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In this article I work out a possible answer to the question: Is there rationality in the violence that has scourged Mexico for over a decade and that is typically linked to organized crime? In other words, if we think about the Mexicans who are fueling this spiral of death and torment, are they being guided by reason or by a lack of reason? The formulation of my answer will involve recognizing that, as a society, we have resorted to the lexicon of science (specifically social science) for the only true interpretation of our violence; on this basis I will argue that, given the interpretative limitations inherent to this lexicon, its propositions regarding violence exhibit the following characteristics: 1) they put forth structural or systemic factors as the ultimate explanations of the phenomenon; 2) human rationality is identified with the maximization of interests; and 3) the only freedom attributed to human beings --if they have any at all-- is one reduced to its instrumental function. All of these characteristics rule out the possibility of understanding and appealing to human beings on a moral basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that the introduction of medical marijuana laws (MMLs) leads to a decrease in violent crime in states that border Mexico. The reduction in crime is strongest for counties close to the border (less than 350 kilometres) and for crimes that relate to drug trafficking. In addition, we find that MMLs in inland states lead to a reduction in crime in the nearest border state. Our results are consistent with the theory that decriminalisation of the production and distribution of marijuana leads to a reduction in violent crime inmarkets that are traditionally controlled byMexican drug trafficking organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Policing practices do not reflect recent decriminalization of drug possession in Mexico. We assessed knowledge of cannabis law as part of a police education program (PEP) post-drug law reform in Tijuana.Methods: Officers took pre-/post-PEP surveys; random subsample (n = 759) received follow-up assessments. Longitudinal logistic regression (pre-, post-, 3-months post-PEP) measured knowledge of cannabis law.Results: PEP increased conceptual knowledge of cannabis law from baseline to post-training (AOR = 56.1, CI: 41.0-76.8) and 3 months post-PEP (AOR = 11.3, CI: 9.0-14.2).Conclusion and Scientific Significance: PEPs improve police knowledge of cannabis law. Reforms should be bundled with PEPs to improve policy implementation. (Am J Addict 2018;XX:XX-XX). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did the war on drugs impact the behavior of authorities in charge of investigating and prosecuting crime in Mexico? We use the Federal Penitentiary System Survey of Inmates to demonstrate that torture increased as a result of the war on drugs. The army was the state authority that changed its behavior the most as a direct consequence of the war on drugs. With this war, the armed forces have extensively engaged in crime prevention and prosecution, engaging in the systematic and generalized practice of torture as a method of criminal investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines law and history related to President Donald Trump's "border wall," and Mexico's alleged financial responsibility for the wall's construction. It argues that two classical texts provide a useful framing for the supplementary role Mexico - and Mexican law - plays in achieving U.S. border security. Relying on the nineteenthcentury accounts of Alexis de Tocqueville and Alexander von Humboldt, the article suggests that similar laws in the United States and Mexico historically have produced different results, since the characteristics of each country's democracy are distinct. That fact is crucial because Tocqueville and Humboldt show a pattern that repeats itself today: Mexico imports a U.S. legal model, that model does not function in optimal ways, social disorder persists in Mexico, and, finally, Mexico's weak rule-of-law triggers a U.S. response. The article then uses that historical template to analyze present-day border controls. The article shows that Mexico, on its own southern border, has adopted the three core features of the U.S. model - regulation functioning not only as a "wall," but also as a "gate," and "bridge." Since those legal structures were adopted in recent years, however, Central American migrants have arrived en masse on the U.S.'s southern border, and widespread violence related to illicit drugs continues unabated in Mexico, suggesting the limited effectiveness of Mexico's embrace of U.S-style approaches. To explain this problem, the article returns to Tocqueville and Humboldt to conclude that social mores - ones related to immigration in the United States, and criminality in Mexico - provide one reason for why regulatory fixes on both sides of the border are at best partial remedies, shedding light on issues that the law has difficulty addressing. The article concludes by offering brief reflections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media reports routinely reference the drug-related violence in Mexico, linking crime in communities along the Southwest U.S. Border to illegal immigrants. The primary purpose of the current research is to examine whether the media assertions can be supported. Logistic regression models were run to determine the impact of citizenship on the likelihood of disproportionate arrest for federal drug and violent crimes, along the U.S./Mexico border. In arrests for homicide, assault, robbery, and weapons offenses, U.S. citizens were disproportionately more likely than non-citizens to be arrested. The only federal crime where non-citizens were disproportionately more likely to be arrested than were U.S. citizens was for marijuana offenses. Results of the current study challenge the myth of the criminal immigrant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research among people who inject drugs (PWIDs) in the USA and Mexico has identified a range of adverse health impacts associated with policing of PWIDs. We employed a mixed methods design to investigate how PWIDs from San Diego and Mexico experienced policing in Tijuana, and how these interactions affect PWIDs behavior, stratifying by country of origin.Methods: In 2012-2014, 575 PWIDs in San Diego, 102 of whom had used drugs in Mexico in the past six months, were enrolled in the STAHR-II study, with qualitative interviews conducted with a subsample of 20 who had recently injected drugs in Mexico. During this period, 735 PWIDs in Tijuana were also enrolled in the El Cuete-IV study, with qualitative interviews conducted with a subsample of 20 recently stopped by police. We calculated descriptive statistics for quantitative variables and conducted thematic analysis of qualitative transcripts. Integration of these data involved comparing frequencies across cohorts and using qualitative themes to explain and explore findings.Results: Sixty-one percent of San Diego-based participants had been recently stopped by law enforcement officers (LEOs) in Mexico; 53% reported it was somewhat or very likely that they would be arrested while in Mexico because they look like a drug user. Ninety percent of Tijuana-based participants had been recently stopped by LEOs; 84% reported it was somewhat or very likely they could get arrested because they look like a drug user. Participants in both cohorts described bribery and targeting by LEOs in Mexico. However, most San Diego-based participants described compliance with bribery as a safeguard against arrest and detention, with mistreatment being rare. Tijuana-based participants described being routinely targeted by LEOs, were frequently detained, and reported instances of sexual and physical violence. Tijuana-based participants described modifying how, where, and with whom they injected drugs in response; and experienced feelings of stress, anxiety, and powerlessness. This was less common among San Diego-based participants, who mostly attempted to avoid contact with LEOs in Mexico while engaging in risky injection behavior.Conclusion: Experiences of discrimination and stigma were reported by a larger proportion of PWIDs living in Mexico, suggesting that they may be subject to greater health harms related to policing practices compared with those residing in the USA. Our findings reinforce the importance of efforts to curb abuse and align policing practices with public health goals in both the US and Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the impact of drug-related violence in Mexico on academic achievement. We use panel of elementary and lower secondary schools and locality-level firearm homicides from 2006 to 2011. We rely on school fixed-effects models to estimate the impact on math test scores of turf war exposure and turf war persistence (e.g. months of exposure) during the academic year. According to the results, both exposure and persistence of criminal violence reduces math test scores. The analysis of heterogeneous effects shows that schools located in poor urban settings experience the largest negative effects. Further, we find stronger negative effects of drug-related violence exposure in lower secondary schools with street gang presence nearby. Finally, we further examine potential mechanisms driving the effects of criminal violence on test scores. Our findings indicate that turf war exposure and persistence are associated with a loss of instructional time due to higher teacher absenteeism and turnover, as well as student absenteeism, tardiness, and propensity to leave school days early. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The years from 2006 through 2011 were very active years for a number of Mexican drug trafficking organizations. However, the group that probably saw the most meteoric rise in this period, Los Zetas, had a unique and innovative tool at their disposal. It was during these years that the group constructed and utilized a proprietary encrypted radio network that grew to span from Texas to Guatemala through the Gulf States of Mexico and across much of the rest of the country. This network gave the group an operational edge. It also stood as a symbol of the latitude the group enjoyed across vast areas, as this extensive illicit infrastructure stood, in the face of the government and rival cartels, for six years. This investigation explicates the process by which Los Zetas constructed, concealed and utilized this network and attempts to draw conclusions about the motivations and organizational dynamics that brought the network to be, with attention paid to what this case says about the complex engineering capabilities of non-state entities in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What kind of war is Mexico’s drug war? The prominent “criminal insurgency” approach helpfully focuses attention on cartel–state conflict, but unnecessarily redefines insurgency as “state-weakening,” eliding critical differences in rebels’ and cartels’ aims. Whereas rebels fight states, and cartels fight with one another, to conquer mutually prized territory and resources, cartels fight states “merely” to constrain their behavior and influence policy outcomes. This distinction yields a typology with theoretical consequences: decisive victory plays an important role in most models of civil war but is impossible or undesirable in wars of constraint. Theories of criminal war must therefore explain how ongoing coercive violence can be preferable to pacific strategies. I distinguish two such coercive logics of cartel–state conflict: violent lobbying and violent corruption. Lobbyings' more universalistic benefits elicit free riding, so turf war among cartels should make it rarer than violent corruption. This prediction accords with qualitative and quantitative evidence from Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale organized crime occupies a gray zone between ordinary crime and political violence. The unprecedented scale of drug-related crime in Mexico has led to its description as an insurgency or even a civil war, a conceptual move that draws on recent studies that have associated civil war with large-scale criminality. By questioning both the “crime as civil war” and “civil war as crime” models, I argue that instead of folding the two phenomena, we should draw primarily from the micro-dynamics of civil war research program to identify areas of potentially productive cross-fertilization. I point to four such areas, namely, onset and termination, organization, combat and violence, and governance and territory. I conclude by sketching a theoretical and empirical agenda for the study of large-scale organized crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides empirical evidence showing that when a multilevel government is well coordinated, organized crime can be more effectively controlled. Using a time-variant data set of Mexico’s cocaine markets at the subnational level and Cox proportional-hazards regressions, I show that when Mexico’s democratization decreased the probability of government coordination—the same party governing a municipality at every level of government—drug traffickers were more likely to violate the long-standing informal prohibition on selling cocaine within the country. It was this decrease in government coordination that would set the conditions for a violent war between drug cartels to erupt in the mid-2000s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dramatic increase in criminal violence in Mexico since 2007 has resulted in an estimated 60,000–70,000 “additional” homicides, often of an especially brutal form, related to drug trafficking and other organized-crime activities. This violence has been accompanied by a steep increase in rates of kidnapping and extortion and has targeted participants in the narcotics trade as well as government officials, journalists, and civil society activists. Despite the magnitude of the violence and enormous public concern about it, scholarly literature on this topic has been scant. This issue offers some of the most promising analyses conducted thus far on the trends in violence and their causes, focusing largely, though not exclusively, on the role Mexico’s government has played in the business of illegal drugs and the violence that accompanies it. In this introduction, we discuss the challenge of deriving reliable statistics on drug-related violence, its spatial and temporal patterns, prevailing explanations, its relationship to organized crime in general, and differences between this violence and substate political violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some territories ravaged by intense levels of criminal violence while others are relatively peaceful? This research contributes to an understanding of the escalation and diffusion of drug violence in Mexico from 2000 to 2010 by formalizing the interactions between the state and organized criminals and by relying on a large database of event data containing more than 1.6 million observations. Results based on spatial econometrics provide evidence of the spatial diffusion of violence. In congruence with the theoretical expectations, the results show that the disruptive effect of law enforcement is an important catalyst for the intensification of violence between criminal organizations, especially when deployed in areas hosting a high concentration of criminal groups. This relationship holds for a broad menu of violent and nonviolent law enforcement tactics. The analysis also reveals that other broadly held factors (international, geographic, and socioeconomic characteristics) have a modest effect on the dynamics of drug-related violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Over the past decade, drug consumption has increased in Colombia and Mexico, countries traditionally concerned with drug production and trafficking. Governments and observers have associated this growth with spikes in violence. Drawing on drug consumption surveys and fieldwork in four cities, this study argues that contrary to this perception, there is no automatic connection between domestic drug markets and violence. Violence depends on whether large drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) control low-level street dealers and on whether those DTOs have a market monopoly at the local level. When dealers are independent, violence might be sporadic, but when DTOs control dealers, violence can explode (given competition between DTOs) or implode (if one organization holds a monopoly). Control over dealers provides DTOs not only income but also informants and armed muscle. This article also shows that domestic drug markets are not new, and have grown incrementally in the past two decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze publicly available data to estimate the causal effects of military interventions on the homicide rates in certain problematic regions in Mexico. We use the Rubin causal model to compare the post-intervention homicide rate in each intervened region to the hypothetical homicide rate for that same year had the military intervention not taken place. Because the effect of a military intervention is not confined to the municipality subject to the intervention, a nonstandard definition of units is necessary to estimate the causal effect of the intervention under the standard no-interference assumption of stable-unit treatment value assumption (SUTVA). Donor pools are created for each missing potential outcome under no intervention, thereby allowing for the estimation of unit-level causal effects. A multiple imputation approach accounts for uncertainty about the missing potential outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar el caso de las mujeres en condición de cárcel, normalmente enjuiciadas por cuestiones relacionadas con el narcomenudeo y formas de violencia muy vinculadas con su apego como mujeres a un varón, sea éste esposo, hijo o amante. El caso de las reclusas del estado de Tabasco representa la clara vulnerabilidad de las mujeres que se manifiesta de distintas maneras, socialmente hablando, además de ser víctimas de una negligente impartición de justicia, insensible a la problemática de la mujer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of EconoQuantum is the property of Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Economico Administrativas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The history of drug trafficking in Mexico appears to be strongly influenced by specific features of the post-revolutionary authoritarian regime that has been characterized by its rampant corruption and poor levels of accountability. This is a rigorous empirical case study of state domination of the relationship with traffickers in a particular historical epoch and place. Based on research conducted through the examination of historic sources, this work explores the hypothesis that some political figures might have been colluding with members of criminal organizations, with the aim of protecting their businesses and fostering their consolidation. Such collusion has hindered the institutional functioning of key law enforcement and judicial institutions in the country. The present analysis considers these relationships in the course of three decades, the 1960s through the 1990s, and focuses on the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, where one of the most powerful and dangerous organized crime groups emerged, the so-called Gulf Cartel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mexico's drug 'war' produced 100,000 deaths between 2006 and 2012. The extreme violence has raised the notion that Mexico has become a failed state wracked by terrorism. We categorise the forms of narco-violence in Mexico in light of the literature on terrorism and contemporary Mexican politics. Our study suggests three overlapping dimensions of narco-violence that should be considered terrorism: (a) narco-terror as a struggle for regional political control; (b) narco-terror as a practice ordered by cartel leaders rather than spontaneous violence of foot soldiers; and (c) narco-terror as an expansion strategy from solely drug trafficking to other kinds of organised crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on issues regarding the Mexican drug war cartels. It highlights concerns about the effect of labeling the Mexican drug war as an insurgency as well as the need for the U.S. government to recognize what is happening in Mexico and deal with it realistically. A report about foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) involved in the global drug trade is mentioned.

Some countries, including Mexico, are drug producers and exporters, although their domestic consumption is relatively low. They count with very few tools and resources to reduce drug demand (this, due to an exogenous variable), but they face a high social cost which is mainly caused by the activities of criminal groups. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze these groups using economic theory, and comes to it showing two things: a) production and drug traffic induce criminality, and the delinquents have a high probability of becoming hitmen, and b) public spending to fight drug cartels can cause criminals to violate agreements among them, leading to an increase in violence. Evidence for Mexico is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to explore the relation between the problematic consumption of drugs and some variables: age, time of imprisonment, education, legal situation, committing a crime under drugs effect and number of visits received. Data of inmates who had accepted they were consuming drugs at the moment of doing the study was analyzed. It was found that the problematic consumers were younger and had less time of imprisonment. The inmates with less education, the ones who were being processed at the moment of doing the study, the ones who had committed crimes under the drugs effect and the ones who did not receive any visit showed more problems (measured through the DAST questionnaire) associated to the consumption. Some hypotheses about the results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 55,000 people were killed in Mexico’s vicious drug wars between 2006 and 2011. The Pentagon’s Joint Operating Environment Paper 2008 speculated that the country was one of two major states at risk of rapid and sudden collapse. This paper investigates the causes of state failure and the extent to which these are present in Mexico today as a result of corruption and violent, lucrative transnational organised crime. It explains the mutual dependency between the two and shows how deeply entrenched and extensive their power and influence have become at all levels of government and in key state institutions. It examines progress in the National Security Strategy and the impact of crime and corruption on key strategic measures of success. It concludes that the Pentagon’s failure to understand the nature of the conflict led to a gross overstatement of the risk to the country. It also demonstrates, however, that crime and corruption threaten the transitional democracy that has emerged in Mexico since the turn of the century. Finally, it raises questions regarding the reliability and general applicability of some theories of state failure, state legitimacy and civil-military relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author discusses the increase of drug-related violence in Mexico. She chronicles the start of the drug war in the country from 2006 until 2012, which already claimed hundred lives, and mentions the different measures initiated by the government to address the criminal expansion brought by drug trade. However, the author points out the lack of accurate information on how the criminal groups operate, which require more effort from the government to stop them.

Copyright of IBEROAMERICANA. América Latina - España - Portugal is the property of Vervuert Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Because hit men in the twenty-first-century Mexican drug war engage in paid labor at the extreme end of dehumanizing economic relations, they expose the shifting notions of work, life, and ethics that support contemporary global capitalism. Hannah Arendt's distinctions between labor, work, and action structure this comparative analysis of two 2010 narratives featuring Mexican hit men: a testimonial text titled El Sicario: The Autobiography of a Mexican Assassin and a feature film titled El infierno. These texts explore the subject-producing as well as the destructive effects of murder for hire. Alain Badiou's Ethics illuminates how when professional killing becomes a way of life, it provocatively complicates concepts of the good and the human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the legal implications of Mexico's drug war. It provides information that the International Committee of the Red Cross and international tribunals has developed factors to determine the type of conflict. It informs that customary international law has added certain key issues prohibition attacks on civilians, survival of the civilian population, respect and protect the wounded, and protection for women and children.

The article presents an in-depth analysis of the drug trafficking industry in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, with respect to the social, economic and political impacts of the illegal activity. The author presents a three-part analysis, beginning with an exploration of the economic competition that surrounded the drug trade in the border city, adding a comparison to the drug trade in Colombia through the book "Diamante de Competitividad" by Michael Porter, and concluding with a discussion on the role of local government in retaining political and economic power over the drug cartels and violence.

Mexican journalists are frequently the victims of violence, often drug related. The purpose of the study was to assess their mental well-being. Of 104 journalists recruited from 3 news organizations, those who had stopped working on drug-related stories because of intimidation from the criminal drug cartels ( n = 26) had significantly greater social dysfunction ( p = .024); and more depressive ( p = .001) and higher intrusive ( p = .027), avoidance ( p = .005), and arousal ( p = .033) symptoms than journalists living and working under threat in regions of drug violence ( n = 61). They also had more arousal ( p = .05) and depressive ( p = .027) symptoms than journalists ( n = 17) never threatened before and living in regions without a drug problem. These findings provide preliminary data on the deleterious effects of drug-related violence on the Mexican media, amplifying the concerns expressed by journalist watchdog organizations monitoring the state of the press in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the human rights crisis facing Mexico brought about by the drug war launched by President Felipe Calderón on December 11, 2006. It offers a background on the strategy selected by President Calderón in prohibiting the sale and consumption of illegal drugs. It also looks at the role of the Armed Forces in the drug war which threatens civil liberties and individual human rights.

This study aimed at investigating the predictors of hard drug dealing crimes among Mexican students. Tests of difference and ordinal regression were employed to explore group differences and predictors of hard drug dealing crimes. The sample included 14,306 last-year high school students nationwide. Results show that 3.5% of the students surveyed admittedly reported to have been involved in a drug dealing crime of an illegal substance different from Marijuana. Several factors were found to decrease the odds of a student to get involved in a hard drug crime. Federal policy implications and solutions are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) in the so-called War on Drugs has considerable implications for the application of international humanitarian law and raises concern about the respect for human rights under antidrug assistance programs. This article will focus, in particular, on the ways in which the lack of state control over PMSC activities poses a major challenge for human rights protections in the short-term--by restricting the application of human rights law--as well as in the long-term--by further undermining state capacity and weakening the rule of law. Using the cases of Colombia and Mexico, this article will illustrate how PMSCs tend to add another dimension of complexity to complicated situations where the application of the rule of law is already uneven, increasing the risk of human rights violations and impunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]