Violence has gone down during Xiomara Castro’s term, but has security improved in Honduras?

On 30 November, Honduras will hold general elections. Xiomara Castro of the ruling, left-wing Libertad y Refundación (Libre) party — the first woman president in the country’s history — will not run for re-election, having reached her term limit. As she prepares to leave office, Castro can boast that under her watch, the country’s level of violence has significantly gone down. 

During the first three years and 10 months of her term, ACLED data show that violence from organized crime was 27% lower than during the same period of the preceding administration, the second term of right-wing National Party leader Juan Orlando Hernández. And in 2024, the police recorded a homicide rate of 26 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest in 30 years.¹ 

Yet, Libre’s candidate, former Defense Minister Rixi Moncada, has not used the reduction in violence as a trademark of her campaign. This may be due to the fact that the government’s strategy — which gradually shifted from demilitarization and community policing to perennial states of exception, the expanding role of military forces, and mass incarceration — does not fully explain the reduction in violence. 

Testimonies from people living or working in gang-controlled communities and security experts suggest that the reduction in official violence rates owes more to a shift in gang tactics than to effective law enforcement operations. This may also show why the reduction has not been met with an improvement in public perception: Roughly one-fourth of the interviewees of an early 2025 public opinion survey identified insecurity and organized crime as the main problems facing the country, and seven in 10 people believed that homicides had been rising over the previous year.² 

The geography of violence offers a possible explanation for this paradox. A mix of government policies and gang re-accommodation contributed to reducing violence significantly in the metropolitan areas of San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa. To the contrary, armed violence linked to organized crime continued to thrive in Honduras’ rural departments, historically affected by a mix of land disputes and drug trafficking activities. These shifting organized crime dynamics yield a much more mixed picture of Castro’s results in the security realm than the one the government would like to present.

Honduras’ unusual state of exception: More security force presence, but fewer clashes with gangs

During the 2021 general elections campaign, Castro, the then-candidate for Libre, promised to dismantle the army-led security apparatus built by Hernández, who has been accused of aiding, rather than combating, organized crime. Hernández is serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States on drug-trafficking-related offenses. In its stead, she would build one anchored on the leadership of the National Police.³ 

During her first year in office, Castro took steps in that direction, disbanding inter-agency units led by military forces and tasking the police with controlling the penitentiary system. The National Police, however, was ill-prepared to take up the task and failed to curb extortion and violence, prompting Castro to progressively reverse these decisions. By the end of 2022, she had imposed a state of exception, which restricts freedom of movement and assembly and allows authorities to search homes and make arrests without a warrant. Her government renewed this measure 24 times ever since — often without formal congressional ratification⁴ — eventually expanding it from 162 neighborhoods in the country’s two main cities to 226 of the country’s 298 municipalities (see visuals below).⁵ After a massacre in the Támara women’s prison left 46 inmates dead in June 2023, Castro also gave the management of the penitentiary system back to the military police.⁶

The apparent impact of the government’s measures

Despite the erratic sequence of government decisions, organized crime violence has progressively decreased during Castro’s term, particularly in 2024. The reduction was higher in the country’s most violent cities, San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa, and their surroundings, where Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), 18th Street, and several other gangs vie for the control of drug peddling and extortion activities. These cities recorded 50% and 44% reductions in violent events, reflected in similar drops in the respective departments of Cortés and Francisco Morazán (see map below). Interestingly, despite an initial uptick in clashes between security forces and gangs shortly after the imposition of the state of exception, these decreased significantly, too. Violence in prisons has also reached historic lows: In 2024, it was the lowest since ACLED started recording violence in Honduras in 2018, and not a single violent event has been recorded so far in 2025.

The government attributes these major improvements to better coordination between civilian and military security forces, stricter prison checks, and increased patrolling. Since the imposition of the state of exception, security forces claim to have carried out over 60,000 searches, leading to the arrest of more than 5,000 people for extortion and other serious crimes.⁷ 

Some security experts consulted for this report argue that the police’s institutional overhaul began with the appointment of figures with a recognized track record in the fight against organized crime to leadership positions, including the directors of the police and prison systems, as well as the security minister. They suggest that the new leadership’s professional integrity contributed to reducing security forces’ participation in criminal activities, which has been fueling violence in recent years.⁸ They add that the deployment of security forces in urban centers acted as a deterrent, pushing gang members to keep a low profile or relocate to other parts of the country, changing routes for drug and arms smuggling activities.⁹ This redistribution of gang presence would explain why the reportedly higher presence of security forces has not translated into an increase in clashes with gangs, nor has it been accompanied by a surge in suspected abuses of force, as seen in other countries in the region that have adopted similar hardline security policies, such as Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. 

Was the reduction of violence a result of gang adaptation?

Despite the government's claims of a more robust deployment and improved coordination between agencies, security forces’ operations seem to have done little to change gangs’ presence and control. In fact, testimonies of people living or having carried out research in gang-ridden communities suggest that the reduction in homicides owes more to shifts in gangs’ dynamics and tactics. 

Some of these changes involve their adaptation to the state of exception and more frequent security forces’ patrols: To avoid attracting public attention and raids in the neighborhoods they operate in, MS-13 and other gangs have used violence more surgically. This means resorting more often to forced disappearances than homicides, which are usually much more public displays of violence.¹⁰ The Directorate of Police Investigations records 1,523 disappearances in 2024, up from 1,230 in 2023.¹¹ But most disappearances go unreported due to distrust in authorities or fear of gang reprisals: According to an evangelical pastor.¹² working on violence prevention in an area of San Pedro Sula with a strong gang presence:

“The only people who dare to file complaints are those who leave the country and use the complaint as evidence to seek political asylum.”

Other changes point to developments in the gang competition for the control of extortion and drug peddling, most notably the expansion of MS-13 in the cities of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. MS-13 in Honduras has prioritized drug trafficking and peddling over extortion,¹³ possibly contributing to reducing the levels of violence that are associated with the refusal to pay. As an illustration, ACLED records 267 incidents of violence against private and public transportation workers — one of the most targeted sectors for extortion — during the 45 months of the Castro administration. While still worryingly high, the number of events was 37% lower than those recorded during the same period of the second Hernández administration. MS-13’s expanding business has also implied taking out or co-opting several smaller criminal outfits — sometimes with certain complicity by security forces — reducing the number of competing groups in Honduras’ criminal landscape.¹⁴ It has also come to the detriment of its most important rival, the 18th Street gang, which has lost significant swaths of territory in San Pedro Sula and surroundings, particularly in Chamelecón.¹⁵ 

In summary, the reduction in violence in the country’s main cities cannot be attributed to a single factor. A renewed leadership in the security sector may have contributed to reducing collusion between security forces and illicit activities, improving coordination among units, and enhancing patrolling in marginalized communities. At the same time, criminal gangs – particularly MS-13 – have adapted to the new circumstances and used violence more surgically and less visibly, also contributing to lowering the levels of violence in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa.

Beyond urban violence: The expansion of organized crime and its impact on land conflicts 

While gang violence levels have substantially decreased in urban settings, other coastal and rural areas have experienced an increase in organized crime activity during Castro’s presidency. For example, the departments of Colón and Olancho experienced a 27% and 44% increase in violence, with a worrying trend involving the targeting of farmers. Compared to her predecessor, Castro appears to have devoted more energy to eradicating coca crops and addressing farmers’ claims of ownership over land without resorting to violent repression. However, her efforts have not curbed the expansion of illicit activities and the growing role of organized crime in the agribusiness sector. 

From transit to producing country: The expansion of coca crops

Honduras is strategically located along one of the busiest drug trafficking routes in the world. For decades, organized crime groups have smuggled cocaine bound for the US through the country, via air, sea, and land. In recent years, however, it appears some of these groups have been trying to shorten the logistical chain — and the risks associated with the longer journey from South American countries — by boosting coca leaf cultivation in the country. Coca crops have popped up in Honduras and other Central American countries since at least 2017, but they appear to have taken hold in Honduras and, coupled with the appearance of drug laboratories, are slowly turning the country into a cocaine producer.¹⁶ These activities have been concentrated in remote parts of departments such as Colón, Olancho, Atlántida, and Yoro, which have served as smuggling hubs for drug trafficking groups for decades. ACLED records 223 seizures of coca crops during the Castro administration so far, a more than five times increase compared to the whole of Hernández’s second term. 

Over 65% of these operations were concentrated in Colón and Olancho, and an additional 23% in Atlántida and Yoro — mostly along the main drug trafficking corridors connecting the country’s eastern and western departments (see map below). To better conceal the crops and make it more difficult to trace them back to their financiers, criminal groups place them in public lands, often in protected biospheres.¹⁷ They co-opt ranger organizations, who are normally unarmed and either accept the installation of these cultivations or face intimidation and violence.¹⁸ However, much of this violence takes place in remote areas and often goes unreported, making it difficult to establish a clear link between the expansion of coca crops and the deterioration of security in these departments.¹⁹

The increase in coca crop seizures can be interpreted as Castro’s greater commitment to halting the expansion of this phenomenon: Her government has deployed the military to combat drug-related activities in rural departments and created specific “environmental protection battalions” tasked with protecting natural reserves and preventing deforestation.²⁰ However, these units are understaffed and ill-equipped. Meanwhile, coca cultivation appears to be on the rise, hinting at the possibility that production is becoming a viable option, at least for internal consumption.²¹ Indeed, the army may have found as little as 5% of the total crops, according to a researcher who has conducted fieldwork on this matter.²² 

Land disputes and a mix of business, political, and criminal interests

The expansion of coca crops is far from the only indicator of the expansion of organized crime’s reach in Honduras’ rural departments, where their interests and those of private businesses often intersect, at the expense of local farmers. In departments such as Colón and Olancho, farmers cooperatives that have been waging long-standing battles for more equitable land distribution often confront criminal groups seeking to expand their activities to accommodate illegal airstrips, coca crops, and intensive livestock or palm oil cultivation. Compared to previous governments — when the military was essentially deployed to back economic elites in land conflicts — the Castro administration has nominally taken on a less repressive attitude toward farmers' movements, and even created a Commission for Agrarian Security to address land disputes, according to researchers consulted for this report.²³ 

However, the government’s increasing reluctance to crack down on farmers’ movements may have prompted large agribusinesses to rely more heavily on hitmen and private militias to evict and displace farmers. ACLED records 76 events of violence targeting or involving farmers during Castro’s term, most of them related to land disputes, compared to 49 during Hernández’s term. These incidents led to over 105 deaths, almost double those under Hernández. Over half of these events took place in Colón and Olancho, where the number of organized crime groups active in these two departments has also gone up from four under Hernández to 14 under Castro. Land and environment defenders in these departments have also been fighting against mining and hydroelectric projects, which are often linked to contested appropriation of land and have ties with agribusiness and organized crime groups.²⁴ According to Global Witness reports, 73 land and environment defenders were killed or forcibly disappeared in Honduras between 2018 and 2024.²⁵ 

One of the longest land-related conflicts in the country is the one in the Aguán Valley, which spans between the Colón and Yoro departments (see map below). There, farmers cooperatives have resorted to land invasions to claim their rights of tenure over the land they lost in the 1990s, when a law allowed large agribusinesses — often linked to large drug trafficking groups²⁶ — to buy up portions of land that had been held collectively by peasant associations, sometimes in a fraudulent or coercive fashion.²⁷ In these areas, particularly around the Trujillo and Tocoa municipalities, they have confronted private businesses interested in expanding palm oil fields, forcibly evicting farmer cooperatives from the lands they claim and occupy.²⁸ To do so, they have relied on the cooperation of security forces or the actions of armed parapolice over the years. More recently, armed groups acting on behalf of private interests appear to have taken on a more prominent role: Los Cachos gang is believed to be responsible for the killing of 18 farmers in the Bajo Aguán region just between 2024 and August 2025, according to local organizations.²⁹ 

The links between private, political, and criminal interests running behind these agroindustrial projects are illustrated by the killing of Juan López in September 2024.³⁰ López was an advocate of land rights and opposed mining projects in the Aguán region. He had also denounced the links between Tocoa Mayor Adán Fúnez and businesses tied to the Los Cachos gang shortly before he was assassinated.³¹ López’s case is emblematic of the power these local elites hold: Despite both Fúnez and López belonging to the ruling party, Libre, and although the party’s honor tribunal suggested expelling Fúnez after he featured in a video accepting bribes from drug traffickers in 2013, Castro has not taken any action against him.³²

Facing the dangers of shifting crime

“[Gangs] can still destabilize the country. MS-13 can make it so that tomorrow there are 30 dead people.”
- A former member of the anti-gang national force

Regardless of who wins the upcoming elections, the next administration will receive a less violent country overall, yet one riddled by an expanding presence and range of activities of organized crime groups. While gangs have been using violence more selectively in the main urban centers, their presence and territorial control have not been dented by more frequent police patrols and raids. Any future attempt to crack down on criminal gangs will thus need to take into account the backlash it would likely prompt. According to a former member of the anti-gang national force, the gangs “can still destabilize the country. MS-13 can make it so that tomorrow there are 30 dead people,” up from an average of around six daily homicides.³³

Meanwhile, the expansion of illicit crops raises concerns about the possible transition of Honduras to a cocaine-producing country. Should investments in coca crops yield sufficient returns to become profitable, this new activity may fuel violent competition between a growing number of organized crime groups operating in rural departments, putting farmers working in coca fields in the crosshairs of their turf wars. In addition, the increase in armed groups acting on behalf of large agrobusinesses illustrates the deepening connections between organized crime, politics, and economic interests — which could worsen violence in long-standing, unresolved land conflicts. In this context of evolving crime, inhabitants of marginalized urban communities, farmer cooperatives defending their ownership rights, and environmental defenders advocating for a sustainable use of natural resources will continue to pay the highest toll.

Visuals produced by Ana Marco.