The dancing men outside of pharmacies are of of the many dangers on Mexican streets
People love telling you how unsafe Mexico is, particularly Mexico City, which is often quoted as being one of the most “dangerous cities in the world”. I’m glad because going to “dangerous” places is an important part of building up your traveller kudos, and impressing friends when you’re back home. (As an aside, as well as facing “danger”, you can get traveller kudos by doing things like :1) getting drunk with a local, 2) remembering the names of any local beers you’ve tried and claiming they’re the best you’ve ever had (provided that beer is not sold in your home country), 3) Remembering the name of some obscure town where you once ate a taco so you can relate the story when eating at a Mexican restaurant with your friends back home…. “This taco is OK, but it’s nothing like the taco I had in this little local market in (insert name of town here)”).
But back to the topic.
It’s inevitable there would be a lot of crime in a city of more than 20 million people, but how violent or dangerous is Mexico overall?
There’s no denying a lot of recent violence has come from the government’s ill-fated drug war, which is said to have claimed 50,000 lives since 2006.
But even taking the drug war into account, Mexico is still far from being the most violent country in Latin America – it ranked 10th in a 2008 study (Latinobarimetro Annual Report).
Certainly as a tourist, Mexico seems very safe. That could be because if a crime is committed against a tourist, the police may actually do something about it (most crimes against Mexicans are either not reported or not investigated). And also because as tourists we tend to stay in nice area and avoid travelling to the areas renowned for drug violence (ie. the northern border areas).
But there are still obviously a lot of crimes being committed against the average Mexican – nearly a third of households suffered a crime in 2011. That’s a pretty staggering statistic, even more significant when you consider that and only in 8% of those cases was a police investigation opened.
As Jorge G Castaneda points out in his excellent book, Manana Forever, the two traits Mexico is most commonly associated with are corruption and lawlessness. And rightfully he sees them as significant blocks to the country’s development.
Law and order in Mexico – some facts
- People don’t trust the police – a 2010 poll found that only 8% of respondents felt strong confidence in the police.
- There is no consistent criminal code across the country – 93% of crimes are non-federal (ie. they fall into the differing laws of the 32 states). Given most crimes are unreported, Castaneda suggests there’s a link between the two.
- There are 6 different types of police – all have different authority – some are judicial, some preventative. All are considered ineffective and corrupt*
- Despite being a major transit and drug producing country, drug use in Mexico is very low in comparison to both wealthy nations and the rest of Latin America.
- According to some estimates, more than half of country’s economic activity takes place underground. More people work in the informal economy than in the tourist industry (the country largest employer).
- Mexicans don’t like paying tax – Mexico has the lowest tax take of any country in the OECD.
So law and order is definitely an issue for Mexicans. And it’s clearly a very dangerous place if you’re involved in law enforcement, the drug trade or the military. I imagine it’s not very safe if you’re an honest politician either.
But it’s definitely safe in our tourist bubble…
Footnote
* The are 6 or 7 types of police in Mexico (Federal, State, Municipal, Traffic, Metro, Tourist and one other?) – all are quite ineffective, due to widespread corruption and a general disregard for the rule of law. (This is part of the reason why the military was called in to fight the “war on drugs”). The police are split into judicial and preventative – judicial police are supposed to investigate crimes, and preventive police are supposed to prevent crimes (by driving around cities with their siren lights on – something you see all over Mexico). In Mexico City, in the tourist zone, we saw patrols going up and down most streets every few minutes – the largest police presence I have seen anywhere in my travels.
Policeman on the street in Oaxaca
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