According to statistics of the Judicial Investigative Organism, the province of Guanacaste in Costa Rica, went from 6.6 homicides for every 100,000 inhabitants in 2015 to 12.7 in 2017.

This province and Alajuela were the two that experienced a highest increase in murders, in the case of Alajuela the rate went from 5.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015 to 10.8 in 2017.

The majority of the crimes obey to settling of scores between individuals or gangs, organized crime, confrontations between gangs to win over specific territories, among others.

When it comes to the factors that have cause the violence to increase in a province like Guanacaste, this could have to do with the increase of small-scale drug trafficking particularly in the beaches.

San Jose still remains in the first place in the total number of homicides registered, followed by Limon (although in relation to the number of inhabitants Limon has the highest rate), and Alajuela sits in third place; despite the increase in murders in Guanacaste this is the province with less number of homicides registered last year.

Within San Jose, the counties that registered the most homicides were San Jose (91), Desamparados (30), Alajuelita (21), Tibas (14) , Goicochea (13) and Escazu (8).

In the case of Alajuela, and according to Marlon Cubillo, subdirector of Fuerza Publica, the statistics are showing an increase because in many cases gangs are throwing bodies in the Caldera Route, in locations that are part of the Alajuela province and therefore generate an increase in the statistics for this province that in the past had a low number of homicides.

The majority of the victims of homicide are between the ages of 18 to 29. In average a homicide occurs in the country every 14 hours and 32 minutes, (1.6 per day).