Ecuador faces surge in youth recruitment by criminal gangs, sparking security crisis

A new report by Ecuador's Plan Nacional de Seguridad Ciudadana warns that criminal groups are systematically recruiting children and adolescents, using them for drug micro‑trafficking, territorial surveillance, extortion and hit‑man work. The report notes a 44.35% increase in homicides of 12‑ to 17‑year‑olds between 2024 and 2025, rising from 372 to 537 cases annually, and records that 64.8% of juvenile detention centres are overcrowded. The Interior Ministry says lethal violence is shifting toward younger ages, demanding urgent, comprehensive prevention and protection policies.

At the same time, scholars highlight a broader Latin American policing problem: an over‑reliance on crime‑rate indicators drives police forces to prioritize high‑visibility arrests over long‑term dismantling of criminal networks. Imported management models such as CompStat encourage the pursuit of numerical targets, creating perverse incentives that distort operational priorities and undermine genuine security governance.