Until recent years, crime in Colombia, Mexico, and Guatemala was a phenomenon confined almost exclusively to national environments. This has changed in recent years. Crime is a phenomenon that has acquired increasingly global connotations in the region. Despite the importance of this issue, there is very little comparative regional literature that explores this problem. This paper makes a preliminary contribution in this sense and, to this effect, tries to make a comparison of crime in Colombia, Mexico, and Guatemala without losing sight of its relation to the capacity of state institutions.