The Economist: Crime in Mexico is Pushed Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind The Economist
go to original October 19, 2013

A human hellhole lies under the noses of American tourists driving from California into Mexico. Below the bridge leading into Tijuana is a dry canal strewn with heroin syringes that is home to countless migrants and vagrants, most of them thrown out of the United States for not having the right papers. Jesús Alberto Capella, Tijuana’s chief of police, says their numbers have included about 10,000 ex-convicts turfed out of American jails this year. They live under tarpaulins and in foxholes dug into the side of the canal. The place is a cauldron of violence. It is also a focal point for President Enrique Peña Nieto’s strategy of applying what officials call “social acupuncture” to some of the most dangerous parts of Mexico.

Felipe Calderón, Mr Peña’s predecessor, made fighting organised crime the centrepiece of his presidency. Backed by the Mérida Initiative, a $1.9 billion American aid scheme that has supplied Black Hawk helicopters and X-ray machines to detect narcotics, Mexico’s police, army and navy sought to dismantle drug mobs by capturing their bosses. But violence soared: at least 60,000 died, mostly in vicious turf battles between rival gangs.

Troubled by the bloody image this gave Mexico, Mr Peña has adopted a new approach since taking over in December. Its most eye-catching element is to pour 118 billion pesos ($9.1 billion) into the 220 most violent neighbourhoods in the country (some are in Tijuana), offering more schooling, jobs, parks and cultural activities to stop them becoming “crime factories”. Footballers have joined in, providing soccer camps to slum kids who might otherwise want to become hired guns.

These are not new ideas.

Read the rest at The Economist

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