Brazil has set a new and chilling record: it saw seven homicides each hour in 2017, or almost 64,000 deaths, a 3% annual increase on a sky-high rate. Mexico is on course to another unwelcome milestone, with nearly 16,000 homicides in the first half of this year, up 15% year-on-year on already record levels. More people are murdered than die in wars worldwide, and they are especially likely to be killed in Latin America. Brazil has 30 homicides per 100,000 citizens, compared with five in the US and around one in England and Wales even after a recent rise.

Victims and their families are not the only sufferers; 42% of Brazilians are “very afraid” of being murdered (in fact, victims are disproportionately young black men, although femicide is also a cause of grave and growing concern). The government estimates that violence cost the country nearly $2tn over two decades. Yet as daunting as the figures are, the problem is not irresolvable. “Violence can be prevented. This is not an article of faith, but a statement based on evidence,” says the World Health Organization. A campaign by multiple NGOs aims to halve the region’s murder rate in a decade; cities such as Bogotá and Cali have delivered dramatic falls in the past, although not always sustainably.

Real GDP growth is correlated with fewer homicides. Yet the rising economic tide has not managed to stem the increase. Although the region’s record is highly variable, overall the murder rate has increased 3.7% over the past decade, according to Brazil’s Igarapé Institute. As the country’s presidential elections approach in October, the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro’s calls for relaxed gun laws and tougher policing appear to have struck a chord with frustrated voters. Americas Quarterly recently warned that violence could threaten democracy too, perhaps encouraging a turn towards repressive populists. But the punitive approach – more police, more prisons, more guns – has proved a very expensive failure. Initiatives in Colombian cities show tighter – not looser – firearms controls can help to cut violence. In Rio de Janeiro, where Brazil’s president, Michel Temer, has put the military in charge of policing as an emergency measure, the number of shootouts has risen, turning the screw on citizens already caught between violent gangs and violent authorities. Experts say militarised responses are associated with a rise in rights abuses rather than a drop in homicides.

There are better ways. One is smarter rather than harsher policing, using data to tackle hotspots (in Bogotá, 1.2% of street addresses accounted for 99% of homicides) and to identify underlying factors (such as alcohol consumption). Another is to raise the standards of the police themselves, tackling corruption, which is endemic in many places. Community policing and conflict mediation have a part to play. In Mexico, the president-in-waiting, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has blamed corruption and urged the demilitarisation of anti-drugs work and a rethink of drugs laws: a strikingly different tone, though so far with few concrete policy proposals to underpin it.

Critically, any long-term solutions must look at the bigger picture. Inequality and youth unemployment are strongly correlated with violence. Britain’s own homicide rate is vastly, mercifully lower. But that is no reason to regard it as either acceptable or inevitable. We could, indeed, learn from debates across the world, where the “public health” approach has been under discussion for years. Keeping citizens safe demands attention to the minutiae of place and behaviour, allied to a determination to tackle broader factors underlying these dangers.