WASHINGTON, November 17, 2011‑Wilson Ramos, a catcher for Washington Nationals baseball team, was found after the abductors seized Ramos at gunpoint outside of his mother’s house in Velencia, a town 90 miles away from the capital city, Caracas which is ranked one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
President Hugo Chavez authorized 300 National Guards and helicopters to find Ramos and he was quickly rescued. But many victims are not so lucky. Ramos incident shines a bright light on the high crime rate in Venezuela, a country with a lax position on violent crime and criminals.
Statistics show that in Venezuela, incidents of kidnapping and homicide are rising meteorically. Since Hugo Chavez became the president of Venezuela, victims reported 618 abduction cases in 2009 and 895 cases in 2010, an exponential increase from 58 cases in 1998.
Prior to the president Chavez’s administration, the crime rate was relatively stable. Experts, however, estimate much higher number of criminal cases as many of them go unreported.
In 2009, kidnappers abducted and killed the cousin of Victor Zambrano, a former major league pitcher, before kidnapping his mother. In 2008, the brother of Henry Blanco, a catcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks was murdered upon abduction in 2008.
Crisisgroup.org reports “Every half hour a person is killed in Venezuela.” (Violence and Politics in Venezuela-August 17, 2011)
Police corruption promotes crime and violence in Venezuela. Scotsman.com writes that rampant corruption is so widespread throughout the Metropolitan Police force in Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, that the department is being disbanded.
A “former head of the investigative police’s anti-kidnapping division” confirmed that eight out of ten kidnapping cases involved police corruption. According to the Guardian, policemen engaged 20% of overall crimes committed in 2009.
In March, one businessman informed the National Guard after three policemen kidnapped him and asked for ransom on a regular basis. The case ended when the National Guard challenged the policemen trying to collect money from the businessman with gunshots in a busy shopping mall in Caracas.
A commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Division notes that many policemen believe that they consider themselves as the law and the authority.
Criminal activities are opportunities to earn hard cash for many Venezuelan police. Local teenagers in a high crime area in Caracas told the Guardian that police sells bullets and weapons to criminals. In some cases, police plant decoys so that people will pay extortion to the police to avoid unwarranted consequences. In 2008, 60 percent of participants in a public survey by Latinobarometro responded that arrest for crimes can be avoided by bribing police.
Richard, a teen living in a poor neighborhood in Caracas says to the Guardian, “if you’re clean, [police] plant stuff so you still have to pay [the bribe].”
Heightening Venezuela’s criminal atmosphere is a bureaucratic government that makes it increasingly difficult for residents to pay their tax and utility bills, much less report a crime according to Cato Institute. Bribery of officials is the only relief that a citizen has, and many simply cannot afford to pay the bribe or lose the days salary spent waiting in line.
Even if a victim of a police crime has the means to pay the bribe to expedite the process, he or she has a small chance to receive justice. According to Human Rights Watch 2009 report, over 6,000 police and National Guard officials were involved in alleged extrajudicial killings between 2000 and 2007. But only over 1,140 had been charged, and 204 were convicted.
Some people claim that poverty and inequality are the root causes of the high crime rates in Venezuela. But, since president Chavez implemented his economic plan in 2003, poverty was reduced from 54 percent to 23 percent of households at the end of 2008 according to Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Extreme poverty has also fallen by 72 percent based on the same research. The inequality measured by Gini index also fell from 48.1 in 2003 to 41 in 2008 in Venezuela.
Mr. Chavez told the Economist that “capitalist value and poverty” causes crime in Venezuela even as the crime rate soars. When critics confront Mr. Chavez he replies that the current high crime rate in Venezuela is the byproduct of the prior administration.
Regardless, Mr. Chavez needs to find a solution if he wants to win over the public support again in 2012.
Youngbee Dale is a freelance writer, researcher, and human rights advocate. You can reach her at ybdale@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter
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