In 2010, the State Attorney General of Chihuahua – where Ciudad Juarez is located – reported 3000 homicides but they did not report what investment they had made in solving this horrendous problem.
One report suggested that this city of 1.3 million has lost 25% of its population because of the violence – leaving one million still living there. If correct, this calculates a rate of 300 homicides per 100,000 population in a year. This is of an order unknown in Caracas or Johannesburg, where rates of homicide have for too long held the world records for cities – outside of war zones.
Yet the State appears to have been unbelievably slow to invest in strategies known to have been successful in other Latin American Cities. In Less Law, More Order (and the Spanish version translated by INACIPE – a Mexican government agency), I present what works to reduce violence and how cities can implement those success stories.
- I explain the importance of a center to analyse the data on the circumstances of the deaths and so propose solutions.
- I show the evidence for investments in programs to outreach to youth to stop them drifting into the gangs.
- I repeat the evidence on the importance of limiting access to handguns
- I call for outreach to victims to avoid revenge killings.
- I discuss how these actions must be supported by other levels of government.
The Mexican Congress is considering crime prevention legislation that would confirm the importance of the lessons learnt from Bogota and incidentally Alberta in Canada. Will the World Bank or UN Habitat provide the support that is needed?
The Mexican government has thrown all it can at enforcement with massive increases in the army and in federal police but are these sufficient to stem this tsunami of violence in this shrinking city just 100 yards from El Paso – one of the safest cities in the USA? Clearly not.
Is this a failure of prevention or enforcement? What can we do to get evidence used so that smart enforcement and smart prevention become part of the solution? Remember Mandela said violence is preventable (not enforceable).
