Confident that I was dealing with an urban legend, I decided to bust it by searching the statistics. I extricated the data below from a report by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime.
The numbers represent the violent deaths (homicides) per year, for every 100,000 of population.
- Worldwide, the average rate for violent deaths is 7.
- Central America is the second most violent region in the world (after Southern Africa) with a death rate of 29.
- Honduras it the most violent country, at 82. That's pretty bad. It means you have a one percent chance of being murdered every twelve years.
- In the other Central American countries, the rate ranges from El Salvador-66, to Costa Rica-10.
- In Mexico, the rate is 23. (In Oaxaca it is 2.3).
- In other countries of interest, the violent death rates is as follows: US -5, South Korea-3, and Israel-2.
- Looking for a safe haven? The rate in Polynesia is 0.1. Australia and Western Europe tie for second place at 1
Even though the city of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, offers free funerals, I will stay in Honduras less than 24 hours. In other countries I will be careful.
Interesting stats. I would recommend to be attentive rather then careful (tip toeing through a minefield is still more dangerous then going around). There are patterns, both of terrain and mannerism, that when recognized early can help make good decisions. Another way to make the distinction is that being careful can often restrict your trip to predictable tourist activities while being attentive allows you to choose how much adventure you want to get into :)
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