Uruguay: Homicides fell 11% in 2021: rebounded in the second semester, yet 24% below 2019

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – After almost 2 years, on Tuesday the government celebrated the crime figures released by the Ministry of the Interior, which again showed a decrease in the number of homicides, as well as in reports of robberies, burglaries and cattle thefts, compared to previous years.

“It can be done. Our gratitude to the work of the National Police,” Lacalle Pou wrote after presenting the data, which showed a drop of 11.2% in homicides, 13.5% in robbery reports, 5.6% in burglaries and 39.2% in cattle thefts, and an increase of 0.6% in domestic violence reports, comparing the whole of 2020 with 2021.

The release of data, which has become customary since the health emergency was declared, rekindled the debate on the influence or otherwise of the pandemic on the evolution of each of the crimes.

Anticipating this discussion, Interior Minister Luis Alberto Heber said in a press conference that he was not unaware of the potential impact of the pandemic, but stressed that the comparisons were favorable both in the periods with mobility restrictions and in those without them. “It is 2 years of historical reduction, thanks to the Police. It is an accumulated, consistent and consolidated reduction,” Heber stated.

INCREASE IN THE SECOND SEMESTER

Homicide is the crime that usually attracts the most attention, since, in addition to being taken as the spearhead of criminal analysis, it is subject to fewer distortions than robberies or burglaries, which depend on reports.

Comparing 2021 to 2020, homicides dropped 11.2%, from 338 to 300. When comparing the whole of 2021 to 2019, homicides fell 23.7%. When the second half of 2021 is compared against the same period in 2019, the drop reached 24.1%.

These comparisons were reported by the Ministry of the Interior at the conference and through graphs shared on institutional accounts.

However, the portfolio failed to disclose the comparison between the second semester of 2021 and the same period in 2020, where – according to the data processed – there was a slight increase (5.6%) in homicides.

Taking the figures released by the Ministry of Interior throughout the year – and with the caveat that these numbers are slightly altered when refined – there were 169 homicides in the second semester of 2021, compared to 160 in the same period in 2020.

In line with this calculation, in the last quarter of the year there were 5 more homicides than in the same quarter in 2020 (86 vs. 81), representing a 6% increase.

The Minister highlighted the comparison between the second semesters of 2019 and 2021 (with a drop of 24.1%), as – he said – they are more comparable in terms of mobility, thus minimizing the pandemic factor in the equation. Pre-pandemic mobility levels were only reached in October last year.

According to experts who have analyzed the evolution of crime in several parts of the world, mobility restriction measures have had an impact on crime, albeit of varying magnitudes. In June 2021, Uruguayan researchers Nicolás Trajtenberg and Carlos Díaz cautioned that it cannot be said that the drop in crime was exclusively attributable to the pandemic, nor that restrictions had no impact whatsoever. The experts said that it is very difficult to determine the percentage impact, even in individual cases.

Homicide figures had been at the center of an institutional dispute in recent months. In December, prosecutor Juan Gomez added to the controversy when he announced in an interview that by December 27, 309 homicides had been committed in Uruguay.

Ministry of the Interior Undersecretary Guillermo Maciel said shortly after that there were “differences” in the way of measuring homicides with the Prosecutor’s Office and that the Security Ministry continued to calculate homicides as the Frente Amplio (FA) governments had done. At that time, Gómez said that there had been an “increase” in this crime in recent months.

After the data were released, the Frente Amplio claimed that the figures do not take into account the “increase in violence” that, according to opposition representatives, has been registered in recent times.

“There is a fact about the reality of the increase in violence,” said senator and former Interior Ministry official Charles Carrera. Despite pointing out that it was too early to make an in-depth analysis, since the Observatory of Violence and Criminality’s full report has not yet been published, in his opinion “there is very partial information that prevents analyzing something that our society is suffering, which is the increase in violence.” According to Carrera, this increase began in July 2021, along with the increase in mobility.

The Movimiento de Participación Popular (MPP) senator leads a group that tracks the number of homicides in parallel. Based on this information, Carrera stated that by January 18, 21 homicides had been committed and there are “3 cases pending a Court decision, 3 alleged criminals killed by police officers.” In addition, he stated that there were 30 attempted homicides and 3 femicides.

Sociologist and former director of the Observatory of Violence and Crime in the first government of the Frente Amplio, Rafael Paternain, noted that 2020 and 2021 were “very particular” years and argued that it is not yet possible to assess the impact of the pandemic on the drop in crime in Uruguay.

In addition, he argued that although there is talk of a downward trend in homicides, historically “it is not so.” “The figures are still well above the average of previous years. It is on a downward trend from a peak in 2018 and 2019, but we are far, very far from being in a favorable trend,” he said, adding that the drop began in 2019 and was accompanied by “a direct or indirect impact” of the pandemic.