Justice in Mexico Project Updates Organized Crime Violence Data

This graph shows the monthly rate of drug-related killings from 2008 to May 2012 as reported by Reforma. Data is collected and analyzed by TBI and JMP staff.

06/19/12 — The Justice in Mexico Project (JMP) team at the Trans-border Institute (TBI) compiled updated information on organized crime violence statistics since its March 2012 publication of the report, “Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011,” written by Cory Molzahn, Viridiana Ríos, and David A. Shirk. The JMP compiles and analyzes data every month to inform the Monthly News Report. (All Monthly News Reports from 2008 can be found here.)

At the time of the 2011 report’s publication, many statistics were not yet available for the last quarter of 2011 (September to December). Recently, however, more complete numbers have become available for the end of 2011, and, in some cases, for the first half of 2012. Some of the highlights follow:

While the newspaper Reforma had previously reported a total of over 12,000 drug-related homicides (ejecuciones) committed in Mexico during 2011, the federal Attorney General’s Office (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR) places this number upwards of 17,000.
Official drug-related homicide rates fell during the last quarter of 2011, from around 1,400 per month in September to a little under 1,000 in December, although over the course of the full year, they increased by 7.4% from 2010.
According to Reforma, there were 4,346 ejecuciones in Mexico during 2012 as of May 25, a 19% decrease over the same period from last year.
During 2011, 25% of organized crime killings occurred in only five cities: Acapulco, Chihuahua, Ciudad Juárez, Monterrey, and Torreón.
From January 2011 to May 2012, the most violent states in Mexico were: Chihuaha (around 900 killings in 2011, 600 in the first half of 2012), Durango (600, 300), Guerrero (650, 350), Nuevo Léon (650, 700), Sinaloa (650, 500), and Tamaulípas (500, 150).
Comparing violence rates for the first five months of 2011 with those from the same period in 2012, it appears that during both years violence dipped somewhat in early February, rose in March, dipped again in early April, and then began to climb slightly in May. Overall rates were lower in 2012 than 2011, however, the 2012 rates dipped below 2010 rates in the month of April, but always remained above 2008 and 2009 rates.
Of the reported ejecuciones for 2012, around 300 corpses have been found decapitated, 650 with signs of torture, and 500 with some form of message left on them or nearby.
In the first half of 2012, some 200 police officers were killed in Mexico, along with 20 or so military personnel.

The Justice in Mexico Project team will be presenting this five-month cut of drug violence and data analysis this summer in various forums in Europe. Click here to read a full version of the March 2012 TBI report, “Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2011.”