https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2021.

49 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Social Science History (2022), 46, 373–399
doi:10.1017/ssh.2021.49

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s:

A Tale of Delayed but Successful Convergence
Rodrigo Rivero-Cantillano1, Manuel Llorca-Jaña2* , Damian Clarke3, Javier Rivas2,
Daniel Quezada2 and Martina Allende2
1
Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile, 2Universidad de Valparaíso, Santiago, Chile and 3Universidad
de Chile, Santiago, Chile
*Email: [email protected]

(Received 20 November 2020; revised 10 March 2021; accepted 6 April 2021; first published online
16 February 2022)

Abstract
We analyze the evolution of homicide rates in Chile, as a proxy of interpersonal violence,
from the 1880s to the 2010s. Homicides rates are the best measure of a country’s personal
security, and a key variable of well-being. We found that the homicides rates were high
during the late nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century.
From the 1930s homicide rates started to decline initially gradually, but then sharply
during the 1950s–1960s. During the 1960s–1990s, the country’s homicide rates were
low by international standards. However, they have increased during the last two decades.
Our regression suggests that increased social spending in the past is associated with
reduced homicides in the present, that past and concurrent economic growth also
correlates with a reduction in the rate of homicides, and that increased police presence
is correlated with a reduction in the rate of homicides. The 1930s–1960s are a key period
in the evolution of interpersonal violence. It coincides with the emergence of a welfare state
(and increasing social expenditure), declining poverty rates, improvements in health and
education, and an increase in suffrage.

Keywords: Violence; conflict; Chile; homicide

Introduction
In this article we analyze the evolution of interpersonal violence in Chile from the
1880s to the 2010s, taking as a proxy the rate of homicides.1 Interpersonal violence is
an important indicator of a society’s well-being (Baten et al. 2014; OECD 2011), and
it is typically developing countries that lack data on welfare before the 1950s.
Interpersonal violence is an important variable to assess economic development

1
During this period there has been little change in the geographical borders of Chile. The expansion to the
north (after the War of the Pacific, 1879–83) and to the south (after the annexation of Mapuche territory)
had already taken place by the early 1880s.
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Social Science History Association.
 https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2021.49 Published online by Cambridge University Press
374 Social Science History

because in highly violent societies, social capital is typically lower, while higher rates
of violence are often associated with lower human capital2 (Gust and Baten 2019).
Highly violent societies allocate resources for conflict resolution rather than for
public provision, and are characterized by mistrust and uncertainty. Violent crime
impacts negatively and directly on quality of life because it reduces personal safety
and property security. These factors damage economic development (Fajnzylber
et al. 1998, 2002b; Gust and Baten 2019). More importantly, personal security
reflects another crucial component of well-being: well-being is higher if people
do not fear becoming victims of crime, in particular of a serious crime such as homi-
cide. Feeling insecure limits daily activities and functioning: fear of violent crime is
as important as crime itself (Baten et al. 2014; OECD 2011).
One negative consequence of higher interpersonal violence is that gender
inequality increases, leading to less female autonomy (Gust and Baten 2019).
Homicide rates are also important because they are usually negatively correlated
with GDP per capita—the richer a country, the lower the level of homicides,
although there are important exceptions, such as the United States (a rich country
with high homicide rates) or Nigeria (the opposite to the United States), which
means that in some cases personal security has a limited influence on economic
growth (Baten et al. 2014).3
Thus, our aim in this article is to analyze how the rate of intentional homicide has
varied over time in Chile and to identify the main reasons for these changes. When
analyzing secular trends in homicides, a broader perspective is needed, taking into
account a wide range of variables, such as changes in the social structures of power,
legislation, mentality, age composition of the population, and cultural and economic
conditions such as income inequality and poverty rates (Eisner 2003b; Gurr 1981;
Mares 2009).
We also wanted to compare the Chilean experience to that of the countries
enjoying the lowest homicide rates in the world, as well as analyzing Chile’s position
within Latin America. Although there is an important body of literature on violent
crime in developed Western societies from the medieval period onward (e.g., Baten
et al. 2014; Eisner 2003a, 2008, 2011, 2013; Gurr 1981, 1989; Mares 2009; Roth 2001,
2011; Thome 2001), and despite the advances made by social science historians in
our understanding of patterns in the history of homicide rates, some countries, such
as Chile, have been largely ignored. Chile in turn has many peculiarities that deserve
a study on its own. For example, most criminological research has focused on the
increase in violent crime from the second half of the twentieth century onward,
neglecting earlier periods (Mares 2009), while also neglecting those countries that
did not experience an increase in violent crime from the 1960s (like Chile). Chile, in
turn, is a very unequal society but interpersonal violence is low, which is puzzling.
Likewise, some authors have tried to connect the evolution of interpersonal violence

2
Governments are more reluctant to invest in human capital if the expectation of returns from these
investments is less certain (Gust and Baten 2019).
3
The case of the United States is so intriguing that it is one of the main puzzles of historical criminological
research and proves resistant to broad generalizations (Baten et al. 2014; Monkkonen 2005). For some
explanations, see Monkkonen 2005, 2006. It is perhaps the main welfare variable in which the United
States differs from most developed nations (Monkkonen 2005).
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Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 375

Figure 1. Ratio of Chilean per capita GDP to US per capita GDP, 5-year moving average, 1812–2014.
Source: Own elaboration from Maddison Project Database, version 2018. Bolt et al. (2018), “Rebasing
‘Maddison’: New Income Comparisons and the Shape of Long-Run Economic Development.”

to the timing of the Great Divergence (Gust and Baten 2019). Yet, in the case of
Chile, from independence in the 1810s until the end of the nineteenth century,
Chilean per capita GDP converged toward the levels of the United Kingdom and
the United States, but homicide rates remained high during this period.
Furthermore, this per capita GDP convergence process was truncated, which seems
to be the fate of all Latin American countries. Most of the twentieth century is best
described as a divergence period, until the 1990s, when a new convergence trend
started (figure 1). However, when Chile’s per capita GDP diverged from that of
the leading world economies, its homicide rates improved, at least during the
1940s–1960s. All in all, the evolution of homicides rates in Chile does not add mean-
ingful evidence to the timing of the Great Divergence. It would be, therefore, useful
to fill in these blank spaces (Baten et al. 2014; Eisner 2003a).
The rate of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants is an important indicator of
economic development in and of itself, and its long-term evolution and key deter-
minants are worthy of analysis. It is also relevant to compare it with the evolution of
other variables such as per capita GDP, despite the shortcomings previously
mentioned. Chile enjoys one of the lowest homicide rates within Latin America,
combined with the highest GDP per capita, although the highest global homicide
rates are recorded in Latin America (Fajnzylber et al. 1998, 2002a; OECD 2011).
Furthermore, even though global crime rates have been increasing since the
1960s–1970s (Fajnzylber et al. 1998; Gurr 1981; Thome 2001),4 in Chile they

4
Overall, the second half of the twentieth century was a bad period for interpersonal violence across the
developed world. For example, between the 1950s and the mid-1990s, homicide rates more than doubled in
countries such as Sweden, Belgium, Italy, and the United States, tripling in England and Wales, and almost
quadrupling in the Netherlands (Mares 2009).
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376 Social Science History

have remained stable or declined during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s; Argentina is
the only other South American country where homicides rates have declined during
recent decades, although there was no accompanying increase in GDP.
Building on previous works by Fajnzylber et al. (1998, 2002a) and Baten et al.
(2014), we have also analyzed the evolution of some explanatory variables usually
associated with violent crime: income inequality (measured through the Gini
index),5 poverty rates,6 penalties associated with committing violent crimes
(e.g., the death penalty),7 availability of police in the country (i.e., number of police
personnel per 100,000 inhabitants), average number of years of schooling (as a
measure of human capital), the growth of GDP (as a proxy for employment and
economic opportunities in general), percentage of young males in the population,
as the rate of participation in crime for males within this age range is higher than for
any other group (we used two ranges, those aged 15–29 and those aged 20–34),8
and the rate of urbanization.9 We have correlated these variables with the rate of
homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
We have also complemented our data on homicides per 100,000 inhabitants with
three other violent death variables. First, inspired by those colleagues who have
collected data on regicide (e.g., Eisner 2011; Gust and Baten 2019), we collected data
on what could be called “elite homicides,” taking as a proxy homicides of
high-profile public servants (or former public servants) and other famous politi-
cians. Because Chile is not a monarchy, we collected data on homicides of current
(or former) presidents, members of parliaments, ministers, high-ranking civil
servants, and high-ranking military officers. Elite homicide is another indicator
of the rate of violent crime in a society, therefore checking its frequency and
how it has changed over time is a valuable enterprise (Eisner 2011).
Second, we also collected data on deaths from military conflicts, as some of the
underlying causes of wars, such as the polarization of society, are the same as those
applied to “ordinary” or apolitical violent crime (Fajnzylber et al. 2002a). Wars
pose important threats to personal security or the perception of it (Baten et al.
2014), one of the most important variables. Civil wars have been detrimental to
the growth of per capita GDP, in particular during the last half century (ibid.).
Third, we collected data on deaths following periods of social unrest or workers’
strikes in Chile.
This article is divided into four more sections. First sources and methodology are
discussed. Then the general trends of homicide rates in Chile from the late 1880s to

5
People behave more aggressively and homicidally when they feel that the government is antagonistic
toward them (Roth 2011), for example, by implementing unfair income distribution policies. The recent
events of October 2019 in Chile provide further support for this idea.
6
It is well known that serious violent offenders are heavily overrepresented in socially disadvantaged
groups: hence the importance of assessing the poverty rate of a country (Eisner 2003a).
7
Violent crime is more likely to occur when people feel that there is weak law enforcement (Roth 2011), or
when the penalties associated with violent crimes are lenient.
8
An age range of 20–35 was proposed by Eisner (2008), while Fajnzylber et al. (1998) preferred 15–29,
and Cantor and Cohen (1980) used 15–24. We used both 20–34 and 15–29 on account of the availability of
information from the Chilean census.
9
It is unclear whether increasing urbanization leads to higher homicide rates or not, but there is
agreement that this variable that must be analyzed (Johnson 1992; Thome 1995).
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Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 377

the late 2010s (at a national and provincial level) are analyzed, followed by a regres-
sion analysis of some determinants of homicide rates.

Sources and Methodology

We have taken as a proxy of interpersonal violence the rate of intentional homicides
per 100,000 inhabitants, a standard procedure in the literature. Intentional homicide
is usually defined as an unlawful death deliberately inflicted on one person
by another person, excluding casualties from interstate wars’ and civil wars
(Baten et al. 2014; Cantor and Cohen 1980; Eisner 2008; OECD 2011).10 Why
the reliance on homicide rates? When assessing personal security in a country,
the rate of homicides is usually preferred to alternative crimes such as robberies
because data on robberies is less reliable than data on homicides: a large portion
of robberies are neither reported nor recorded (Fajnzylber et al. 2002a;
Gurr 1981; Mares 2009; OECD 2011). Other serious crimes such as sexual violence
or violence against children are also underreported.
In contrast, because it is (arguably) the most serious of all crimes, intentional
homicide is the crime that is most effectively recorded in most countries (Eisner
2003b; Gurr 1981; Monkkonen 2005; United Nations 2010). Homicide statistics
suffer less from underreporting than robberies because corpses are more difficult
to ignore than loss of property; homicides are less likely to go undetected
(Fajnzylber et al. 2002b; Mares 2009); and less prone to statistical manipulation
given the grievous nature of the crime (Cantor and Cohen 1980).11 Homicides
are also better recorded than other alternative measures of interpersonal violence
such as violence against children or intimate partner violence. There is general
agreement that homicide records are perhaps the only crime figure that provide
a consistently accurate measure of serious crime levels (Gurr 1981; OECD 2011),
and that allow us to conduct comparative analysis across countries and over long
periods (Eisner 2003b, 2008). Homicide, as a crime, has always attracted attention
from all institutions of power in all societies, while its significance (for authorities)
has remained stable over the course of the last centuries (Eisner 2003b).
Homicide is also preferred to other variables of interpersonal violence because it
has more severe and long-lasting negative effects on well-being (OECD 2011).
Furthermore, it is well defined, enjoying a lower degree of measurement error,
and it is highly correlated with other violent crimes, especially as far as long-term
trends are concerned (Eisner 2008). For example, there is a strong correlation
between the rate of homicides and the rate of people who have reported being
assaulted (Baten et al. 2014; OECD 2011). For Eisner (2003b), homicides are the
only form of interpersonal violence for which meaningful judgments on long-term
developments can be made. Perhaps the only drawback to using homicide statistics
10
Deaths resulting from police intervention or executions are usually also excluded (Cantor and Cohen
1980).
11
We have examined the correlation that exists between homicide rates and rates of robbery (with
robbery second only to homicide in reliability; Gurr 1981) in Chile for the period 1970–2017, and found
a correlation coefficient of 0.72, i.e., high. In the later period this correlation is less strong, as it is well known
that in most societies that experience a decline in homicides, there is a rise in theft (i.e., Soman’s thesis “from
violence to theft”). See Monkkonen 2005.
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378 Social Science History

is that there are often low rates of homicide in society, but that is why it is expressed
as a rate per 100,000 inhabitants (OECD 2011).
To produce the series of homicides in Chile we have used two major sources.
First, from 1911 onward, the number of homicides in Chile have been available from
the Institute of National Statistics (a printed source), which provides annual counts
of homicides, based on causes of death statistics, better known as mortality
statistics.12 They are based on information provided by the National Register
Office, which in turn is based on death certificates, usually provided by medical
examiners. Statistics on causes of death are the best way of making comparisons
across countries because they are based on standardized classifications of medically
confirmed causes of death (Eisner 2003b).
Second, for the period before 1911, we collected the same information, but
directly from the death record books at the National Register Office of Chile, which
are available for the whole country from 1887 only,13 also based on death certificates
or causes of death statistics provided by civil servants, and verified by doctors or
witnesses. This information is available in manuscripts, rather than printed texts.
The main difficulty of working with this type of source relates to the nature of
the certificates, which were mostly provided by witnesses, resulting in a wide variety
of causes of death. However, because we wanted to identify intentional homicides,
the description provided by witnesses did not pose a problem.14 In addition to the
deaths explicitly recorded as “homicide” and “murder,” we also included those
clearly identifiable cases of unlawful death deliberately inflicted on one person
by another between 1887 and 1908. For example, we included cases in which a
victim was “stabbed to death.” To the best of our knowledge, we are the first research
team to have been given access to the death records of Chile from 1887 to 1910, after
signing a confidentiality agreement (not to disclose information on any particular
case). Approximately 1.3 million files containing all deaths in Chile from 1887
to 1910 were consulted, to identify all homicides (around 5,700 for the years we
entered the data).
To complete our homicide rates per 100,000 inhabitants, population data was
obtained from Díaz et al. 2016, the most trustworthy source for this variable on
an annual basis because it relies on extrapolated official census data. Because
accurate population data is needed for reliable estimates of homicide rates
(Gurr 1981), it is worth stressing that Chile was a pioneer Latin American country
in the compilation of national statistics, from the early nineteenth century onward
(Estefane 2004, 2019). The first full national census was taken in 1835, and from
then on censuses were taken regularly almost every 10 years. Despite the usual prob-
lems and drawbacks of any census, Chilean demographic data is regarded as high

12
We contrasted our data against that available in the Clio Infra Project (https://clio-infra.eu/), which
covers the period from 1938 to 1946 and from 1955 to 2010. The datasets are roughly the same, except
for small variations for some particular years, thus certifying the good quality of the Clio Infra Project.
Yet, they are only available at the national level (while we provide data per provinces for some years),
and for a shorter period: we added another 75 years to the series of the Clio Infra Project.
13
There is some patchy data for 1885 and 1886, but for a few provinces only. We only entered data
for those years with universal coverage for the whole country. For the few missing years we extrapolated
the annual data.
14
This study was not concerned with the prevalence of fatal diseases.
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Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 379

quality. From the second half of the century onward, there was centralized data
collection for all censuses, following the creation of the National Statistics
Centre in 1843, which improved the quality and coverage of the data. From
1907 in particular, further improvements were introduced (Loveman 2014; Pérez
2010; Ventresca 1995).
Other type of sources used to collect data on homicides are police statistics,
conviction statistics, and judicial statistics, although the most reliable are the ones
used here: mortality statistics (Eisner 2008; Baten et al. 2014). There was no available
data from conviction records in Chile, except for the period 1880–86 (Oficina
Central de Estadísticas, 1880–88), which we used to complete our series on mortality
statistics from the beginning of that decade, and which were close to the data based
on mortality rates for the rest of the 1880s.15 We accepted them as good quality;
excluding them would not have changed our conclusions. Police statistics were also
elusive, while judicial records are incomplete for the period before 1880 (these are
available only for certain locations), so we preferred not to use them (on the difficul-
ties of working with criminal proceedings files, see Eisner 2003b).16 Additionally,
searches within manuscript judicial records are extremely time consuming.
Data on elite homicides, deaths by agents of the state during periods of social
unrest or workers’ strikes, and deaths from military conflicts were obtained from
a careful review of relevant secondary published works. Data on robberies (only
used to test its correlation with homicides) was gathered from the UN World
Crime Surveys from 1970 and for earlier periods from Chile’s Attorney
General.17 From Díaz et al. (2016) came the series on average numbers of years
of schooling, GDP growth rates and urbanization rates, while income inequality
was taken from Rodríguez 2017. The poverty rate was taken from Prados de la
Escosura (2007) and the World Bank (for the most recent years), while police
numbers came from the same UN World Crime Surveys and other national official
sources, such as the Statistical Yearbook of the Office of National Statistics. The age
structure of the population was obtained from the censuses of the republic and the
demographic yearbooks.
When assessing the evolution of homicide rates across long periods, and across
regions, it is important to be aware of potentially distorting factors. First, consider
improvements in medical knowledge, which Eisner has defined as technologies
of healing. Why is this important? Many of those who died from a wound before
the twentieth century could have been saved with modern medical technology,
including the increased use of antibiotics from the 1940s onward (Eisner
2003a, 2008; OECD 2011). Improvements in transport and communications, which

15
Mortality statistics are considered to be more reliable, in particular because criminal justice records
underreport homicides. On this, see Baten et al. 2014; Eisner 2008.
16
For example, we also gathered data from Gaceta de los Tribunales, an official publication that published
most court rulings, including homicides, in the country, from the early 1840s to the late 1870s. However, the
number of homicides thus obtained was far lower than the series provided by mortality records, confirming
that these records suffer from underrecording. Furthermore, many court rulings published in, say, 1860,
relate to crimes committed in either 1860 or in previous years. The data we gathered is available upon
request.
17
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/United-Nations-Surveys-on-Crime-Trends-and-the-
Operations-of-Criminal-Justice-Systems.html.
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380 Social Science History

reduced the time until an emergency team attended, also reduced the lethality of
violence during the twentieth century (Baten et al. 2014; Eisner 2008). These
changes affected urban and rural areas in different ways. However, modern weapons
are increasingly dangerous (OECD 2011).18 This factor has led to what Eisner
(2008) has defined as improvements in technologies of killing. Technologies of
healing and technologies of killing do affect homicide trends in the long run,
although it is difficult to estimate the precise net impact.
This article is the first academic work to analyse the evolution of intentional
homicides in Chile. Previous important works have dealt with social and political
violence in Chile, in particular for the twentieth century.19 There are also some rele-
vant general works on crime and criminology in Chile.20 Yet, despite the importance
of these works, none of them has provided a comprehensive approach to the evolu-
tion of interpersonal violence for a sustained period.

General Trends in Homicide Rates in Chile, 1880s–2010s

We have produced a 140-year series on homicide for Chile, adding around 75 years
to the previously available series from the Clio Infra Project,21 thus making an
important contribution to the study of trends in interpersonal violence in Chile.
What did we find? In decadal annual averages, the number of homicides per
100,000 inhabitants in Chile was high during the late nineteenth century and the
early decades of the twentieth century (between 16 and 19 between the 1880s
and the 1930s), with an increasing trend between the 1880s and the 1920s, as seen
in figure 2. These high rates were slightly below the homicide rates in the notably
violent environment of medieval England and at a similar level to those of the
Netherlands in the sixteenth century (Eisner 2003b).
Yet, if these figures are put into international perspective, the equivalent ratio in
Western Europe (by now a society characterized by low levels of interpersonal
violence) was 2.5 and 2.4 for the last two decades of the nineteenth century
(Baten et al. 2014). By the early 1880s, most countries in Western Europe already
had low homicide levels (Eisner 2008): the transition to a less violent society had
been made.22 Chilean society, however, remained subject to widespread violence.
18
The fact that homicides rates are far greater for men than for women when homicides rates are high
could also be taken as another distorting factor when analysing the long-term evolution of homicides, as a
proxy of violent crime, and therefore of personal security (OECD, 2011).
19
See, e.g., Corvalán 2008; Droguett 1940; Goicovic 2004; Grez 1997; Salazar 2006; Vitale 1993.
20
For some examples, see Bascuñán and De Ávila 1941; Brangier 2011; Cáceres 2000; Estay and
Monteverde 2017; Galdámes, 1903; León 2001, 2003; Monteverde 2008.
21
According to the Clio Infra project, the data on homicides was produced by Jonathan Fink-Jensen in 2015;
he revised a version previously produced by Winny Bierman and Jan Luiten van Zanden in 2014. Although the
reference was not given, and we were unable to trace it, it seems that the data from Chile came from
Lappi-Seppälä and Lehti 2014 because that work contains data for Chile from 1950 (see their figure 4).
22
The theoretical approaches that explain this Western European transition are beyond the scope of this
article, in particular because the path taken by Chile was dramatically different: the transition took place
centuries later and was a swift rather than a gradual process. The best known work on this subject is that of
Norbert Elias (1982), whose “theory of civilization” was closely linked to the process of modernization.
Other theories relate to “social disciplining,” or to shifts in the adoption of new legal ideas and penal
practices. For a brief discussion, see Eisner 2003b.
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Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 381

Figure 2. Average homicide rates in Chile and selected European countries, 1880s–2000s.
Source: Authors for Chile data; Eisner (2008) for all others.

It took some time for Chilean society to change: the “civilizing process” referred
to by Elias, Spierenburg, Thome, Eisner, Mares, and other authors trying to explain
the downward trend in homicide rates in Western Europe, belatedly arrived in Latin
America.23 Chilean homicide rates remained high during the 1880s–1920s,
declining moderately during the 1930s. However, in the 1940s they declined to
13.3, and the 1950s witnessed the most dramatic decline in homicide rates in
Chile; the rate of the previous decade was more than halved; there were 4.9 homi-
cides per 100,000 inhabitants, a rate comparable to that in the United States at the
time (Mares 2009). During the 1960s this ratio nearly halved again, reaching 2.7,
and remained at a similar level until the 1990s.24
By the 1990s Chile had reached low levels of homicide by international standards,
even if compared to developed nations. Between the 1930s and the 1960s Chilean
homicide rates converged with the average levels in Europe, which had the lowest
global homicide levels. In the 1920s homicide rates in Chile were 12 times higher
than in Europe; during the 1980s–1990s they were only slightly more than twice as
high. Homicide rates have increased during the last two decades (slightly above
4 per 100,000 inhabitants during the 2000s–2010s).

23
According to Norbert Elias (1982), Thome (1995), and Mares (2009) (see also the macro-analysis of
Émile Durkheim 1992), the long-term decline in homicide rates in Europe between the Middle Ages and the
early twentieth century was due to a “civilizing process,” a combination of societal macro-processes, char-
acterized by changes in internal or psychological structures, which were translated into alterations in indi-
vidual behavior, in particular in degrees of self-control, and the expansion of the state with its monopoly on
violence. In turn, for Durkheim, individual violence is highly reliant on the particular moral context. See also
Eisner 2003b, Monkkonen 2005, Mares 2009, and Thome 1995, 2001.
24
The Chilean trajectory of homicide rates during the 1960s–1990s is different to that of Western Europe,
where homicide rates increased (Eisner 2008).
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382 Social Science History

Figure 3. Number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants: Chile, 1880–2017 (5-year moving average).
Source: Authors.

This increase may be due to the rise of organized crime and to the increase in
drug trafficking in Chile. The average ratio of drug offenses (per 100,000 people)
increased from 12 and 16 in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, to 60 and nearly
120 in the 2000s and 2010s, respectively. There is also a perception of growing
disparity between the rich and the poor, as the October 2019 riots have evidenced,
leading to a decline in the legitimacy of the state, which often triggers violence
(Mares 2009). This was a period when the macro-economy did well, but the lower
strata of society felt more frustrated. In such a situation, people are more likely to
commit violent acts because the poorest become increasingly aware of their low
status and their lack of social mobility (Gurr 1981).
The annual series in five-year moving averages25 shows that the lowest level of
homicide rates in Chile was achieved during the mid-1960s, and for a few years the
rate fell below 2.0 (figure 3).26 As a reference point, that figure is roughly the current
average of OECD countries (OECD 2011), while the lowest worldwide level of inter-
personal lethal violence was attained during the 1950s by some Western European
countries, at about 0.4–0.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants (Eisner 2003a).
The transition toward low crime rates started in Chile comparatively late, in the
early 1940s (figure 2). Developed countries such as the United Kingdom achieved
similar rates in the second half of the eighteenth century, while Germany, the
Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland followed suit during the earlier part of
the nineteenth century. From the 1840s in particular, there was a sustained decline
in criminal violence across Europe (Eisner 2003a, 2008), a century earlier than in

25
Given that homicide is a relatively rare offense, therefore highly variable over the short run (and across
localities), it is usual to work with the series in moving averages (Gurr 1981).
26
This was roughly the level achieved by England and Scandinavian countries a century and a half earlier,
i.e. during the 1820s–1840s (Baten et al. 2014).
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Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 383

Chile. In some southern European countries this process took longer, but, by the
early 1940s, even countries such as Spain, which clearly lagged behind the
European average, already had homicide rates below 2 (figure 2).
What needs explanation here is why homicide rates declined so significantly in
Chile during the 1930s–1960s, and then again during the 1980s and 1990s. Chile was
a special case; Eisner (2003b) found “an almost universal increase in homicide rates
from the late 1950s to the early 1990s,” while for most of this period Chile’s homi-
cide rates were declining or, at worst, remained stagnant. In the following section we
document the results of regression conditioning on some important quantitative
variables available to us. We regress homicide rates against some of these variables.
There are other important variables that may be nonmetric, may not be statistic, and
may not be linear, but that are equally important (Thome 1995).
Following Mares (2009) and Thome (1995), it is important to look at the
economic development of the country and at changes of large scale social structures
during this period. The 1930s–1960s coincides with the period of inward looking
development, or industrialization led by the state (Bértola and Ocampo 2012).
There was a profound economic change in the country, characterized by greater
intervention by the state in economic affairs, increasing investments in public
works, and the promotion of national industrialization. State institutions grew in
number, while many policies of social incorporation were promoted, leading to
the emergence of a welfare state (Arellano 1985). The poverty rate of the country
declined from 52 percent in the 1920s to 32 percent in the 1960s. The governmental
social expenditure in per capita (real) terms increased nearly fivefold between the
1920s and the 1960s, while social mobility improved. Education and health care also
improved; the average number of years children spent in school increased from
6.3 in the 1920s to more than 9 by the early 1970s. These changes probably triggered
a greater degree of restraint in interpersonal behavior, lowering interpersonal
violence and promoting internal pacification.
Another related development is the evolution of suffrage. Historians of crime
should pay attention not only to the process of state modernization but also to
the process of democratization of the country under analysis (Thome 1995).
In Chile between the 1810s and the 1870s, only a minority of the population
was able to vote, while the government controlled most elections. In 1842, for
example, only 2 percent of the population was able to vote (Urzúa 1992;
Valenzuela and Valenzuela 1983).27 During the 1880s and 1890s some reforms were
introduced (increasing the share of the population able to vote), but electoral fraud
persisted and political power remained within the same hands. The 1920s and 1930s
brought about a radical change. The franchise was extended; women were now able
to vote (from 1934 in the council elections, and from 1949 in all elections), while
new political parties emerged, including the socialist and communist parties.
In 1932 only 7 percent of the population voted; by 1973 more than a third did
so (Campos 1984). So important was this transformation that according to

27
The only people eligible to vote were literate men over 21 (if married) or over 25 (if unmarried, until
1888, when the voting age was lowered to 21 for both groups), who owned a property (or were traders with
certain capital, or professionals, or public servants). In 1970, the age restriction was lowered to 18. Only in
1972 were illiterate people allowed to vote (Campos 1984).
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384 Social Science History

Valenzuela and Valenzuela (1983), by the 1960s Chile was one of the most demo-
cratic countries on earth, despite being a developing nation. This is important
because when the state transfers some power back to citizens, fostering political
legitimacy, interpersonal violence decreases: the state monopoly of force gains
further legitimacy (Mares 2009). This process was taking place when homicide rates
were declining most sharply in Chile.
The rise of bureaucratic state structures is also linked with a decline in violence
because the state is regarded as a pacifying institution, which monopolizes violence
(Baten et al. 2014; Eisner 2003a). Societies that experience a modernization process
are less prone to high levels of criminality (Thome 1995). In Chile from the late
nineteenth century onward there emerged a strong bureaucratic state structure that
encompassed the modernization of legal institutions, the reform of ministries, the
creation of a modern prison system, the emergence of social security, the ordering of
public finances, and general improvement in the regulation of social activities. These
institutions were further improved during the following decades. Carabineros
de Chile (the national police force) was created in 1927 and modernized thereafter
(Barría 2015; Cleaves 1974; Faúndez 2007; Henríquez 2014; Islas 2017; López 2013,
2017; Silva 2008; Urzúa 1970; Urzúa and García 1971).
Another variable worth examining is the country’s level of alcoholism, and in
particular the state’s attempts to decrease it. It has been widely established that
alcohol consumption is one of the main determinants of crime. It is believed that
both drugs and alcohol fuel violent crime and higher levels of interpersonal violence
in general (Cea et al. 2006; Ensor and Godfrey 1993; Gerson and Preston 1979;
Lightowlers et al. 2021; Murdoch and Ross 1990). Alcohol consumption has been
used as an important predictor of violent crime (Saridakis 2004, 2011). A study by
Fundación Paz Ciudadana (1999) has shown that 59 percent of murderers in Chile
consumed alcohol before committing homicide. Therefore, lower rates of alcohol
consumption lead to a reduction in aggressive behavior; the adoption of humanistic
values leads to less interpersonal violence.
For Chile in particular, during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth
century many contemporaries linked the high consumption of alcohol to high levels
of criminality in the country (in particular to homicides): most criminals were either
alcoholics or were drunk when committing a serious crime. Alcoholism was
perceived as a “social plague,” exacerbating violent behavior (Revista Médica de
Chile 1892; Zilleruelo 1909). The year 1902 saw the passing of the first Alcohol
Law to regulate taxation and consumption. Its aim was to increase alcohol prices
to lower consumption, and at the same time to increase fiscal revenues, part of
which went to finance campaigns against alcoholism (Fernández 2006).
Subsequently, all presidents of the republic have announced other measures to
combat alcoholism in Chile, including the construction of sports facilities, gyms,
and cultural establishments, in particular in low-income neighborhoods (ibid.).
Salvador Allende, appointed minister of health in 1939, was an early and
eloquent voice in the campaign against alcoholism. The government of the 1930s
was one of the first to understand the importance of treating alcoholism as a serious
social disease, that needed an integral and holistic treatment, rather than seeing it
solely as a public order issue, as previous governments had done. The Ministry of
Health implemented several policies to tackle alcoholism, aiming to improve the
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Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 385

country’s human capital, social stability, and general well-being, and these helped to
reduce the rate of homicide. However, this is a topic that calls for further research.
There are many substantial gaps in the data on per capita alcohol consumption in
Chile, for example.
We also wanted to provide a chronology of death penalty legislation in Chile,
given the acknowledged deterrent effect of capital punishment on murder
(Cantor and Cohen 1980), and of the legislation on homicides. In Chile, the death
penalty was established in 1874, when the first penal code of the country was
promulgated; it applied to homicides, parricides, and infanticides.28 In the case of
parricide, its application was automatic. In the case of other homicides, the minimum
penalty was 10 years in prison, and the maximum the death penalty. Yet, it took a
decade and a half before the death penalty was first applied in Chile, in 1890.
Capital punishment has never been widely implemented in Chile; although it
remained legal for more than a century, until 200129 (the last execution was in 1985).
Some changes were made to the penalties for homicide between 1874 and 2001.
While the death penalty had previously been automatically awarded for parricide, in
1970 the sentencing options were changed to between 15 and 20 years of jail as a
minimum or the death penalty as a maximum; in the same year, the highest penalty
for homicide was changed from execution to a life sentence, which after 20 years
could be waived, while the minimum penalty was between 10 and 15 years of jail.
Between 1890 and 1985 the death penalty was applied only 57 times (Baeza 2016),30
roughly once every two years. Although it was in operation for almost the whole of
our period of study, for the next section we created a dummy variable for the period
when the death penalty was applied to most homicides, 1890–1969 (excluding parri-
cides); and another for 1890–1985 (including parricides), rather than for the entire
period it was legal (1875–2001). Whether the abolition of the death penalty in 2001
contributed to the rising homicide rates of the last two decades remains uncertain.
What is puzzling, though, is that Chile’s convergence toward low homicide rates
took place when its per capita GDP was diverging in comparison to the leading
world economies. In figure 1 we provided evidence of the relative positions of
Chile and the United States only, but these could have been paralleled with those
of other leading economies such as the United Kingdom or Germany. However,
despite this divergence, Chilean per capita GDP did increase during this period,
while inequality decreased (Rodríguez 2017). In decadal average, real per capita
GDP increased 25 percent, 17 percent, and 17 percent in the 1940s, 1950s, and
1960s, respectively, if compared to the previous decade.
Chile’s position during the last half century has improved dramatically, being
now close to those countries with the lowest homicide rates worldwide, an exem-
plary case of convergence within developing countries. In Latin America, Chile,
Argentina, and Uruguay are notable for their comparatively low homicide rates
(figure 4). The average homicide rates for the region during the 1960s–1970s were

28
For the colonial period, see Arancibia et al. 2003.
29
However, the death penalty is still in force in the Military Justice for war crimes. We are grateful to a
referee for this comment.
30
See also https://www.latercera.com/que-pasa/noticia/pena-de-muerte-en-chile-un-siglo-de-fusilamientos/
593215/.
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386 Social Science History

Figure 4. Homicide rates in some selected Latin American countries.

Source: Authors for Chile data. For all others, Clio Infra Project (https://clio-infra.eu/).

around 12, increasing to 17 and 21 during the 1980s and 1990s–2000s, respectively
(Baten et al. 2014), between four and eight times higher than in Chile. It is yet to be
seen if after the social unrest that started in October 2019 these rates will remain at
that comparatively low level.
When dissecting the national figures at a regional level, we managed to find data for
the 1880s–1950s only. We have gathered information for the seven large regions of
Chile,31 shown in figure 5, excluding the Extreme South. There is a huge variation
between regions. This is not unusual: it has always been acknowledged that homicide
rates can vary importantly across provinces within a country (Gurr 1981). The
Extreme South was not included in the figure for ease of visual exposition; homicide
rates were too high in this region (reaching 68 and 51 during the 1890s and 1900s,
respectively) compared to all others (the South was sparsely populated at that time).
Other regions suffering from high rates of interpersonal violence were the Large North
and the capital, Santiago. These were the two regions with the most concentrated urban
populations in the country. At the opposite extreme, the Little North enjoyed the
lowest rate of homicides. During the 1940s and 1950s all regions experienced a decline
in homicide rates, as was to be expected, and this decline started a decade earlier in
many regions (the Large North, Centre-North, Santiago, South, and Extreme South).

Descriptive Regression Analysis of Lethal Violence in Chile

We consider how observed homicides described in this article move with other
determinants mentioned previously. Given the longitudinal nature of these data,
31
From north to south: Large North (Tarapacá-Antofagasta); Little North (Atacama and Coquimbo);
Centre-North (Aconcagua and Colchagua); Santiago; Centre-South (Maule, Ñuble, and Talca); South
(Bio-Bio, Cautín, Chiloé, Concepción, and Valdivia); Extreme South (Aysén and Magallanes).
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Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 387

Figure 5. Homicide rates across Chilean regions, 1880s–1950s.

Note: The 1880s contain data for 1887–89 only; the 1890s for 1890–94 only, the 1900s, for 1900, 1902, 1904,
1906, 1908; the 1910s, for 1913, 1913, 1915–1918; the 1920s for all years except for 1920; the 1930s and
1940s for all years; while the 1950s contain data only for 1950–51 and 1953.

as well as the possibility for additional confounding factors or reverse causalities, we

note that this analysis is correlational and exploratory, allowing us to observe how
independent variation of a number of factors of interest predicts rates of homicide,
as well as to examine whether leads of key socioeconomic factors predict future rates
of homicides. To aim to minimize concerns related to reverse causality, we first
consider contemporaneous movements between independent variables and homi-
cides, before examining lags of these independent measures, which are entirely
predetermined with respect to homicides. We provide descriptive plots of all vari-
ables, as well as how these track alongside homicide rates, in appendix. To undertake
this analysis we estimate models of the following form:

log
Homicidest  β0  β1 Policet  β2 Ginit  β3 Pop20  34t  β4 Schoolingt

 β5 Povertyt  β6 GDPgrowtht  β7 Urbanizationt
 β8 SocialSpendingt  β9 DeathPenaltyt  εt
(1)
where the independent variable of interest (the natural logarithm of the homicide
rate per 100,000 inhabitants) at time t is allowed to depend on a number of cova-
riates also measured at time t. The data used in this article are a time series of homi-
cides, socioeconomic, and social outcomes with a single national-level average for
more than 100 years. Given the time-series nature of this data, subnational fixed
effects cannot be included in conditional regression models. The covariates included
in equation 1 (listed in order) are the rate of police personnel per 100,000 inhab-
itants, the Gini coefficient based on personal income, the proportion of population
aged between 20 and 34 years, the average years of schooling in the country, the
poverty rate, the rate of real GDP growth, urbanization, social spending per capita
in real terms, and an indicator for whether the death penalty was in place for all
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388 Social Science History

homicides. Here we estimate the linear coefficients β1 to β9 and the constant term
β0 by Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). The ϵt term is an unobserved stochastic
component, and standard errors for each estimate are robust to heteroscedasticity.
In this specification, we use the natural logarithm of the homicide rate so
that each coefficient can be interpreted as the approximate percentage
change in rates of homicide with a one unit increase in the independent variable
of interest.
To address concerns that independent variables may move in response to homi-
cide rates rather than vice versa, we augment the prior specification to include lags
of each variable. Namely, call Determinantst the full set of righthand side variables in
the preceding model (a vector of variables). Similarly, Determinants(t-1) is the lagged
realization of each measure, and Determinants(t-k) is the kth lag of each variable. We
thus additionally estimate:

log
Homicidest  α  β0 Determinantst  γ 0 Determinants
t1

 δ0 Determinants
t2  ηt (2)

where β, γ, and δ are parameter vectors corresponding to contemporaneous

measures, the first lag of these measures, and the second lag of these measures,
respectively. Once again, we will estimate this model by OLS, ηt is a stochastic
error term, and standard errors are robust to arbitrary forms of heteroscedasticity.
Here, we restrict lags to two years for each determinant considered. In practice,
adding additional temporal lags has relatively little impact on higher order
coefficients. Formal tests of prediction error based on the Akaike information
criteria and Schwarz’s Bayesian information criteria suggest optimal lag lengths
of between 1 and 3 lags when considering the natural logarithm of the rate of
homicides.
Finally, we will address potential uncertainty in measurement by taking entirely
predetermined five-year moving averages of each independent variable of interest.
This consists of taking averages for each variable listed in the above models over the
five years preceding each moment t and regressing the homicide rate in period t on
these moving averages.
In table 1 we present correlational evidence from equations 1 and 2. In column
1, we first display equation 1, progressively including additional lags in columns 2
and 3. In column 1 we observe that police personnel per capita, urbanization, and
real social spending per capita are all inversely related to the homicide rate. In the
case of police personnel, for every 1 unit increase per 100,000 inhabitants, we esti-
mate a reduction in 0.3 percent in the homicide rate. Surprisingly, in this model we
note a positive relationship between schooling and rates of homicide, though return
to this relationship below when we examine its stability over time.
In columns 2 and 3 we add additional lags of each measure, where equation 2 is
presented in column 3. In this specification where full lags are included for each
relevant measure we now observe that both present and past rates of poverty are
negatively related with homicides, and observe some evidence that growth in real
GDP is also negatively correlated with homicides (increases in real GDP are
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Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 389

Table 1. Correlational evidence on long trends in homicide rates

log(Homicides) log(Homicides) log(Homicides)

(1) (2) (3)

Police Personnel per 100,000 –0.003*** 0.002 0.001

(0.001) (0.002) (0.002)
GINI Coefficient –0.102 –0.533 –0.062
(0.979) (1.274) (1.426)
Share Population 20–34 0.032 0.306 0.530
(0.035) (0.267) (0.372)
Mean Years of Schooling 0.325*** 0.100 0.215
(0.081) (0.195) (0.192)
Poverty Rate –0.010 0.006 –0.174**
(0.008) (0.063) (0.085)
Real GDP Growth –0.008 –0.007 –0.011*
(0.005) (0.005) (0.005)
Urbanization –0.091*** –0.231 –0.503***
(0.010) (0.143) (0.181)
Real Social Spending p.c. –0.001** –0.003 –0.002
(0.001) (0.002) (0.002)
Death Penalty in Place 0.195 0.151 0.173
(0.133) (0.231) (0.264)
Police Personnel per 100,000 (t-1) –0.006** –0.001
(0.003) (0.004)
GINI Coefficient (t-1) 1.758 0.791
(1.149) (1.409)
Share Population 20–34 (t-1) –0.311 –0.696
(0.248) (0.602)
Mean Years of Schooling (t-1) 0.272 –0.316
(0.204) (0.223)
Poverty Rate (t-1) –0.026 0.342**
(0.065) (0.156)
Real GDP Growth (t-1) –0.006 –0.006
(0.005) (0.005)
Urbanization (t-1) 0.128 0.716**
(0.142) (0.350)
(Continued)
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390 Social Science History

Table 1. (Continued )

log(Homicides) log(Homicides) log(Homicides)

(1) (2) (3)
Real Social Spending p.c. (t-1) 0.001 0.000
(0.002) (0.003)
Police Personnel per 100,000 (t-2) –0.007**
(0.003)
GINI Coefficient (t-2) 0.660
(1.244)
Share Population 20–34 (t-2) 0.165
(0.313)
Mean Years of Schooling (t-2) 0.567***
(0.199)
Poverty Rate (t-2) –0.197**
(0.089)
Real GDP Growth (t-2) 0.001
(0.004)
Urbanization (t-2) –0.331
(0.206)
Real Social Spending p.c. (t-2) –0.001
(0.002)
Constant 5.672*** 7.357*** 8.317***
(1.379) (1.799) (2.053)
Observations 138 137 136

R-Squared 0.828 0.848 0.868

conditionally correlated with falling rates of homicides).32 Of interest, now police

personnel is still negatively correlated with homicide rates, however this obtains
principally in lagged models, suggesting some feedback process between additional
police presence, and future rates of homicide. For example, a 1 unit increase
per 100,000 inhabitants in period t-2 is estimated to be associated with a 0.7 percent
decline in homicides in period t.
In table 2 we examine these relationships by period, both prior to, during, and
posterior to the sharp reduction in homicides observed between the 1930s and the
1960s. Columns 1 and 2 present regression results for only the pre-1930 period both

32
We consider including both real GDP growth as well as real GDP per capita expressed in current terms.
The addition of real GDP per capita has relatively little impact after conditioning on real GDP growth
(results available upon request).
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Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 391

Table 2. Correlational findings by period

Pre-1930 1930–60 Post-1960

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Police Personnel per 100,000 0.005 0.001 –0.010*** –0.008* –0.008*** 0.001
(0.003) (0.004) (0.003) (0.004) (0.002) (0.005)
GINI Coefficient –3.573 0.475 –2.801** –2.281 1.392 1.225
(2.271) (2.419) (1.318) (2.889) (1.015) (1.158)
Share Population 20–34 0.338** 0.927 –0.130 –0.209 –0.078* –0.162
(0.163) (0.710) (0.106) (0.773) (0.041) (0.242)
Mean Years of Schooling –0.361 –1.972 –0.633 0.008 0.036 0.260*
(0.504) (2.314) (0.885) (2.694) (0.076) (0.138)
Poverty Rate –0.042 1.245* –0.019 –0.236 –0.019 –0.080*
(0.042) (0.650) (0.039) (0.392) (0.017) (0.044)
Real GDP Growth –0.016 –0.027*** 0.005 0.003 –0.010 –0.005
(0.010) (0.010) (0.004) (0.004) (0.008) (0.009)
Urbanization –0.006 0.209 –0.086* –0.559 –0.124* –0.132
(0.041) (0.275) (0.047) (0.492) (0.073) (0.570)
Real Social Spending p.c. –0.113*** –0.079* 0.008 0.004 0.001 –0.002
(0.041) (0.040) (0.007) (0.010) (0.001) (0.002)
Death Penalty in Place 0.636** 0.577 0.000 0.000 –0.829** –0.973***
(0.289) (0.365) (.) (.) (0.314) (0.322)
Police Personnel per 100,000 0.003 –0.004 –0.006
(t-1)
(0.004) (0.004) (0.005)
GINI Coefficient (t-1) –3.467 1.049 3.369*
(2.889) (2.146) (1.701)
Share Population 20–34 (t-1) –0.530 0.033 0.053
(0.513) (0.666) (0.219)
Mean Years of Schooling (t-1) 2.503 0.314 –0.164
(2.466) (2.859) (0.141)
Poverty Rate (t-1) –1.288* 0.223 0.080
(0.659) (0.405) (0.048)
Real GDP Growth (t-1) –0.018*** –0.003 –0.009
(0.006) (0.005) (0.009)
Urbanization (t-1) –0.219 0.437 0.027
(0.286) (0.504) (0.541)
(Continued)
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392 Social Science History

Table 2. (Continued )

Pre-1930 1930–60 Post-1960

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Real Social Spending p.c. (t-1) –0.062* 0.004 0.002
(0.034) (0.010) (0.002)
Constant 0.252 –4.278 20.175*** 16.433 14.751*** 10.242*
(7.144) (9.455) (6.196) (11.918) (4.988) (5.523)
Observations 50 49 30 30 58 58

R-Squared 0.365 0.619 0.950 0.960 0.491 0.613

with and without lagged outcomes and suggest a negative correlation between homi-
cides and each of GDP growth, the rate of poverty, and social spending.
Interestingly, this relationship appears to lessen over time. Indeed, in the period
of sharp reduction in homicides (1930s–1960s), the only robust correlation obtains
when considering police personnel. In this case, we observe that for each additional
member per 100,000 inhabitants, rates of homicide are approximately 1 percent
lower. This relationship is similarly observed in the post-1960 period.
Finally, in table 3 we examine an alternative measure of the independent vari-
ables available, namely taking predetermined five-year moving averages of each
measure. In general, these similarly point to the changing nature of determinants
over time, as observed with regressions in table 2. For example, when taking longer
period moving averages, we observe relatively consistent correlations between
(higher) inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient and reductions in rates of
homicide. We similarly observe relatively consistent correlations between higher
social spending and reductions in homicide, particularly in the pre-1960 period,
as well as higher GDP growth and reduced rates of homicide. However, correlations
between years of schooling and rates of police personnel do not exhibit such
stability, limiting our ability to comment on the sign of correlations at least when
longer moving average estimates are employed.

Conclusions
Our main conclusion is that the number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in
Chile was very high during the late nineteenth century and the early decades of
the twentieth century. However, from the 1930s homicide rates started to decline,
initially gradually, but sharply during the 1950s–1960s, remaining at similar (low)
levels until the 1990s. During the 1960s–1990s the country’s homicide rates were
low by international standards. The 1930s–1960s was a key period in the evolution
of interpersonal violence of Chile. There was a sustained decline in Chile’s homicide
rates: a clear turning point in interpersonal violence in Chile, and an accelerated
decline by international standards. The most important characteristic of this period
is Chilean convergence toward the homicide rates of Europe. Interpersonal
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Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 393

Table 3. Homicide rates and predetermined 5-year moving averages of correlates

All Pre-1930 1930–60 Post-1960

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Police Personnel per 100,000 (5y MA) –0.005*** 0.006 0.020*** –0.007*
(0.002) (0.005) (0.006) (0.003)
GINI Coefficient (5y MA) 1.865* 1.510 2.613 6.129***
(1.042) (3.161) (1.777) (2.224)
Share Population 20–34 (5y MA) –0.020 –0.119 –0.158 –0.145***
(0.035) (0.204) (0.282) (0.052)
Mean Years of Schooling (5y MA) 0.476*** –0.761 –7.632** –0.004
(0.093) (0.746) (2.711) (0.110)
Poverty Rate (5y MA) –0.020 –0.170 –0.295*** –0.016
(0.014) (0.117) (0.045) (0.024)
Real GDP Growth (5y MA) –0.019** –0.001 –0.040*** –0.010
(0.009) (0.022) (0.011) (0.018)
Urbanization (5y MA) –0.118*** –0.237 0.162 –0.071
(0.016) (0.174) (0.140) (0.079)
Real Social Spending p.c. (5y MA) –0.002*** –0.245*** 0.006 0.001
(0.001) (0.051) (0.019) (0.001)
Death Penalty in Place 0.080 0.787*** –0.767*
(0.204) (0.282) (0.403)
Constant 7.781*** 29.903 52.295*** 9.324*
(2.131) (21.926) (16.668) (5.411)
Observations 132 44 30 57

R-Squared 0.842 0.432 0.949 0.622

relationships in Chile changed for the better during these decades, in both public
and private places: there was a major cultural shift in attitudes toward violence.
This phase coincides with a period in Chilean economic history of inward
looking development, led by the state. After the Great Depression of 1929, the state
was increasingly interventionist in economic affairs. During this period all govern-
ments implemented policies of social welfare, reducing poverty rates from
65 percent in the 1910s to around 36 percent during the 1950s–1960s, which prob-
ably led to a more favorable popular perception of the political elites. These policies
brought about a cultural change in the country, and a reduction of anomie.
It has been argued that in other regions of the world that experienced a decline
in homicide rates, such as Europe from the 1850s to the 1950s, this decline was
mainly due to a cultural change, and a modernization process, with the promotion
 https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2021.49 Published online by Cambridge University Press
394 Social Science History

of self-constraint, familialism, and the pursuit of respectability, which were rein-

forced through social institutions.
During the 1930s–1960s, the per capita GDP growth rates of the country
increased significantly, at unprecedented rates33 and only superseded by those from
the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. However, the high growth rate of the 1930s–1960s
(when homicide rates declined the most) surprisingly coincided with the period
when the per capita GDP of the country was diverging in relation to the leading
economies of the world, although these economies had never grown so fast:
it was the golden age of advanced capitalism. What is clear is that this period
coincided with the emergence of a welfare state, increasing social expenditure,
declining poverty rates, improvements in health and education, increasing policing,
and an increase in universal suffrage. Can we also talk about a modernization of
Chilean society during this period? Or of a “civilization process”? That is a matter
for future research.
Let us illustrate the change in Chilean society by a case in point. In 1865,
an ordinary Chilean man, Cruz Riquelme, caught his wife having sex with another
man in the couple’s bed. The enraged Riquelme decided to kill both his infidel wife
and her lover. He stabbed the lover to death, but failed in his attempts to assassinate
his wife, who escaped badly injured. At the trial, the judge decided to immediately
release Cruz Riquelme from prison. For the judge, the short time served in prison
(between the murder and the sentence) was sufficient punishment. The whole case
was published in Gaceta de los Tribunales (No. 1223, 16 December 1865), and was
widely known in and accepted by Chilean society. If the crime had taken place a
hundred years later, in the 1960s, it would be unthinkable that someone like
Cruz Riquelme would not have served at least 15 years in jail. Recent court rulings
by the Chilean Supreme Court show that for a man in Riquelme’s position “a due
reflection on the act to execute” would have been expected, despite the pain caused
by infidelity.34
While the aim of this article is not to explain the causes of homicides in Chile, nor
causal determinants of reductions in homicides, we do present correlational
evidence over a long period examining how a number of public and socioeconomic
variables move with rates of homicides. We agree with the late EH Monkkonen, who
in his last article (2015), before an untimely death, noted that social scientists,
historians, and other scientists are not able yet to provide comprehensive
explanations of such phenomena. However, our regression analysis points to the
importance of a number of variables related to economic conditions. There is
evidence that increased social spending in the past is associated with a reduction
in homicides in the present, and additionally, that past and concurrent economic
growth also correlates with reductions in rates of homicides. Finally, there is some
evidence to suggest that increased police presence (both lagged and concurrent) is
correlated with reductions in rates of homicides, though we cannot entirely rule out
that this relationship is in part capturing reverse causality flowing from homicides to
additional police personnel; this relationship does not appear robustly over time,

33
Even after recovering the pre-1929 per capita GDP level.
34
Supreme Court, 30 April 1997, LPN, No. CL/JUR/2467/1997.
 https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2021.49 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 395

and is particularly obvious in periods in which sharp reductions in the rate of homi-
cides were observed.
It is also important to stress that for most developing countries high levels of
homicides are thought to be one of the most important reasons for low levels of
well-being (Baten et al. 2014). Yet, Chile seems to be an exception to the rule.
Why? Homicide rates are now low, from the 1960s onward amongst the lowest
in the region, but well-being is not as high as in other countries enjoying comparable
levels of homicide rates. Chile felt into the same trap as other middle-income coun-
tries: despite a remarkable fall in homicide rates, amongst other improvements,
per capita GDP did not improve while other indicators of well-being also remained
stagnant.
Another unusual aspect of Chile’s lethal violence rates is that they have been low
during the last half century (including the killing of members of the political elites),
but inequality is high, which is an unusual situation: inequality is one of the main
drivers of interpersonal violence. Until October 2019, when the country experienced
one of the worst periods of social unrest in its entire history, Chile was widely
thought to be amongst the most politically stable countries in the continent, despite
the rampant income inequality, poor access to education and health services, and
the miserable pensions awarded to its people.
Acknowledgments. We are very grateful to the National Register Office (Registro Civil) of Chile, in partic-
ular to Alicia Pérez Ponce, Francia Vera, Pablo Rodríguez, Lidia Vergara, Roberto Gesell, and to the staff of
the Departamento de Subinscripciones. We are also indebted to the Office of National Statistics (INE), in
particular to Iván Valenzuela. We are also grateful to Rory Miller, Diego Barría, Katharine Wilson, Elías
Navarrete, Javier Rodríguez Weber, José Díaz, Francisco Zambrano, Margot Winkler, Andrés Estefane,
and Cristian Ducoing. This paper was funded by the Anillos Grant number ANID PIA SOC180001;
Universidad de Santiago’s grants numbers 031962LLJ_POSTDOC_ANILLO and USA-1855.

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Appendix

Figure A1. Descriptive plots of all variables.

 https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2021.49 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s 399
Rodrigo Rivero-Cantillano, PhD economic history, is assistant professor at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez,
Santiago, Chile. He has published several articles on Chilean demography and economic history.

Manuel Llorca-Jña is full professor of economic and business history at Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile.
He has published several books with Cambridge University Press, Routledge, and Palgrave MacMillan. He is
also the author of more than 40 journal articles in Cliometrica, Economics and Human Biology, Business
History, Business History Review, amongst many other journals.

Damian Clarke, PhD economics (Oxford University), is associate professor at the Department of
Economics, FEN, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile. He is also a research fellow, IZA and research asso-
ciate, CSAE Oxford, MiSoC Essex.

Javier Rivas is a researcher at Universidad de Valparaiso, Chile, and MSC in economic history.

Martina Allende is a researcher at Universidad de Valparaiso, Chile, and BA in history.

Daniel Quezada is a researcher at Universidad de Santiago, Chile, and MSC in economic history.

Cite this article: Rivero-Cantillano, Rodrigo, Manuel Llorca-Jaña, Damian Clarke, Javier Rivas,
Daniel Quezada, and Martina Allende (2022) “Interpersonal Violence in Chile, c. 1880s–2010s: A Tale
of Delayed but Successful Convergence,” Social Science History 46:373–399. doi:10.1017/ssh.2021.49