The monthly homicide rate increases 52% from February 2015 to July 2018.
The homicide crisis in Mexico was triggered in 2011 -last year of Felipe Calderón government-. However, on 2017 the problem sharpened: never registered figures (in recent country history) were reported, the same happened in 2018 and 2019. According to the statistics of the National Executive Secretariat of Public Security (SESNSP for its name in spanish) and the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI, acronym in spanish), from counting 2.25 monthly cases of homicide per 100,000 inhabitants on May of 2011, it scaled to 2.33 cases on October of 2017, 2.52 on August of 2018 and again 2.33 on March of 2019.
The homicide rates start to grow this year.
The worst murder figures in Mexico are reported.
Violence decreases and homicides are reduced by a 46.2% compared with 2011.
Violence escalates and outweigh the homicide rates of 2011.
Crimes in Mexico rise by 52% compared with 2015.
The murder figures remain high.
According to the data of SESNSP, from December 1st of 2018 to March 31th of 2019, 11,714 cases of homicide were reported on investigation files, 3,400 more cases compared over the same period on 2016 - 2017. Thus, if the homicide rate remains, 2019 could be Mexico’s most violent year in the last decades. This is reflected by the wave of violence that Mexico is experiencing. On one side, we have the events occurred on April 19th, in Minatitlán, Veracruz, where an armed command stormed on a familiar party and killed 13 people, among them a one-year old baby. On the other hand, the murder of 13 mayors (and former mayors) and 7 journalist during the first months of Andrés Manuel López Obrador actual administration.
The figures also show that over the last years, violence have been extended to other states on the centre and south of Mexico, the main ones being: Colima, Baja California Sur, Guanajuato, Quintana Roo, Tabasco y Puebla.
Over this period, Colima maintained low homicide rates: 1.3 on July of 2007 and 4.2 on June of 2012.
The homicide rates increased dramatically, reaching 12.3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, that according to the Secretariat of the Interior, are related with confrontations between criminal gangs and the violence of them against the people.
The homicide rate remain on 10.4 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Everything seems to indicate that the dynamic of violence today is similar to the one that happened between 2008 and 2013, in the northern states of Mexico.
The homicide rates reach all-time highs with 22.1 cases with the worst massacres of its history.
18 teenagers are murdered by an armed command on the drug rehabilitation centre in Ciudad Juárez.
16 high school and undergraduate students are murdered by an armed command in a party at Villas de Salvárcar, Ciudad Juárez.
Although, after 2012, many states manage to reduce the homicide rates on its registers, some bounced back in 2015.
Is one of the least peaceful entities of Mexico and with a high degree of impunity, it has shown violence aftermaths related with drug traffic.
12 people were found dead on the side of the state road Vado Hondo-San Ignacio, they were piled on a truck and with signs of torture.
A massacre occurs at the municipality of Rosario, where 7 family members and a family friend were executed by an armed group: 5 of them were decapitated and another was hanged.
Each rectangle represents a month, the row indicates the state and its color codes the homicide rate value. Click on any state to see a detailed version of the monthly trend. The height of each serie is normalized with respect to the maximum and minimum rates of the corresponding state.
Although the dynamic of violence appears on new states, nationally, the increase is following the trend started on February of 2015. Which means that the violence of 2011 was never gone, it was rather reaffirmed over the last years. But, what is causing this violence?
In accordance with the journalist Patricia Dávila, of Proceso magazine, this rise could be due to confrontations between drug trafficking groups and the government, the captivity of organised crime leaders, the drug market growth and the use of force to solve the problems. However, the main reason for Dávila is the impunity: homicides are not solved and criminals are not prosecuted.
In Mexico there is freedom to kill, which creates a situation of terror and an state of exception.
Wilant Gomari
Mariana López
Erandi Flores Romero y Wilant Gomari
Daniel Gómez Hernández
Oliver Morales
Erandi Flores Romero
