Is Bogota's gun ban responsible for a drop in homicides?

If a new gun ban in Colombia's capital is linked to a drop in the murder rate, it could potentially serve as a model for the rest of Latin America, writes guest blogger Geoffrey Ramsey.

|
Fernando Vergara/AP/File
In this file photo, Gustavo Petro speaks to supporters after winning Bogota's mayoral race in Bogota, Colombia.

A version of this post ran on the author's blog, insightcrime.org. The views expressed are the author's own.

The city of Bogota has seen a significant reduction in homicides after passing a ban on carrying guns. If the two developments prove to be related, the ban could provide a model to other violence-plagued cities in the region.

On February 1, newly-elected Bogota mayor Gustavo Petro introduced a three-month ban on carrying guns in public, saying that to carry a weapon represented “not a defense mechanism, but a risk.” On April 30, Petro declared that the ban had been a success, and had contributed to a 31 percent drop in homicides when compared to the first four months of 2011. April in particular saw a particularly large drop in homicides, and with only 96 murders reported, was the most peaceful April on record in 15 years. Because of this, Petro and local army officials (the military is responsible for gun regulation in the country) announced that the ban would be extended for three more months.

If the ban continues to see success, it may prove permanent. Petro has expressed interest in this, and says that he wants to change the attitude of Colombians towards weapons, in order to “generate a culture of tolerance and love."

At first glance, the gun ban and corresponding drop in homicides seems to provide a compelling model for cities elsewhere in the region. As a report recently published by the Inter-American Dialogue noted, most of Latin America’s homicides are concentrated in urban areas. Indeed, access to weapons has been cited by some commentators – including InSight Crime – as one of the main drivers of violence in Caracas, especially among poor youths in the city’s slums. If restricting the bearing of firearms had so much success in Bogota, why not export it to other violent hotspots in the hemisphere, like Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, or San Pedro Sula?

The fact is, however, that there are a number of other factors that could have played into the city’s reduction in homicides. Bogota was the first site of a new national urban security initiative launched last year, known as “Plan Cuadrantes,” which was designed to divide cities into as many as several hundred sectors, each manned by a police base. According to National Police officials, Plan Cuadrantes encourages ties to the community by focusing efforts on block-by-block policing. While acknowledging the impact of the gun ban, Bogota police credit the implementation of Plan Cuadrantes with lowering crime in the capital city.

Another factor which likely played into the reduction in violence were the June 2011 changes made to Bogota’s liquor laws under the previous acting mayor, Clara Lopez Obregon. The new code made it illegal to sell alcoholic beverages in liquor stores, grocery stores, and corner shops after 11 p.m., and banned the public consumption of alcohol after that time. The move is believed to have cut down on violent confrontations, as around 90 percent of reported conflicts registered in 2010 involved some degree of alcohol use.

In addition to these other explanations, it is simply too early to call the gun ban a success. A 31 percent drop over four months, after all, is hardly conclusive evidence that the policy has made an impact on violence in Bogota. Homicide rates are also falling in Colombia’s other major cities of Medellin and Cali, suggesting that this may be a nationwide trend, possibly related to the country’s long-term decline in unemployment.

Because Petro himself is a former guerrilla who laid down his weapons to participate in conventional politics, the gun ban is an attractive narrative, but there is simply not enough hard evidence to back his assertion that it has made an impact on violence. Indeed, attempts to concretely link the availability of weapons with homicide rates elsewhere in Latin America have proved to be problematic, meaning that at the very least a degree of skepticism is necessary before hailing Bogota’s gun ban as a policy model for reining in security in the region.

--- Geoffrey Ramsey  is a writer for Insight – Organized Crime in the Americas, which provides research, analysis, and investigation of the criminal world throughout the region. Find all of his research here.

Get daily or weekly updates from CSMonitor.com delivered to your inbox. Sign up today.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Is Bogota's gun ban responsible for a drop in homicides?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2012/0514/Is-Bogota-s-gun-ban-responsible-for-a-drop-in-homicides
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe