Homicide of children and adolescents in Mexico (1990–2013)

ABSTRACT

The trends and correlates of child and juvenile homicide rates in three developmental age groups (0-5, 6-11, and 12-17) during 1990–2013 in Mexico are examined by using vital statistical data. Homicide rates for adults and children were calculated yearly and the place where homicides occurred and the means used to commit homicide examined. Changes and continuities in homicide rates during 2002–2007 and 2008–2013 and their association with socio-economic, status of women, public security efforts, and firearm availability variables were studied. Homicide rates increased rapidly for adults and children in 2008 as did the rates in which a firearm was used. Rates for adults and children 0–5 years were particularly correlated. In some states, the youngest children’s rates increased by 75% or more than the rates for adults. High-increase states for younger children were closer to the U.S. border, were farther from abortion services, and had growing rates of female-headed households.

KEYWORDS:

• Homicide of children
• Mexico
• developmental perspective
• children
• war against drugs
• homicide

Notes

1. By the end of the 1990s, the drug markets were expanded and the informal model of drug-trafficking regulation had deteriorated in Mexico. Velasco (2005) argues that for decades, drug cartels and the Mexican state – controlled by the same political party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) for almost 70 years – went through periods of alliances and oppositions, creating a certain stability because of the existence of tacit agreements and selective implementation of the law that regulated drug cartels. This arrangement changed during the 1990s due to democratisation and political pluralism at the state and municipal level to neoliberal reforms that shrank the State. Subnational governments lacked of available resources to fulfil their new responsibilities after the decentralisation processes. This situation generated a power imbalance between drug cartels and governmental institutions. As for the drug market expansion, during the 1990s, the production of heroin and cannabis increased dramatically in Mexico, as well as Mexico’s role in trafficking drugs into the U.S. These two factors led to greater tensions and conflicts among drug cartels (see Pereyra, 2012).

2. In Mexico, when a death occurs, it is mandatory that a medical doctor certifies it with a death certificate (certificado de defunción). This death certificate is essential for the Civil Registry to issue a Death Certificate, which is required in order to carry out a funeral. Death certificates are used to generate statistics. One copy is sent to the Federal Health Department (Secretaría de Salud) and another to the National Institute for Statistics and Geography. Both institutions code the causes of death and, after comparing databases, INEGI publishes mortality statistics databases. Data about homicides were obtained from the INEGI’s vital statistics databases (available at http://www3.inegi.org.mx/sistemas/microdatos/encuestas.aspx?c=33398&s=est).

3. Under the Ministry of the Interior, this agency is responsible for coordinating and defining public policy on public security.

4. Homicides related to accidents are not included in the analysis.

5. Available at http://www.conapo.gob.mx/es/CONAPO/Consultas_Interactivas

6. Information available at http://www.normateca.gob.mx/Archivos/66_D_3818_30-05-2014.pdf

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology.

Notes on contributors

Sonia M. Frías

Sonia M. Frías, Ph.D. is a Researcher and Professor at the Regional Center for Multidisciplinary Research (National Autonomous University of Mexico). She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. She conducts research on gender equality, violence against women and children from a gender perspective and the role of the State in protecting women and children from violence.

David Finkelhor

David Finkelhor is Director of Crimes against Children Research Center, Co-Director of the Family Research Laboratory, Professor of Sociology, and University Professor at the University of New Hampshire. His core fields of interest have been the problems of child victimization, child maltreatment and family violence, which he started to study back in 1977. He is perhaps best known for his conceptual and empirical work on the problem of child sexual abuse, reflected in publications such as Sourcebook on Child Sexual Abuse and Nursery Crimes. He has done extensive research about child homicide, missing and abducted children, children exposed to domestic and peer abuse. In his recent work, Child Victimization (Oxford University Press, 2008), he has tried to unify and integrate knowledge about all the diverse forms of child victimization in a field he has termed Developmental Victimology.