Data Gathering Project
Overview
To help monitor and analyze recent drug violence in Mexico, the Trans-Border Institute developed the Data Gathering Project: Drug Violence Documentation to track various forms of violence reported by the media. Specifically, this effort seeks to help document special cases of homicide with high profile or special targets.
Research methodology
The Trans-Border Institute hopes to complement several different initiatives currently working to expand access to information about drug violence in Mexico by gathering information from reliable official and media sources on special cases of homicide with high profile or special targets, including: Mexican elected officials, Mexican appointed officials, Mexican military and law enforcement, U.S. citizens killed in the United States, Mexican citizens killed outside of Mexico, and minors.
For this reason, TBI has convened a group of volunteers to help search through available online sources to gather information on special categories. Participants are asked to gather information about cases of drug-related violence identified by credible online sources of information: government sources, media sources, NGO sources, etc.
Research activities
As a data gatherer, the volunteer will spend time researching specific categories such as state, region, time period, type of victim, among others. Every volunteer will be given access to a large data sheet to put data and research into. For each individual killing, it looks for as much detail as possible, including name, age, location of murder, weapon used, source cited, year, gender, etc.
Volunteers will largely use public reporting, both English and Spanish sources, including state level newspapers. All the information gathered will be used in TBI writings and future research.
Volunteers will be submitting the data to an online form in real time to monitor progress. Please click here to acces the Entry Form.
Trans-Border Institute does not envision any possible harm or risk to participants conducting the research activities
