Mexico: The homicides that no one sees

By: *Víctor Manuel Sánchez Valdés for Animal Politico

When we talk about cities in Mexico having security issues, most people think of the municipalities where there is high number of intentional homicides recorded, such as Acapulco, Tijuana, Culiacan, Ciudad Juárez or Chihuahua City. However, there are smaller municipalities that have homicide rates per capita [1] that exceed two, three, four or even five times those of the five aforementioned municipalities.

These are municipalities that are off the radar of the authorities, and national media, therefore, their security crises have been neglected. Nor do they often receive federal support, even though their police agencies have an inadequate number of police personnel and insufficient equipment. For example, in recent years, most of them have not been approved for requests for resources [2] from SUBSEMUN [Subsidy for Security in the Municipalities a federal resource that is granted to some municipalities] [3] or FORTASEG (a subsidy that is granted to municipalities and, where appropriate, for the strengthening of security issues) [4], even though it is precisely in those municipalities where support is most needed.

A clear example of this problem is the municipality of Guadalupe and Calvo, which is south of Chihuahua, which has had 56 intentional homicides throughout 2017. These may not seem many if compared to the 303 occurred in the same period in Ciudad Juárez or the 186 of Chihuahua capital. However, Guadalupe and Calvo  has only a little more than 56 thousand inhabitants, so it has a rate of 97.55 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants , while Ciudad Juárez has only 21.18 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants and Chihuahua capital 20.29 .

This means that when we measure the homicides in relative terms, Guadalupe and Calvo have a murder tally  almost five times larger than the two main municipalities of Chihuahua.

Another paradigmatic case is the municipality of Concordia in Sinaloa , which with a population of just over 30 thousand inhabitants, has had 25 intentional murders in 2017 and has a rate of 82.07 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants, which exceeds by more than Double that of Culiacan, which has 35.15 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants.

The following table shows the 15 municipalities in the country with the highest number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants [5] :

The common element that is repeated in all these municipalities is the direct confrontation between two or more criminal organizations. For example, Aguililla and Múgica in Michoacán, there is an open dispute over the control of the zone between the Cartel Jalisco New Generation, the Viagras and the remnants of the Caballeros Templarios. In Madera, Chihuahua, for years the Sinaloa Cartel and the Juárez Cartel have disputed control.

It is important that the governments attend to what happens in these municipalities as soon as possible, because in some cases a time bomb is ready to explode. The country can’t support a new San Fernando, Allende or Ayotzinapa, whose realities are very similar to those that live in the 15 municipalities that were mentioned in this article.

If we analyze the worst tragedies in terms of public security that we have had in the country, most share a characteristic, they were presented in towns that are sparsely populated, with high levels of insecurity, which did not receive attention due from the authorities.

For this reason, I think it is important for the federal government to think by 2018 about an emerging program to support small municipalities with high levels of insecurity, including equipment for local police, support for hiring more staff, deployment Of federal forces and more training for police officers.

Note: Other municipalities, such as San Martín Totoltepec, Puebla or Magurichi, Chihuahua, which had respectively 162.6 and 154.47 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, were not included in the analysis, since the number of homicides was very low (less than 5) and in Such a scenario cannot be ruled out that such killings have been isolated and not a sustained trend.

[1] Homicide rates per 100,000 inhabitants were calculated using the figures of willful homicides published by the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System from January to June 2017, for all municipalities and for population estimation were used The CONAPO data.

[2] It is important to mention that both SUBSEMUN and FORTASEG have a series of eligibility criteria for municipalities, which take into account aspects such as the total population of the municipality, the state of the municipality, crime rates, and its capacity to reduce them.  As well as the characteristics of the municipality.  (for example;  if it is a border or a tourist destination). In addition, the number of municipalities benefiting 300 is restricted. For this reason, it is difficult to access many of the municipalities mentioned in this article, because they have a very small population and are not in tourist or border corridors.

[3] Security subsidies in failing municipalities.

[4] Strengthening security program.

[5] By a manner of comparison, the municipalities with the most murders in absolute numbers have the following homicide rates per 100 thousand inhabitants:

Tijuana, Baja California, with 41.09;

Acapulco, Guerrero, with 48.66;

Culiacán, Sinaloa, with 35.15;

Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, with 21.18 

Chihuahua, Chihuahua, with 20.29.

* Víctor Manuel Sánchez Valdés is a collaborator of Causa en Común, a research professor at the Autonomous University of Coahuila, a doctorate in public policies by CIDE and a specialist in public security issues.