Crime smothers Mexico

Mexican society has been severely disrupted to an extent we cannot fathom. After more than a decade of “fighting crime”, thousands of families, thousands of mothers, wives, and children have lost a loved one or they have been victims of a kidnapping…

What is more, almost everyone in this country has been blackmail or knows someone who has been mugged. Most Mexicans have also known, directly, about a kidnapping case.

And this is because what began as an offensive tactic of the Government against drug cartels is drowning now in an environment where criminal organizations which have found a way to set free their market and move it to other crimes – such as kidnapping and human trafficking – have multiplied as a result of the imprisonment of drug lords.

Yet not only have felonies related to criminal organizations spiked, we also have an increase of other crimes in territories which were once believed to be safe haves, like Mexico City, where the local government has been unable to implement an effective strategy against the growing insecurity.

Somehow, the context and all that surrounds the war on drugs has become “commonplace” and seems to have infected and disrupted the life of the entire Mexican society which finds itself today, in some areas of the country, directly linked with a criminal industry – like the farmers growing cannabis or the families living from fuel theft – or victim of crimes which weren't committed in some regions before.

Today just like 2011 – the year with the highest insecurity rate of the previous administration – virtually all crime rates have increased. Criminal violence in 2017 has taken the lives of no less than 26,573 people in Mexico; a number that seems to come from a country raging a war.

Overall, the growing insecurity in Mexico paints a grim future for 2018 . In just a few days, violent episodes depict the defenseless all Mexican citizens find themselves in.

For instance, in Mexico City and its surroundings, we have the case of a man in who decided to take justice into his own hands and murdered a mugger. And last Friday night, an employee of this news outlet was killed with a firearm after being robbed by two individuals.

Cases like this happen everyday and nothing changes. Least of all impunity . Mexican society is tired of this situation but the complaints are ignored.

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