Panama’s Murder Rate Nearly 50% Higher Than Costa Rica

In Costa Rica’s English language weekly newspaper, Mr. William G. Craig from San Antonio, Texas wrote that he has been “looking for places to retire within the next ten years” and is so grateful with the crime news that fills the pages of this newspaper every week that he thanks the paper for the “warning” about crime and declares he will be moving to Panama.

Clearly Mr. Craig has not done his homework or spent more than 60 seconds online, because if he had, he would have discovered that the murder rate in Panama is about 50% higher than it is in Costa Rica.

In fact, a recent report by the Secretaría General Iberoamericana, estimates that Panama’s homicide rate is 11.3 per 100,000 people and Costa Rica’s homicide rate is 7.7 which is not only much lower than Panama, but also lower than Mr. Craig’s hometown of San Antonio which has a homicide rate of 9.2

And depending on the source, you will find the homicide rate in Mexico is at least 200% higher than it is in Costa Rica.

I would like to politely suggest to Mr. Craig, and all of your reading this article that if you are considering living in a foreign country, then please do your homework, find the stories and statistics from multiple, reliable sources that will give you a clear idea about the crime situation, health care and everything else that’s important to you before you can make a sensible decision.

According to Costa Rica’s Poder Judicial Departamento de Planificación Sección de Estadística which as close to the Costa Rican version of the FBI as you’ll get (and it ain’t that close), but here are the murder numbers (Homicidios Dolosos) for Costa Rica for the period 2002-2006 per 100,000 people:

Incidentally, you can download the 68 page .pdf Spanish language report file on the most recently available Costa Rica Crime Statistices for 2002-2006 here.

Susan Carmichael’s landmark study of Costa Rica Crime is a little dated but she stated that: “In 2001, 80.9% of the murder victims were Costa Ricans; Nicaraguans were 14.1% of the victims; and citizens from the United States were 2.3% of the victims; the rest of the victims were from Colombia, Panama, Cuba, Jamaica, and China.”

So if the CIA Country Report for Costa Rica is correct with the population of Costa Rica at around 4,195,914 – with the murder rate at about 7.7 per 100,000 people then that would mean that 323 people were murdered during the year and if 2.3% of them were citizens from the United States then that would be 7.429 US citizens murdered during that one year period.

Now this is not good news for the 7 1/2 people already murdered but as my old Mom would say, “It’s really nothing to get your knickers in a twist about!”

But wait! There’s more because we know it’s not even that high.

We have more recent data because thanks to the U.S. Department of State – Information on Deaths Abroad of U.S. Citizens, we know that during the three year period of January 2005 to December 2007 the number one cause of violent death for US citizens in Costa Rica was drowning which took the lives of 27 Americans, 13 died in car accidents, there were just 12 homicides (we know two of those Americans were murdered by other Americans), 8 suicides, 7 died in plane accidents plus a few “drug-related deaths” and “other accidents”.

12 Americans murdered during the three year period of January 2005 to December 2007 and two of them were murdered by other Americans so let’s just call it an even ten US citizens murdered at the hands of Costa Ricans.

You are far more likely to drown at the beach in Costa Rica or die in a car accident than become one of the very, very few US citizens who are murdered in Costa Rica!

Take a good, hard look around and you’ll find that Costa Rica remains a very attractive, affordable place to live with a low crime rate and just happens to be a great place to live, retire and invest in real estate.

PS. Mr. Craig might also want to review the many changes in the Panamanian immigration laws which were formalized on 8th August 2008.

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Written by Scott Oliver, author of How To Buy Costa Rica Real Estate Without Losing Your Camisa and Costa Rica’s Guide To Making Money Offshore.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.