A little more than 12 hours had passed since January 1, 2023 when a 29-year-old man shot a man several times, causing death, in the Meiggs neighborhood, in the commune of Santiago. That would be one of the first homicides that was recorded last year and that heads the list of the 557 fatal victims of this crime in the Metropolitan Region (RM) according to the “National Report of Victims of Completed Homicides.”
The document, prepared by the Undersecretary of Crime Prevention – headed by Undersecretary Eduardo Vergara – shows that the capital is the only region of the country in which homicides do not increase or decrease, both in frequency and rate per hundred thousand inhabitants. Despite that, In 2023, the highest number of murdered victims was reported in the region since 2020.
In detail and characterization of the events, according to the report delivered by the Ministry of the Interior, in 91.7% of cases the deceased are men and 78.6% are of Chilean nationality. Regarding how these crimes occurred, the report also states that in 62.3% of the cases a firearm was used, 72.2% occurred on public roads and 40% of the murders are linked to organized crime.
Of the total number of communes in the Metropolitan Region, according to the report that brings together the statistics of the Public Ministry, the police, among other organizationsin 45 of them last year at least one homicide was recorded. List, based on the numerical amount of events, which is headed by the communes of Santiago with 66 murders, Puente Alto (35) and San Bernardo (34). Further back, there is Maipú (28) and La Pintana (26), Recoleta (24) and Estación Central with 21 victims.
At a geographic level (see infographic) there is no specific area with higher homicides. Although it can be distinguished that the lowest frequency of cases is registered in the eastern sector, with the exception of Peñalolén. The southern zone registers a higher incidence, as does the western sector (Maipú-Pudahuel) From the capital. In the middle, Central Station and Santiago concentrate facts, which expand towards Recoleta and Conchalí. In the northwestern sector, with Quilicura, Renca, Cerro Navia, Lo Prado and Quinta Normal There is an average of 11.4 murders.
In detail by commune, there are certain sectors of those municipalities where there is a greater incidence of registering a greater number of cases. For example, in the case of Santiago, according to figures from the Police Tactical Operation System (STOP) of the Carabineros, The Matta and Yungay neighborhoods are where the most complaints of murders are They entered last year.
In Puente Alto, according to the same statistical source, the greatest number of complaints are registered in places around the Sotero del Río Hospital and Bajos de Mena. In the case of San Bernardo, the highest number of murder cases occurs in the southern area of the commune, near the El Pino Hospital.
The above, according to Jorge Araya, an academic at the University of Santiago and former director of Public Security of the Ministry of the Interior, explains why there are communes that “naturally are going to concentrate a high number of homicides. First, in proportion to their population, if they are large communes like Maipú or Puente Alto, it is reasonable that they have a greater number of homicides simply due to a population issue.”
But, in addition to that, Araya maintains that there is another factor in this incidence and that is that “they are communes that bring together sectors of the population with high social vulnerability to crime. These risk factors, poverty, marginality and criminal gangs that have settled in those places also explain, to a large extent, the territorial struggle of these gangs to dominate certain territories.”
Another of the metrics in which the “Homicide Report” accounts for this criminological phenomenon is with respect to the murder rate. During In 2023, at the country level, a decrease of four percentage points was recorded, reaching an average of 6.3 victims for every hundred thousand inhabitants.
However, and without variation compared to the same measurement in 2022, the Metropolitan Region registered a rate of 6.7 victims per one hundred thousand people. Of all the communes of the capital, 24 of them are above the regional average and even above the national average.
That list is headed by Lo Espejo, with 16.7 murders per one hundred thousand inhabitants. It is followed by San Ramón (16.6), Cerrillos (14.4), La Granja (14.1), La Pintana (13.7), Lampa (13.6). In addition, there are other communes that are also repeated among those with the highest number of cases, for example, Santiago with 12.3; Recoleta (12.2); Saint Bernard (9.8); Central Station (9.5); among other.
This concentration of cases in not so large communes, says the AthenaLab security researcher, Pilar Lizana, It is explained because the issue of homicides in the RM “has a lot to do with the establishment of organized crimes and drug deals. For example, the southern sector of the capital has a lot of drug collection, so competition is generated there for microtrafficking derived from that drug collection.”
Lizana adds that “more than anything the homicide indicators have to do with where organized crime has established itself, because today what is happening in Chile is that homicide is mutating into a phenomenon of settling scores, with an increase in homicides with firearms, increase in homicides with unknown suspects.”
For the security expert and former Carabineros general, Aldo Vidal In addition to the territorial dominance that the gangs seek, another factor “also has to do with the fact that in a certain area there is a greater demand for drug consumption and trafficking.” But it also points out that there are places where organized crime can settle. “Finally, another element has to do with the fact that there is a certain area where there is a greater absence of the State”he concludes.
But the security researcher also points out that the emergence of seizures such as those that exist in Maipú or Cerrillos could also generate an increase in homicide cases. “It is also extremely important to look at what happens in those shots and associate it with illicit markets that may be taking place,” she concludes.
Regarding the homicide rate, and although they register a low numerical number of cases, there are also communes outside the urban radius of the capital, which register a high rate of victims per one hundred thousand inhabitants. In that case there are San José de Maipo with a rate of 10.3 victims, Calera de Tango (10), Buin (8.6), Melipilla (7.5) and El Monte (7.2).
For Araya, the figures for these areas “Perhaps it breaks the initial logic or hypothesis that one proposes due to the population size and that. But what we have seen is that apparently these individuals who make up these organized crime groups are trying to establish themselves, in some cases, in intermediate cities in the country.”
Along these lines, he concludes that criminals move away from the urban radius, settling in more distant communes “because there they can operate with greater peace of mind and less chance of being detained, inspected, found by the police.”
