Almost without fail the people who scream the loudest about the dangers of another country are the ones who have never been there. This is very common. Friends of mine told me I was going to end up being chased through jungles by drug cartels with assault weapons prior to my tour through Mexico and Central America. These were people who have never set foot outside the U.S., of course. They get all their info about other countries via the sensationalistic U.S. news media. Turned out I had nothing but positive experiences with everyone I encountered, including many extremely poor people. This wasn't a surprise to me. I've been to Mexico, Central and South America many times over the past 24 years or so.
The biggest threats down there are probably motor vehicle traffic and petty theft. Yet I've never been involved in an accident there. Someone stole a cd player and a pair of sandals from me once, however. That was in Mexico. Now I know that the entire country consists of nothing but thieves.
What's sad is when people decide an entire continent is too dangerous to visit because a few people ran into trouble there. It makes me wonder how these people can actually venture outside of their homes knowing that people have died being struck by lightning, which is probably much more likely to happen than getting murdered on a trip to Latin America.