On Mexican Violence

Posted on September 8, 2012 • Filed under: Crime, Mexico

Héctor Aguilar Camín
Lets begin by saying that drugs are not an issue of public health in Mexico, unless we think of homicides as a public health problem. The drug problem in Mexico is mainly one of insecurity, violence, and institutional weakness. At the root of the problem is a historically weak system of rule of law. The weakest link of this particular chain is local governments, which are responsible for the prosecution of common crimes such as homicide, robbery, extortion and kidnapping. There are different figures available, but the most reliable one shows that local governments only punish 5% of those common crimes. So, the probability that one person can kill another in Mexico and get away with it is 95%. With such a high rate of impunity, it is remarkable that Mexico is not a more violent and criminal place than it is. Drug trafficking adds an extraordinary flow of cash, corruption and criminal opportunities to the weak rule of law and the crime patterns already existent. The dilemma we have in Mexico today is this: can we resolve the historical institutional
weaknesses, at the federal as well the local levels, and at the same
time diminish the present crisis of violence and insecurity resulting from the so called “war on drugs” undertaken by President Calderón. This is the challenge. I will explore a few options while adding some figures to illustrate the depth of the problem.
I would like to say, following Daniel Mejía, that the history of drug trafficking is mainly a story of violence and insecurity borne by some countries in the Western On Mexican Violence

Hemisphere, mainly Colombia and Mexico, and possibly soon Central America.Tolstoy wrote that all happy families look alike, while unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. We can say that all countries where drugs are consumed look alike, while the countries that have trafficking and production live their crisis
in their own unique way. The way it is happening in Mexico is expressed very clearly in Chart 1…… Read Article

Share This Story
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Add to favorites
  • email