A path to security for the world's deadliest countries

Jill Leovy's book is a beautifully reported tale about violence in Los Angeles that resonates across the United States and the globe. Leovy explains why violence is so concentrated, what happens when communities normalize it, why police can appear so indifferent — and what can happen when these dynamics shift.

I recommend binge-watching The Wire, created largely by veteran Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon. The Wire’s closely observed story of how crime, policing, politics and economic growth are interwoven in Baltimore, Maryland, could be extrapolated globally.

Violence in many countries is tightly linked to corruption. OCCRP is a global network of investigative journalists and editors who work in 34 countries across four continents to expose wrongdoing. Their rigorous investigations and journalistic standards ensure that the truth prevails more often.

The most violent place on earth is not at war. Central and South America consistently rank far higher than war zones for the sheer amount of death, and death per capita, due to organized crime, corruption and their geographic access to the huge demand for drugs in the United States. InSight Crime's investigative reporters have put themselves in the line of fire to understand the realities of organized crime in this region. I’ve been privileged to work with them in Honduras and know their reporting to be the best in the world.

In 1962, out of every 100,000 Americans, about 161 people were incarcerated. By 2007, that ratio had grown to 767 per 100,000. That percentage of people behind bars has started to decline is due in part to the excellent reporting of the Marshall Project, whose depth of understanding about US criminal justice has helped fuel a bipartisan revolution in how we mete out punishment in the United States.

Few US schools teach the history of Reconstruction, despite the fact that it laid the groundwork for many of our most virulent political disagreements today. I wish I could compel everyone to read this report — a set of firsthand accounts of the immense violence and skullduggery of the period commissioned by Congress in the decade after the civil war, which was concerned about reports of violence in the South. For a more popular take on the roots of our current criminal justice and race issues, see the PBX series Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. And for further reading, Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 and Robert Perkinson's Texas Tough.

No one expert can explain violence globally — but the International Crisis Group, with its experts on the ground in violent places around the world, does a terrific job of delving into conflicts worldwide to prevent wars, support better governance and shape policies to bring about a more peaceful, flourishing world.

For organizations working in countries chronicled in my book, A Savage Order: How the World's Deadliest Countries Can Forge a Path to Security: The Vera Institute of Justice and local organizations like Roca: Less Jail, More Future are doing groundbreaking work in the United States. For further reading, see here. In Mexico, Mexicans United Against Crime and the Observatorio Nacional Ciudadano are fighting for justice. The Fundacion Ideas para la Paz in Colombia brings deep expertise to Colombia's complex problems. Addiopizzo in Italy.The CLEEN Foundation in Nigeria.