The Caribbean Region vs. Mexico

The Caribbean Compared

As geographers we need to look beyond the raw statistics of the increasing crime wave and murders.

 The Caribbean like Latin America is now plagued by ever increasing criminal activity, murder, being a major one. Time and space compression the processes of globalization may have its good elements but it has also being utilized by the criminal underworld to propagate crime, violence and murder in the Caribbean region. 

The Caribbean in recent times has been categorized as the most murderous region in the world with an average homicide rate of 22.9 per 100,000 citizens in 1990’s (Caribbean Human Development Report. 2012).

 

Before 1990 homicide rates in region were below the global average but this changed post 1990.

Harriott. 1996 crime in Jamaica since independence came in three transitional phases.

1.              Property Crimes

2.              Drug trafficking

3.              Transnational organized crime and gang conflicts

The second and third phases have dramatically increased violence and homicides this has been the trajectory over time for most Caribbean states (Caribbean human development Report. 2012).   

The location of the Caribbean makes it geographically susceptible to criminal influences from Latin and South America, and transshipment for drugs and weapons to Americas and Europe.

In addition, the lower levels of development and economic growth in the Caribbean have caused a lot of people, mostly young and male to turn to the drug trade for a means of economic stability. This has caused increased number of weapons in the countries and in the hands of the youth and loyalty to gangs causing violence with other gangs, and also the state, which tries to stop them.

64% of the people involved in crime is youth, between 18 and 30 years, and a large portion of this percentage is male, who are usually economically immobile.  Predators and most victims are usually male.

In both the Caribbean and Mexico there has been a steady increase in murders over the past few years with some Caribbean countries even surpassing Mexico’s rate. In both regions prevalent crimes are gang and transnational organized. However, murders rates vary within sub regions based on geographic control of gangs (turf). In Mexico states with highest rates are border states. Murders in Mexico are not concentrated in most the cities with the highest densities, where as, in the Caribbean, particularly Trinidad and Jamaica, a large percentage of murders are in the towns with the highest population densities.

References:

Crime Violence and Development: Trends, Costs and Policy Options in the Caribbean. March 2007, Accessed 15 November 2013. www.unodc.org/pdf/research/Cr_and_Vio_Car_E.pdf

Anthony Harriot, Lead Author Caribbean HDR. Caribbean Human Development Report, 2012.  Human Development and the shift to better citizen security. Accessed 1 November 2013. www.undp.org/.../Latin%20America%20and%20Caribbean%20HDR/C_bea...

Map of Caribbean and Latin America Region. TransGriot Blog. Accessed 02 November 2013. http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-day-for-transpeople-in-caribbean.html

Crime and Violence in the Caribbean, An analysis, Caribnation Television. Published on 23 October 2013.              Accessed 01  November 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV3votjsuFE

The Face of it all...

Journalist, fearing their life. Stories undocumented, and the 'voice of the people' being hindered by drug cartels and their forces. 

Criminals captured, but will they be convicted? Have the forces won this one?

Could happen to anyone, on any day...

The drug cartels form extremely strong bonds with each other and gangs would kill for one another without fear. One way which we see below how they are unified is by tattooing their gang symbol./logo onto their bodies.

Reference

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Mortality in Mexico. The Bad and the Ugly.

Sentences have been issued for 523 of the 27,500 homicides registered in Mexico last year, according to statistic agency INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI)), that means that 98% of the murders for last year went unsolved.

According to Mexico's national statistics institute, 1.8 percent of the homicides registered in 2012 have resulted in conviction this is so because Mexico faces great challenges with its judicial system.

Hidalgo and Tlaxacala are two of the states where no murders cases have been solved from last year.

Things aren't much better in some of Mexico's most crime-racked regions, including San Luis Potosi (where 99.6 percent of homicide cases have not been resolved), Sinaloa (99.2 percent), Chihuahua (98.3 percent), Tamaulipas (97.5 percent), and Michoacan (96.8 percent).

The state with the highest rate of sentencing is the Federal District, although 81.4 percent of cases here remain unsolved. 

Social Issues

The continuously high levels of murders being left unsolved could greatly mean that there is no level of fear by criminals in the country. Gangs will continue to act violently and think nothing of it because they believe that they will never go to jail or get caught.

This high level of mortality and crime has also currently led to several situations of internal displacement in Mexico. Possibly the largest recorded was in 2007 where many people left their homes because of the violence of drug cartels and the government’s military response. This has caused displacement in the states of Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Durango, Guerrero, Sinaloa and Michoacán.

This displacement has been little documented, especially since Mexico is one of the most dangerous places for journalist, but more comprehensive studies of its scale and impact are needed. Three cases of Mass Displacement reportedly caused the displacement of some 3,000 people; otherwise the violence has caused gradual displacement that has been reported only rarely. However, a research centre which documented displacement in Ciudad Juárez found that up to 220,000 people had left their place of residence in the area over three years as a result of the violence, of which about half reportedly remained in the country as IDPs. This displacement can then result in further problems with in the country such as, increase in homelessness as moving does not insure a next place to settle and internal conflicts between people from different areas due to different cultures and customs.

A private consultancy report cited by several media sources has suggested that the violence has internally displaced 1.6 million people in the last five years; however the report is not publicly available and the basis of the figure is unknown.

Besides local displacement, there has been a high rate of international displacement and illegal migration. Relations of victims of drug crimes or murders in particular try to flee the country out of fear that they will be a target and seek better lives for themselves. Generally the mass international migration by the Mexicans would be over to the United States. Hence, the US government has a great border patrol force at the Central American, and United States Border.

Furthermore, murder rates are increased even high because people are killed if they are against what the cartels stand for. (Religious intolerance) One main form of this is the killing of Jehovah Witness Families. This increases the number of people trying to leave Mexico and try to claim refugee status in other countries because they live in fear that they will be executed because of their religious beliefs. 

Additionally,  this high level of mortality due to crime has caused the government to focus a lot of money into reducing crime or organising a military response to face the gangs instead of money being focused into dealing situations of poverty in southern Mexico and among the Indigenous People. There are very high levels of maternal and infant mortality among the poor particularly in Southern Mexico due to inadequate and outdated health facilities and medical care. Birth rates are reducing in these areas because women fear they may lose their life due to child birth. If this issue is continues it can lead issues with the population of the indigenous people.  The reduced birth rates will reduce the size of the young cohort (0 -15) leading to future issues when this cohort enters working age as they will have to support a larger elderly population. This may also impact cultural on the Mexican population as it will result in a lost in heritage.