Homicides and socioeconomic influences: a report from Argentina for the period 1971-1997 / Homicídios e influências socioeconômicas: relatório da Argentina no período 1971-1997

RESUMEN

Homicides rates en Argentina were really high between 1971 and 1977, probably because of the political conflicts occuring at that time. These rates declined at the end of the 1970´s and at the beginning of the 1980´s. Then,, from the middle 1980´s on, there was a progressive increase in both homicide rates and the percentage of accused individuals under the age of 21. This article argues that this increase was due to the influence of an unbalanced situation between certain aspects of regional development and the increase in relative deprivation, and to other facilitating elements such as easier acess to drugs. In this study, the most significant and homogeneous correlation was detected among independent variables such as gross domestic product (GDP), Gini´s coefficient, unemployment rate and the dependent variable of the percentage of murderes under the age of 21