FOR kids growing up in Honduras, there’s one obvious career path: join a gang.

Refuse, and you and your family are likely to be killed. Sign up, and you may still be among the one in 500 people slaughtered each year in the world’s murder capital.

Gangs, or “maras”, have largely controlled the Central American country for years, with the military patrolling the streets to help a police force dogged by corruption and the frequent murder of officers.

Families who can’t pay protection fees, or “war tax”, to gangs are forced to flee their homes or be killed. The buildings become “Casas Locos” (Crazy Houses), used as torture chambers or for organised crime including murders and drug deals.

Those who are not among the country’s 100,000 gang members will not approach these deadly homes. Even the prison in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s second city, has become a large-scale criminal clubhouse, with the most powerful gangs operating from within its walls.

Murderers and drug lords reign supreme, while law enforcement officers guard the perimeter but are too afraid to venture inside. Prisoners have their own businesses, cafes and shops, and regularly entertain visitors.

Travel journalist Simon Reeve was shown around the prison by the city’s bishop in his latest series, gaining unprecedented access to the lawless precinct. The Monsignor is trying to broker a peace deal between the state and the city’s most notorious street gangs.

Members of the 18th Street Gang (Barrio 18) made a public statement agreeing to the terms of a truce more than a year ago, but the government has not responded, said the bishop.

“Chepe”, the thief who governs the prison, reportedly took control after beheading his rapist predecessor and feeding the man’s heart to a dog. It was the culmination of a fight in which 14 prisoners were killed with guns and machetes.

Chepe is armed and guarded by 10 men at all times, according to Insight Crime, because the next eruption of violence could come at any moment.

After almost 300 rebellions, conflicts and changes of government, the nation is in chaos, its name synonymous with violent crime. Thousands of children flee the country’s gang culture for North America each year, creating a new crisis of homeless migrant youth in the US, the New York Times reported

Two gangs control many neighbourhoods, using brutal torture and extortion tactics. As well as the 18th Street Gang, there is MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha), the biggest in Central America, which has ties to Mexican drug cartels.

Drugs are the main cause of the nation’s problems, with around $60 billion-worth of cocaine thought to be trafficked from South American countries through Honduras to the US each year.

Even ordinary citizens cannot avoid the effects of organised crime. This month, a bus driver was locked in his vehicle and set on fire in the capital Tegucigalpa for not paying war tax. Fifty people have been killed and 25 wounded this year on public transport, according to the National Human Rights Commission.

Ninety in every 100,000 people are murdered in Honduras each year. It is a society in pieces, and the horror shows no sign of letting up.