SAN DIEGO.- There has been much progress made, but there are still hotspots; this is the main conclusion of a study on narcotics trafficking in Mexico, which reported a (possible) 15 percent decrease in nationwide homicides during 2013 – thanks in part to the consolidation of drug cartels in one region, who are no longer engaged in a power struggle with other groups of organized crime.

The study also emphasizes that the increase of violence in Mexico over the past years is due, mostly, to organized crime and not common crime, which tourists or citizens need fear.

The study is called "Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2013", conducted by investigators – Kimberly Heinle, Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira and David A. Shirk – from the Justice in Mexico Project at the University of San Diego's Department of Political Science and International Relations.

This puts the great progress that the country had made at reducing the homicide index, for decades, into perspective. Actually, overall, homicides decreased between 1930 and the year 2000 – a trend that has been interrupted since the beginning of the drug war, which began in 2007, under the administration of President Felipe Calderón.

The study also shows that – even if this is not a general belief in Mexico – homicides were not always the mark of organized crime or drug trade, demonstrating that it was not until the 90's and early 2000's that the "competition [amongst drug cartels] became significantly more violent, due to a series of government operations, internal power struggles, and division amongst criminal entities in Mexico."

The study does not point the finger, but it does, clearly, point out an irony: actions taken to combat crime, actually took it to unprecedented rates, not seen, in Mexico, since the beginning of the twentieth century.

The situation is, however, improving.

Murders in Mexico appear to have decreased approximately 15 percent in 2013, in comparison with 2012. Why do we say appear? The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), has yet to publish its 2013 statistical data on homicides, which is considered to be the most reliable information in the nation to counter-arrest insecurity. We do, now, have information from the National System on Public Security (SNSP), which confirms the decrease. The study, and one of its investigators, David A. Shirk, warn that this information is not very trustworthy, due to the data being subject to political manipulation, as he has stated in interviews.

But, in this case, the SNSP's information has coincided with the INEGI's previous homicide statistics. The SNSP reported a total of 18,146 murders, a 16.4 percent decrease, in comparison with 2012's 21,700 reported murders. This number is expected to increase once the INEGI reports its figures.

This is a substantial improvement, if you look at the homicide index that was seen during the worst years of the war on drugs and organized crime. In 2011 there were 27,199 murders; the worst year of the past several decades, in terms of national murders. This rate is incredibly high, if one considers that during 2007 there were less than 8 thousand.

In general, the decrease is good news, and furthers the trend of less violence and murders, which has been seen in recent years.

But, as Shirk stated in an interview with KPBS, there are still hot spots in Baja California, especially in Tijuana. There were 492 homicides in Tijuana during 2013, compared to 320 in 2012. This represents a 53 percent increase.

"There are several things happening. In general, the violence in Tijuana has diminished considerably, when compared with the levels seen in 2008 and 2009, and is now a fraction of the violence that we saw during these days, when there were almost 2000 homicides each year," Shirk stated, during the interview. We still can't say with much precision why, exactly, this city saw this increase, but State authorities have said that the majority of the violence is due to fights amongst criminal groups.

Shirk commented that the violence along the border has decreased primarily because, "in some areas – such as Baja California, Chihuahua and other border cities – certain cartels have established, basically, a monopoly," and as a result there is now no need to use violence to combat the competition.

Also, "We [the United States] is guilty, in a sense, or at least partly responsible for the violence in Mexico, the investigator clarifies. After all, the arms trafficking along the border, the consumption of illicit drugs and the lack of economic support for Mexico contributes to the fighting between drug cartels.

You can read the complete study here.

We highly suggest it, as it also contains international media coverage about the unrest in Mexico, showing that it is not actually as bad as we think, and also, about the causes of the violence and possible solutions to it.

Another good source, which we recommend is this one, a blog that has managed to create an interactive map of the homicides in Mexico that are related to drug trafficking.

*Via KPBS with additional information from the U-T San Diego.

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