Police assault data for Costa Rica’s counties continue to rank San José as being the most violent, and Escazú fell three places in the judiciary police’s ranking of the country’s regions by number of assaults, according to data released this week by the OIJ, the country’s investigation bureau.

Hojancha and Nandayure, Guanacaste registered no assaults this year so far, and have historically had low levels of violence. The towns are also located in the country’s world renowned Blue Zone, recognized for its healthy population and long life expectancies.

 

According to the report, from January – July, a total of 8,218 assaults have been reported nationwide to OIJ officials, which averages to one assault roughly every 46 minutes.

This year, the month of May was the most violent with 1,043 assaults registered; many other incidents occur but are not reported and therefore are not reflected in this data.

The country’s rural regions were those with the least violence, located in sparsely populated counties in Alajuela, Puntarenas and Guanacaste.

San Mateo (near Atenas) and Zarcero were the safest towns in Alajuela’s province; and Turrubares, Tarrazu, and Dota counties in rural areas of the San José province also have experienced only one or two assaults per year in recent years. In the province of Puntarenas, Montes de Oro in the vicinity of the Puntarenas port, and Coto Brus in the far southern zone were the safest in the police ranking with very few incidents.

According to the authorities, San José continues to be the most insecure county with 2,409 incidents so far in 2017, with Desamparados, a densely populated district south of San José center, in second place with more than 480 reported incidents of violence. Heredia and Limón counties follow San José province as far as assaults, with a tendency of growing violence.