Despite some improvement in crime statistics over the past year, Venezuela remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

In 2018, the national homicide rate was 81.4 violent deaths per 100,000 people. 2019 saw a significant improvement, with the rate dropping to 60.3. However, NGOs attribute this dip not to an improvement in the underlying factors fueling the violence – notably the withering of economic exchange and state institutions – but rather their near-complete collapse. In other words, although diminishing opportunities for crime (predatory criminals have fewer wealthy shops, banks, or individuals to target) and massive emigration outflows (some four million people have fled the country through to mid-2019) have reduced national crime statistics in absolute terms, the country’s law-and-order outlook remains just as precarious as it has been in recent history, if not worse.