Are civil wars to blame for crime in Central America?

The countries of Central America are high up on the list of nations with the highest crime rates in the world. According to the literature, the most common argument is that these high crimerates are a legacy of the armed conflicts of the 1980s. This article subjects this theory to an empirical examination. Even though the analysis is preliminary and limited, the results serve to question theexistence of such a link between war and crime. The data show that the areas most affected by war in El Salvador and Guatemala are not the ones that show the highest rates of crime. Furthermore, no direct relation exists between the presence of armed conflict and crime rates at a national level. The presence of armed conflict is neither a necessary factor nor a sufficient one for criminal violence. Onthe contrary, this work points to a close link between inequality and crime rates at a national level.