Personal Security in Latin America

Gallup just released a poll on feelings of personal security. Latin America scores the lowest of any region of the world, and Venezuela the lowest in the world. I tend to doubt Venezuela is truly that low since the poll is taken by telephone (do people in Afghanistan truly feel less secure than Venezuelans??). But it does likely mean that Venezuela is the lowest of any country in the middle range of development.

Here are the Latin America numbers:

As with so much in Latin America, we don't see any correlations to ideology. The best and worst countries are leftist, for example. The same question about telephones also pertains here, as countries with large rural populations (e.g. Guatemala seems high to me) will be skewed.

In general, this reminds me what we already know. Violence is too prevalent and governments face major challenges in addressing it, while police are too corrupt. As a result, people don't feel safe. This isn't a way to build thriving democracies.