Since 2000, Guyana has seen a rise in violent crime associated with gangs and organized crime syndicates, which have created drug and weapon problems in the country. Cocaine, trafficked from neighbouring Venezuela, is transited through Guyana en route to Europe and the United States. Gangs also utilize the country’s porous borders with Brazil, a major weapons manufacturer, to smuggle arms into Guyana and ship them to other countries in the Caribbean.

The private security industry has come under considerable international scrutiny due to the highly publicized role it has played in Afghanistan and Iraq (2011).

A little more than a decade after independence and the violence and displacement that accompanied it, Timor-Leste remains a country in transition. While it has stabilized in the post-independence period, the after-effects of the 2006 crisis continue to play an important role in the political debate and security atmosphere in the country. Communal violence remains at times a feature of life in rural areas, and small arms—left over from the pre-independence period and more recently leaked from defence and police forces—sometimes fuel both gang-related and community violence.

Jamaica’s murder rate—62 per 100,000 in 2009— is one of the highest in the world.

The small island grapples with violent crime within a context of gangs, guns, and allegations of political and police corruption.

A joint publication of the Danish Demining Group and the Small Arms Survey.

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By Robert Muggah, Discussion Paper 2004/7, Australian National University.

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Also available in French

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At the initiative of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) will take place in May 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey. A central objective of the process is to ‘redefine how the global community delivers for the world’s most vulnerable people’,  living in areas affected by armed conflict and disasters.

Commissioned by UNDP and co-published with BICC and SEESAC.

Available in: ENGLISH

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Disponible en: FRANCAIS