It has increased in some unfortunately (Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador) it has however decreased in others. Colombia, a country you name in your example has had a 92% decline in crime since the year 2000[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Colombia#cite_note-au...

Once I spoke to a colombian on Omegle, he suddenly left say 'WTH' and came back saying someone stabbed his car tires. No apparent reason. He said it wasn't uncommon there.

FYI: Chile has lower homicide rate[1] than the US on average (3.46 vs. 5.35) and Argentina is pretty close (5.94).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

“Basically Latin America has been like the entire Middle East for the last 10 years.” This is a gross generalization. There are over 600 million people in Latin America and 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Each has had different levels of development, violence and corruption, and overall are vastly improved over the past 10-20 years. Brazil, the largest country in Latam, despite its problems has still grown GDP per capita almost by 100% since 2006, and is making enormous progress in the fight against corruption with the ‘Car Wash’ investigations. Mexican GDP per capita has also been steadily improving for 20 years. Over time improvements in security will follow.

“The Navy Seals have done training exercises in the favelas of Brazil; it’s that bad.” The US military trains law enforcement and military in many people in many countries, including countries like Australia and the UK.

In a thread about Uber drivers in Brazil scamming, there are people talking about how it's a death sentence to walk into the wrong favela.

Are they wrong? That's not a normal, functioning, society, regardless of GDP.

"A death sentence" is exaggerating but just as in any city of 20m people in the developing world there will be some very dangerous areas.

Just because an enormous city has some dangerous areas does not mean it is not a "normal, functioning, society". It also doesn't mean it should be equated to the middle east, assumed to be the same as the other 32 countries on the continent.

And Rio just had the Summer Olympics.

This is also true in places in the US

Have you been to Baltimore or Detroit?

> Basically Latin America has been like the entire Middle East for the last 10 years.

Have a look at this list (especially during/after the 50s) [1] and tell me what most countries have in common.

> Perhaps this was inevitable.

I very much disagree.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

" After the Soviet Union fell, it didn’t seem like that in Eastern Europe" it was pretty bad after USSR collapsed there were organized crime groups with membership in high thousands. Some of the richest oligarchs in Ukraine and Russia came from those groups including Rinat Akhmetov in Ukraine and a good number of people from putin's inner circle.

Mexico and Brazil are on different continents and are very far from each other.

Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. It's possible, and much better, to correct misinformation without attacking someone for being wrong. Even if you don't owe that person better, you owe it to the community you're participating in.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thank you. The amount of thought, consideration, and effort you put into your moderation is definitely appreciated.