El Salvador and Honduras look to catch up to Guatemala

Guatemala's homicide rate has decreased for several years now. Honduras and El Salvador are hoping to follow the same trajectory. Honduras's murder rate fell from from the 80 and 90+ per 100,000 people it suffered in 2011 and 2012 (perhaps as high as 104 by some estimates) to approximately 60 in 2015. According to a recent report by the Observatory of Violence at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, the country's current homicide rate is slightly lower than last year's and is on pace to come in under 60.

In a similar fashion, El Salvador's murder rate looks to experience a decrease in 2016. Howard Cotto claimed that homicides dropped by half in September, compared to the same month last year. September showed a twenty-five percent decrease from August. It would have been tough to surpass last year's ~104 homicides per 100,000 Salvadorans, but there does seem to have been a meaningful decrease in the number of homicides in El Salvador.

Both countries' homicide rates remain well above that of Guatemala, which finished 2015 with a rate under 30. Guatemala is on pace for its seventh consecutive year - that's right seventh - of falling homicide rates.

Homicide rates aren't everything, but it's generally better when they are heading down.