Pine is an assistant professor at American University who has been researching violence in Honduras for 15 years. She is the author of "Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras. Pine blogs at http://quotha.net

She said today: "The fire that killed over 300 prisoners early Wednesday morning in the Honduran city of Comayagua occurs in a context of police militarization which has been posited by the post-coup government and U.S. State Department as a solution to 'security' problems in Honduras, despite strong opposition from Honduran citizens. Honduras is currently the most dangerous country in the world, with a murder rate of 82 per 100,000 residents, a position to which it plunged following the unresolved 2009 military coup. Prisoners trapped by this morning's fire were killed when firefighters were unable to rescue them, although the fire occurred close to the U.S. military base Soto Cano, which houses a large, fully-equipped firefighting squad."