Amid drug war, Mexico less deadly than decade ago

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Decapitated bodies dumped on the streets, drug-war shootings and regular attacks on police have obscured a significant fact: A falling homicide rate means people in Mexico are less likely to die violently now than they were more than a decade ago.

It also means tourists as well as locals may be safer than many believe.

Mexico City’s homicide rate today is about on par with Los Angeles and is less than a third of that for Washington, D.C.

Yet many Americans are leery of visiting Mexico at all. Drug violence and the swine flu outbreak contributed to a 12.5 percent decline in air travel to Mexico by U.S. citizens in 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, a blow to Mexico’s third-largest source of foreign income.

Full Story Here:
Amid drug war, Mexico less deadly than decade ago

I never make accusations if I don’t have rock solid proof, so, I am stating this as MY opinion.

This Alexandra Olson, the person that wrote the original story, does she work for the Mexican Tourist Bureau or one of the cartels maybe? When I saw this story on the Houston Chronicle a day or 2 ago, some comments were asking if she was on *crack* and wanting to know what she was smoking!

This story, 13 Mexican Students Killed After Armed Men Stormed Party and here we have the updated numbers, 15th person dies from Juárez massacre – El Paso Times, these stories paint a different picture from that splattered by Alexandra Olson.

Mexico, Colombia and Haiti are the only countries in the hemisphere subject to a U.S. government advisory warning travelers about violence, even though homicide rates in many Latin American countries are far higher.

But Mexico is the only one that borders this nation. Mexico is the most easily accessible to our citizens. If those citizens haven’t got the good sense to stay OUT of Mexico, and they run into an armed gang and get caught up in a massacre, as long as it happens in Mexico, and NOT on U.S. soil, I have gone past the point of caring WHAT happens to them!

Mexico’s homicide rate has fallen steadily from a high in 1997 of 17 per 100,000 people to 14 per 100,000 in 2009, a year marked by an unprecedented spate of drug slayings concentrated in a few states and cities, Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said. The national rate hit a low of 10 per 100,000 people in 2007, according to government figures compiled by the independent Citizens’ Institute for Crime Studies.

Apparently, Alexandra Olson isn’t too adept at reading figures either. Mexican homicide rates fell from 17 per 100K in 1997 to 10 per 100K in 2007, then rose to 14 per 100K in 2009. Those figures are not indicative of a safer Mexico, they are indicative of a rise in murders. Maybe that’s why Olson is a writer for AP, she’s too dense to write anything comprehensible.

CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) - Gunmen killed six people at a bar Saturday in the northern state of Sinaloa, a drug-violence hotspot, state prosecutors said.

At least three gunmen walked into Las Herraduras bar in the resort city of Mazatlan early Saturday and opened fire, killing a customer and two waiters, said Martin Gatelum, spokesman for the Sinaloa state prosecutor’s office. 6 killed at bar in cartel-plagued Mexican state

Just a quaint, peaceful little resort and vacation community I suppose.

By comparison, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have homicide rates of between 40 and 60 per 100,000 people, according to recent government statistics. Colombia was close behind with a rate of 33 in 2008. Brazil’s was 24 in 2006, the last year when national figures were available.

Mexico City’s rate was about 9 per 100,000 in 2008, while Washington, D.C. was more than 30 that year.

You have to look at the political makeup and complexion of Washington D.C. to fully understand those figures. Isn’t D.C. one of the most restrictive cities in the USA where gun ownership is concerned? Gee, how’s that working out for them I wonder?

Distinct from many current majority-black cities, Washington has had a significant African-American population since the city’s creation; several D.C. neighborhoods are well-noted for their contributions to black history and culture. Like numerous other border and northern cities in the first half of the 20th century, Washington received many black migrants from the South in the Great Migration, who moved North to escape lynchings and limited opportunities. Government growth related to World War II provided economic opportunities for African Americans, too. The percentage of African Americans in the city steadily increased as the city’s total population went into decline as a result of suburbanization, federal highway construction, and white flight. The black population included a strong middle and upper class, although the city was known more for problems of crime related to drug use and poverty, which also affected overall population. Since the 2000 U.S. Census, the city has reversed some population losses. The District has had an increase in the percentages of Caucasians, Asians, and Hispanics, and a decline in the city’s black population. Some of the latter have moved to the suburbs; others have moved to new opportunities in the South in a New Great Migration. SOURCE

Since I’m going to be called a racist regardless of what I post, I may as well use some figures on the demographics of crime to accentuate the complexion of D.C. remark.

It seems to me that there is a serious rise in crime in U.S. cities where there is a higher number of what some refer to as minorities. But, you know, maybe it’s not just me that feels that way.

Race, Crime and Justice in America
• Police and the justice system are not biased against minorities.

Crime Rates
• Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder,and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
• When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
• Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.
• The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.

Interracial Crime
• Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
• Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.
• Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.
• Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.

Gangs
• Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white.
• Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.

Incarceration
• Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million.
• Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely. SOURCE

Maybe the numbers are racist. Maybe the police making the arrests are giving a pass to White Folks. I have heard that one personally, “You bees a RACIST Mo’Fer an you jus bees doin’ dis cause I bees Black”.

Seriously, yes, we DO have a high crime and murder rate right here in the USA. We DO need to clean out the Black, Mexican, Hispanic, Asian, White or any other GANGS that think they can use intimidation to take over an entire nation.

We have waged a War on Drugs and a War on Crime for many years.

We have seen some moderate success. Maybe we need to fight a bit harder. Maybe, just like in Afghanistan and a few other places, we need to be allowed to fight harder and allowed to WIN this war.

Maybe Mexico needs to declare WAR too. Maybe Canada should as well. If all 3 nations, the USA, Mexico and Canada were to actually pool their crime fighting resources, maybe then we could make a serious dent in the murder rate, drug sales and distribution, rape, robbery and various other assorted crimes.

Maybe…