An unexpected symmetry of images awaited me on each side of the Argentina-Brazil border. Either side of the land crossing was one of two young female travelers, each bearing an unwanted momento on the skin of something bad that had recently happened. A repeated motif of long blonde hair framing purple and black bruising around the eyes.

The exact nature of what happened to each woman remains the private history of two strangers, unknown to each other, carrying their backpacks to different destinations. More intimately, some of my friends have endured terrible violence just a few miles from the superficially relaxed elegance of colonial Antigua, Guatemala.

Excluding individual countries within war zones, the Latin American region ranks with Africa as the most violent region on the planet. International crime statistics are difficult to credibly compare but Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela, Brazil and Mexico all have rates of death from violent crime that make them candidates for inclusion on a list of “the world’s ten most violent countries". Guatemala, whose murder rate of 47 per 100,000 is nearly fifty times that of Ireland, is currently the third most violent country in the small group of nations that comprise Central America.

The elevated crime rate of this region is a significant barrier to development that could transform so many lives. Security guards armed with guns or machetes can be seen protecting homes, businesses, schools and even half-empty delivery trucks for soft drinks. Money is therefore spent on protecting existing assets that could otherwise be invested in creating new products. Furthermore, corruption and extortion scare off foreign investment. The World Bank estimates that up to 8% could be added to growth figures if the region’s crime figures were reduced to that of some of its safer countries, such as Costa Rica.

Yet perhaps the most noticeable effect of crime in Latin America is a pervasive fear - an anxiousness of mind and tightness in the chest that is an invisible ever-present. Entering and leaving cars in parts of Sao Paulo, Brazil is a high speed, high stress activity - behavior modeled by local residents with vivid memories of personal traumas. Security thinking in Guatemala city - the famed murder capital of Central America - divides the city into innumerable gated communities. These enclaves of the middle class, protected by armed guards, represent Guatemala’s “secession of the successful,” creating yet further distance between rich and poor.

It is inequality - as opposed to poverty - that is thought to be one of the main reasons (along with often under-resourced and under-performing police, judicial and prison systems) for Latin America’s high crime rate. This crime rate is thus the distressed miner’s canary warning that the walls of mistrust dividing this incredibly unequal continent make prisoners of us all.