March 2022, the most violent month so far this year, what does this tell us?


The security strategy to contain crime does not work. The latest figures recorded by the Executive Secretariat for Public Security are clear and show a lack of containment of criminal incidence in some states of the country. Once again, an increase in the intentional homicide rate is reflected, where violence is recurrent and, despite the presence of the National Guard and the military deployment, it is not possible to contain criminal groups and reduce the sources of local violence. what’s going on? For three years, the route by which the current government decided to promote in the speech doing things differently in terms of security, turned out to be the same. Repeating the recipe of previous governments, making use of the federal forces in effect, has failed to establish feelings of peace and security in some territories of the country. As if this were not enough, dismantling the structure of the Federal Police, to strengthen the ranks of a National Guard with a military court, beyond any discussion, has not been able to give results after almost 4 years of management.

In the country, one of the critical points that cannot be recognized beyond the speeches in which the security strategy apparently focuses, which is the fight against corruption and attacking the “causes of violence” that are not achieved accurately define, actually cover up a lack of understanding around the phenomenon of violence that operates on all fronts: violence against women, robbery in all its expressions, extortion, drug trafficking, human trafficking, executions, among other crimes that evidence the daily reality of generalized insecurity that exists in some states, beyond the presence of criminal cells that dispute the territory and that are to blame for the insecurity. Our reality is critical. The monthly number of homicides recorded in the month of March is worrying, not only because of the increase in homicides in the month of March, but also because of the implications that this entails.

More insecurity implies greater conditions of social instability, flight of investments, weakening of public policies and a corrosion in the justice administration systems. Currently, with the little attention paid to the prison system and the reorganization of police work, the public ministries are overwhelmed. This topic is not minor. If we channel this experience to the daily reality that is lived in some states of the country, the month of March was the most violent month of this year registering an increase of 17.5% with respect to the previous month.

This implies that our sum is 2,657 murders according to reports from the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection -396 homicides more than in the month of February-, which implies that around 80 people die daily -including homicides and femicides-, although the most complex day during this 2022, registered 92 homicides. In this same registry, 73 femicides were recorded. The states that lead this reality are: Zacatecas, Michoacán, State of Mexico, Guanajuato, Baja California, Jalisco and Sonora, which according to official information, concentrate 50% of the country’s homicides. The complex thing is that March at the same time, becomes the least violent month since this six-year term began, which is not to be celebrated either, since the increase in homicides just had a considerable rebound between 2019 and 2021, with the following records January to March: 2019 (8,557), 2020 (8,811), 2021 (8,417), and 2022 (7,354).

If the measurements to evaluate the security strategy are compared with the highest numbers of homicides that were registered in this government, it makes no sense to evaluate the process as positive since we would be deceiving ourselves, to know how we are really doing, we would have to compare it with the lowest number of criminal incidence in its historical count, -and even if we could be more demanding with other Latin American countries-, then if we could have a more sensible diagnosis of where we are and where we are going… Nor is it to be celebrated that The decrease in femicides according to official data has reflected a decrease of 34.7% with respect to the historical maximum that occurred in 2021. March showed 73 cases of femicide, what is positive about this? Nothing new under the sun, except for a gradual decomposition of security in some areas of the country, but where the institutional measures to avoid it, in many cases are absent…



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