Politics: Death Spiral Raises Crime Alarm
Public security in Mexico appears to have embarked on a downward spiral, including the murder of three journalists in less than a month and large-scale prison breaks in the past ten days, which played out against a resurgence of intentional homicides nationwide. There were 2,098 cases of murder last month, making it the most violent February, both in absolute and relative terms, of the past two decades. Even compared to 2011, the most violent year in Mexico’s recent history, 2017 is looking bad. In some states the pace of the upswing is extraordinary (10 times more murders than a year earlier in Baja California Sur, six times more in Nayarit and twice as many in Chihuahua).
It is hard to know with any precision all the reasons for the current upsurge, but it is clear that the federal government has failed to efficiently and vigorously address these problems or convey any sense of urgency. Instead, federal officials engage in sterile arguments to try and dodge the reality painted by official crime data.
There may yet be time to do something to at least change the perception of security conditions before the current administration ends in late 2018. This includes alternatives such as focusing on one or two major cities for the sort of multifaceted social-policy and security intervention the government implemented in the northern border city of Juárez between 2010 and 2012, and targeting one of the most brutal criminal cartels for total destruction as a warning to others to curtail their most heinous crimes.
Some of the best actions would only produce results later, such as passing the constitutional framework for reforming the police nationwide, and investing in data collection and program evaluation mechanisms, including creating an institution along the lines of the US National Institute of Justice, both of which would contribute greatly in future policy design.
But any new action would demand a considerable dose of political will, a quality that appears to be in short supply in a government that appears to be committed to managing the crisis rather than overcoming it.
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