. According to an official at the IML, "maras," were likely involved in three-quarters of the cases. 

However, the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML), in collaboration with the Attorney General's Office (FGR) and the National Civilian Police (PCN), argue that 11% of violent deaths the country were committed by gangs. The PNC, when it presents its own figures, claims that gangs are involved in nearly 30% of murders. The PNC does say that that number will eventually go up with more evidence. Finally, the Public Security and Justice Ministry believes that 90% of the murders in 2011 were gang-related. 

So there we have a range of 11% to 90% of the country's murders are gang-related. Maybe it's 75% as Stone reports, but I just don't really know. And I'm not sure that anyone does. 

Then there's the question of what it means that the murders are gang-related. That's helpful to an extent but I'd like to know more. 

• How many were caused by turf battles between gangs (drug routes)?

• How many were caused by gangs taking care of their own (internal power struggles)?

• How many were caused by initiations where new recruits must kill? 

• How many were just for fun? 

• How many were caused when extortion, kidnapping, and robberies went bad?

• How many were politically motivated murders?

• How many were caused by death squads engaged in social cleansing?

This isn't an exhaustive list by any means. I'd also like to know how each percentage compared to 2010, 2009... Maybe even how El Salvador's situation compares to its neighbors. 

It's just some encouragement to ask what "gang-related" actually means. 

Here's an editorial in La Prensa Grafica calling for better statistics as well. I am definitely more impressed with the questions that are being asked in El Salvador compared to the lack of questioning of official statistics in Guatemala. 

Authorities need to ask the right questions so that they can try come up with the right solutions. They also need a way to measure whether their policies have been effective. Citizens need to have confidence in the statistics that officials provide so that they can hold them accountable come election time.

The raw numbers don't tell us the entire story or violence and crime in Central America. But they are helpful in both diagnosing the problem and measuring the effectiveness of the proposed solutions.