Mapping Government Presence in the Northern Triangle: A Comprehensive Study on the Human Security Systems of the Northern Triangle, and Why Indicators of Government Presence are Difficult to Map

After a surge of migrants in seek of security and asylum attempted to cross the United States’ southern border in 2019, U.S. officials have grown increasingly concerned with the condition of their neighbors to the south. The U.S. Department of State (DOS) and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) are attempting to identify and categorize indicators of government presence in the Northern Triangle region of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), specifically in the sector of public security. Ideally, research gathered for this project would include a map of the collected addresses of public institutions that provide some form of essential human security to the region (i.e. public law offices, hospitals, police stations or outposts, etc.). The map would include details like numbers of staff per capita in a given area, and level of efficiency and efficacy. The information and data collected would assist the DOS and INL in targeting (with extreme accuracy) which precise locations need more resources and development to increase their response and service capabilities, and would allow agents to determine what areas of the overall systems of security require reform and restructuring.