Politics: Security Continues to Erode

MEXICO - Report 13 Oct 2016 by Guillermo Valdes and Esteban Manteca

Insecurity and violence have returned to the center of public debate in Mexico, as recently the news and social media have focused on several high profile crimes. Even though such incidents have been a constant occurrence for years, none had become a central political issue except for the events surrounding the abduction of the 43 Ayotzinapa students.

What changed? There has been a real worsening in public security conditions; during the first eight months of the year the number of homicides increased 18% year on year and 30% compared to the same period of 2014, thereby erasing almost all the progress achieved in the first two years of the current presidential administration.

That assessment is belied, in part, by the latest National Survey on Victimization and Perception of Public Safety (Envipe 2016), which shows the number of crimes decreased substantially between 2014 and 2015. However, that survey collects data on victim perceptions and offers a seriously lagging or skewed view of crime rates.

In addition to the worsening of the objective conditions of public security, the lukewarm government response could be contributing to the increased public anxiety over the issue. Only in August did President Enrique Peña Nieto, in a speech delivered to the National Public Security Council, acknowledge that killings are on the rise and promise that efforts to fight crime would be beefed up. But such measures are unlikely to have significant effects in the short term due to the following factors: the target municipalities were poorly chosen, and there is apparently no innovation in terms of the tools selected to fight crime and violence.

It is not surprising that the issue of public security is receiving a greater amount of attention in the news media, social networks, and everyday conversations. The country is facing an increasing deterioration of the public security panorama, with a federal government paralyzed by a lack of ideas and the political will to address the problem.

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