A shining expose, published by Economist before even the previous caravan moved northwards.
Latin America, which boasts just 8% of the world’s population, accounts for 38% of its criminal killing. The butcher’s bill in the region came to around 140,000 people last year, more than have been lost in wars around the world in almost all of the years this century.
Of course, they completely ballsed-up the motivations, though did admit that the "epidemic" could spread when exported (like Mexico in past years).
In March 2012 the government of Mauricio Funes brokered a truce between El Salvador’s three main gangs, giving imprisoned leaders luxuries like flat-screen televisions and fried chicken if they would tell their subordinates to stop killing each other. Murders halved almost overnight, and some criminologists applauded, seeing the policy as a step towards “focused deterrence”—a combination of incentives and threats that is deemed to have worked well in Los Angeles, among other places.
Others were wary, with reason. The truce soon began to unravel, and the gangs began to see violence as a bargaining tool.
NB: Venezuela has not released official murder stats (homicide) since 2005, so they can be excluded. Also, government numerology estimates are also to be treated as plausible, not 100% factual necessarily.
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/04/05/shining-light-on-latin-americas-homicide-epidemic