Murders in Mexico Down from Height of the Drug War, But Violence Persists Karla Zabludovsky - Newsweek
go to original July 26, 2014

A policeman asks a man questions after searching him for drugs and weapons. (Jorge Cabrera/Reuters)

During Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto’s first year in office, after he had promised to cut back on everyday violence, there were 22,732 recorded homicides the National Institute of Statistics and Geography announced this week.

The figure, which the institute called preliminary, is slightly lower than the previous year but still higher than when Felipe Calderon, Pena Nieto’s predecessor, took office. In 2007, shortly after Calderon declared war on drugs, the number of homicides reached 8,867. During his six years in office, homicides peaked at 27,213, in 2011.

...Some of the Mexican states where drug war–related violence has been most intense, like Coahuila, Guerrero and Tamaulipas, showed a decreased homicide rate. In Durango, part of the Mexican “golden triangle,” an area notorious for drug trafficking, homicides decreased by nearly half in 2013 as compared to the previous year.

It is unclear what percentage of recorded homicides are related to organized crime since the government modified the classification in October, doing away with a separate category for drug war–related deaths, instead lumping them all together.

Read the rest at Newsweek

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