Mexico's new General Victims' Law has been widely acclaimed, but some critics quietly wonder: might criminality itself profit from a society that tends to equate "citizen" and "victim"?

The Emerging Society of Victims

Since taking office in 1998, Chavez has ignored the dramatic rise in violent crime, making security a private good in the socialist republic.

In Caracas, Venezuela’s residential neighborhood of Bello Monte, journalists from multiple publications can be found every morning having coffee at the city’s only morgue. In this way, homicide figures are gathered for the city. More accurate numbers are unknown, as the Venezuelan government stopped releasing official crime related statistics to the public in 2005.