The protesters who gathered this month on the streets of Buenos Aires had a message for Argentine President Nestor Kirchner.

The message had nothing to do with the economy, foreign policy or Kirchner’s latest battles with the news media.

Argentina is an unsafe place to live, the people said. And if those running the country and running Buenos Aires would not address that, they should get out in favor of someone who would.

“We are here so that the government finally does something, so that they listen to the people,” said Jacqueline Novas, 41, a homemaker who had joined an anti-crime protest at the site of a fatal shooting in the Belgrano neighborhood.

“The authorities say the crimes are isolated incidents,” Novas said. “But something happens every day in every neighborhood.”

With approval ratings hovering around 70 percent, Kirchner is one of the most popular politicians in the Americas. Yet voters who support Kirchner’s economic policies and political agenda hesitate when the issue turns to public safety.

Argentines are fed up with crime. They blame police they consider lazy or corrupt, judges they view as lax or crooked, and politicians they deem weak or out of touch.

In Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is taking heat over a surge in gang violence. Da Silva’s opponents blame the government’s failure to expand and reform the prison system, among other factors.

Supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are losing faith in Chavez’s ability to reverse the rampant street violence.

In Peru, President-elect Alan Garcia will take over a country that almost elected a former military officer, Ollanta Humala, in part because he promised to crack down on the criminal and corrupt.

Lima, like Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, San Salvador, Mexico City and, increasingly, even Buenos Aires, is a city where the fear of crime plays a growing role in daily life.

In the last decade, residents of the Peruvian capital have spent their own money to close off streets and put up gates to deter crime. The richer areas have the best systems, including private security guards, but even some working-class neighborhoods have taken matters into their own hands.

Fernando Rospigliosi, a former interior minister who is an investigator with the Peruvian Studies Institute in Lima, said the true crime rate might not be as high as Peruvians think. But that does not mean that their fear isn’t real.