Citizen insecurity poses a rising challenge to democratic governance and the exercise of citizenship throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Homicide rates are among the highest in the world and citizens throughout the region cite crime, followed by unemployment, as the dominant concern of daily life. Transnational organized crime, including but not limited to narco-trafficking, exacerbates levels of violence, compromises state institutions, and undermines democratic quality and the rule of law.

This bulletin presents a summary of a session held in Buenos Aires in June 2005 in which Minister of Defense José B. Pampuro and other diplomats and officials discussed security sector reform in the Southern Cone and Mercosur. (in Spanish)