Stanford Digital Repository

Mitigating Crime, Drugs, and Gangs: Restoring Guatemala as Latin America’s ​Premier Tourist Destination

Placeholder Show Content

Abstract/Contents

Abstract
Since the 1954 United States-backed removal of democratically-elected President Jacobo Árbenz, ongoing systematic violence has been and continues as the apex quandary, the Achilles' heel stymying development and the true pursuit of human rights, decency, and security in Guatemala. Myopic observers might argue that poverty, not violence, is the foremost problem miring modern Guatemala—it has the greatest percentage in the Western Hemisphere of children suffering from malnutrition—and at first glance, it might appear that way. Beyond military coups in the internecine thirty-six year civil war and latent attempts to eradicate the “Indian Problem” through wholesale extermination of vast Indigenous communities and their progressive-minded allies, the continuing and worsening violence in Guatemala’s modern era precludes economic development, particularly hampering the tourism market that could be Guatemala’s unique economic guiding light and beacon. This study analyses the history of gangs in Guatemala to glean a better understanding of the current predicament of violence in the country, and also offers potentially effective remediations. The original root of Central America’s dilemma with gangs arrives in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, when police determined that most looting and violence had been carried out by local gangs, including Mara Salvatrucha, then only a little-known group of Salvadoran immigrants. In response to the riots, California implemented draconian laws: “three strikes and you’re out” legislation and active repatriation of noncitizens sentenced to a year or more of prison. These California decisions became the genesis for a seemingly permanent destabilization of Central America.

Description

Type of resource text
Date created 2019

Creators/Contributors

Author De León, Marleny

Subjects

Subject 18th street gang
Subject 5-MeO-DMT
Subject antigua guatemala
Subject ayahuasca
Subject civil war
Subject comcáac
Subject drug addiction
Subject ecotourism
Subject entheogen
Subject gangs
Subject genocide
Subject guatemala
Subject guatemala city
Subject iboga
Subject ibogaine
Subject indigenous
Subject mara salvatrucha
Subject maya
Subject migrations
Subject MS-13
Subject narcotraficantes
Subject northern triangle nations
Subject plant medicine
Subject social impact entrepreneurship
Subject sustainable food
Subject tourism
Subject urban acupuncture
Subject wildcrafting
Subject Stanford University
Subject Center for Latin American Studies
Genre Article

Bibliographic information

Location https://purl.stanford.edu/hg277sm4885

Access conditions

Use and reproduction
User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-ND).

Preferred citation

De León, Marleny. (2019). Mitigating Crime, Drugs, and Gangs: Restoring Guatemala as Latin America’s ​Premier Tourist Destination. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/hg277sm4885

Collection

Stanford University, Center for Latin American Studies, Masters Degree Capstone Projects

View other items in this collection in SearchWorks

Contact information

marleny@alumni.stanford.edu

Also listed in

View in SearchWorks

Loading usage metrics...