Latin America is one of the most violent sub-regions in the world, although nowadays, only Colombia experienced armed conflict. This double condition (extreme violence/without war), takes place against a backdrop of the social reproduction of violences. A multiplicity of actors reproduce violence through the mediations that regulate exchanges in social life. This text proposes to assess this phenomenon of social reproduction through three lenses: the social insertion of criminality, the role of the drugs trade and extreme inequality. By focusing on the significance of violences, the article aims to shine a new light on what it might mean to build peace in Latin America. The aim is to show how the conceptualisation of peace and its implementation needs to take account of the violences outside of war. Because non-war violences are not recognised in the legal global architecture, it is difficult to develop practical, violence reducing global responses.