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Trends Organ Crim (2013) 16:138155
DOI 10.1007/s12117-012-9175-z
Published online: 9 August 2012# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract This article explains why homicides related to drug-trafficking operations in Mexico have recently increased by exploring the mechanisms through which this type of violence tends to escalate. It is shown that drug-related violence can be understood as the result of two factors: (a) homicides caused by traffickers battling to take control of a competitive market, and (b) casualties and arrests generated by law enforcement operations against traffickers. Both sources of violence interact causing Mexico to be locked into a self-reinforcing violent equilibrium in which incremental increases in traffickers confrontations raise the incentives of the government to prosecute traffickers which promote further confrontations with traffickers when, as a result of the detention of drug lords, the remnants of the criminal organization fight each other in successive battles. This article presents quantitative evidence and case studies to assess the importance of the two mechanisms. It uses a unique dataset of recorded communications between drug traffickers and statistics on drug-related homicides.
Keywords Competition . Crime . Drugs . Drug-related violence . Drug trafficking . Enforcement . Equilibrium . Mexico . Organized crime . Self-reinforcing . Violence
Policemen, you do not understand. You pigs are helping them arrive first, to keep their houses so these nasty bandits can kidnap and shoot families. Now I will kill you all. You will see how it feels. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.1
1Message left next to the body of the municipal police officer Jos ngel Martnez. He was killed when waiting for the bus to go to work. Beside the message, a picture of a pig was left at the crime scene (Rios 2012a).
V. Rios (*)
Department of Government, Harvard University, 1737 Cambridge Street CGIS -North, Cambridge, MA 02138, USAe-mail: [email protected]
Why did Mexico become so violent? A self-reinforcing violent equilibrium caused by competitionand enforcement
Viridiana Rios
Trends Organ Crim (2013) 16:138155 139
A wave of drug-related violence has hit Mexico. From December 2006 to June 2010, 41,648 killings have been officially linked to drug trafficking organizations, a dramatic increase from previous years (20012006) when only 8,901 killings were linked to organized crime (Rios and Shirk 2011)....