ABSTRACT
Honduras, with the world's highest murder rate and extensive infiltration by organized crime, has launched ambitious reforms to its police and criminal justice systems. To succeed, however, in that effort it must also tackle extensive corruption throughout the state, a barely functioning judiciary, ongoing political instability, and widespread socioeconomic deprivation. Above all, it must get past the long-standing tendency to respond to public demands on crime with more police, greater militarization, and other iron-fist responses. Efforts to do so center on adoption of a community policing model, which brings citizens into security with policies based on prevention, participation, and social services. The clash between those contrasting approaches has undermined reform in each of the main areas of security discussed in this entry: accountability, militarization, gangs, arms, and the administration of the security system itself. Public demands and adoption of system-wide change since 2012, though, may signal the ability to finally address the country's security crisis effectively.
