Welcome to the President's Inbox, a CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States.

I'm Jim Lindsay, Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This week's topic is Latin America's crime surge.

With me to discuss spiking crime rates across Latin America and their consequences for the

region and for the United States is Will Freeman.

Will is a fellow for Latin America studies at the council.

He has written extensively on Latin America,

with a particular focus on the rule of law, corruption and organized crime, elections,

and constitutional change. He recently wrote a piece for World Politics Review titled,

A Surge in Crime and Violence has Ecuador reeling. Will, thank you for joining me.

Jim, thanks so much for having me on. Well, as I'm reading the news these days, I'm seeing an abundance

of stories on how Latin America is wrestling with a wave of crime in the wake of the COVID-19

pandemic. That news is perhaps unsurprising the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That news is perhaps unsurprising to many Americans who saw violent crime spike in the United

States during the pandemic.

Help me understand the nature of the crime wave that Latin America is facing.

Well, during the COVID-19 pandemic, everything shut down in

Latin America except organized crime. Organized crime groups during the pandemic became more

entrepreneurial. They diversified into new markets, new types of drug production and drug

trafficking. You saw increases in trafficking of natural resources, of human smuggling, and all this really led to an alarming rise in violence.

We think of Latin America as a violent region.

Of course it is.

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