Caroline Kuritzkes

Between 2014 and 2017, just as then-U.S. President Barack Obama was working to thaw over 50 years of frozen relations between Cuba and the United States, the Havana lawyer Alfonso Larrea Barroso and his two business partners were busy making a fortune. In a span of three years, the annual revenue from Scenius, their financial services cooperative, multiplied by a factor of 10,000, skyrocketing from $280 to $2.8 million in total revenues.

Police forces gathered in Mexico City A recent report by a think tank in Mexico underscores that increased security spending has done little to temper escalating rates of violence in the country, suggesting that the government’s allocation of the resources — rather than the overall amount — may be the problem.

Gang members guarded by policemen outside El Salvador prison A recent report by El Salvador’s ombudsman credits the government’s new security measures with reducing crime, but condemns their adverse impact on prisoners’ rights, raising questions about the efficacy of the country’s anti-crime programs inside and outside prison walls. The ombudsman’s June 2017 report evaluates the effect of the country’s “extraordinary measures” on crime reduction and human rights.