In an article posted yesterday, Foreign Affairs wonders how dangerous Mexico really is, in the wake of two U.S. Consulate members being killed and continued drug violence in the country.
Writer Allyson Benton argues that the violence is not as bad as in the past or compared to other Latin American countries.
In 1997, 17 people were murdered per 100,000, and in 2008, this number was down to 12, Benton notes.
Benton also writes that the drug wars are focused where the cartels operate, mostly in the northern and western states. "Murder rates among citizens not involved in the drug trade continue to decline," she writes.
Finally, she argues that country's like Colombia and Venezuela have murder rates nearly doubling Mexico's.
Benton concludes, "Violent crime, particularly involving the drug trade, is a serious problem for Mexico and the country's people. But context is crucial for issues so easily sensationalized."
What do you think? Is the violence in Mexico the result of over-saturated news or sensationalism?
Source: Foreign Affairs
Photo: newspapertree.com
3 comments:
if you are cool, take it easy and have respect to all in the other country, unusually you do not have any problems
I am about to ride my motorcycle back to El Sal thru Mexico, what is the problem, cross the border early and get on down the road
been all over Mex for over 30 years
Are you kidding me? Please do not insult our intelligence, common sense and knowledge of how statistics works. You hide under the 2010 statistics of 12 killings per 100,000, down from 17 per 100,000 in 1997... It takes only seconds to find on the internet that the current population in Mexico is approximately 111,211,789 people. Using your ratio 12:100000 that means approximately 13,345 people will be killed this year and you want to implied that the report of violence in Mexico is overblown???? YOU cannot be serious!
In Venezuela every year around 12000 people is killed and our population is only 27 million people (about 4 times less than Mexico).
You don't see the same coverage in the media with regards to violence in Venezuela than in Mexico and since that point of view the article is correct.
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