Though that figure was an improvement on the official murder rate of 62 per 100,000 in 2014, violent crime remains an all-pervasive worry for Venezuela`s 29 million people, especially in poor slums run by gangs and rife with guns.
Numerous state security plans and disarmament drives in recent years have failed to curb violence in Venezuela where easy access to arms, police participation in crime, and high levels of impunity have allowed delinquency to flourish.
Only Honduras has a worse murder rate than Venezuela, according to the United Nations.
Local rights groups say Venezuela`s murder rate is higher than the official statistics, with one monitoring organization putting it at 90 per 100,000 people in 2015.
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