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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Mexico's murder rate | Mexico's murder rate |
| (12 days later) | |
| Another page of violence and mayhem in Mexico (Report, 4 April). It's true – and your readers will know, since they've been told often enough – that Mexico has experienced a sharp rise in homicides (roughly a tripling) between 2007 and 2011. They should also be told that recent figures suggest a levelling off (in 2012-13) and even a decline; the murder rate in Juárez has fallen by 75%. So the situation is dynamic (downwards as well as upwards) and there are marked regional variations (which is why tourism is booming in Yucatán). Finally, the long-term trend is significant: repetition of the mantra "this is the bloodiest era in the country's history since the Mexican Revolution" (Analysis, 4 April) does not make it true. The Cristero (Catholic) insurgency of the late 1920s (ie after the revolution) generated homicide rates of 200 per 100,000 (the standard metric), compared to 24 per 100,000 in 2011; more significantly, the homicide rate in 1940 was 67 per 100,000; and even circa 1960 – when no revolts happened and the "Peace of the PRI" (the then ruling party) prevailed – it was higher than it is today. Twentieth-century Mexico is in fact a good example of Steven Pinker's thesis of long-term declining violence; only in 2007-11 did the trend dramatically reverse, chiefly as a result of government policy. Whether than was a sharp spike or a secular shift remains to be seen. Alan Knight Professor of the history of Latin America, Oxford University | Another page of violence and mayhem in Mexico (Report, 4 April). It's true – and your readers will know, since they've been told often enough – that Mexico has experienced a sharp rise in homicides (roughly a tripling) between 2007 and 2011. They should also be told that recent figures suggest a levelling off (in 2012-13) and even a decline; the murder rate in Juárez has fallen by 75%. So the situation is dynamic (downwards as well as upwards) and there are marked regional variations (which is why tourism is booming in Yucatán). Finally, the long-term trend is significant: repetition of the mantra "this is the bloodiest era in the country's history since the Mexican Revolution" (Analysis, 4 April) does not make it true. The Cristero (Catholic) insurgency of the late 1920s (ie after the revolution) generated homicide rates of 200 per 100,000 (the standard metric), compared to 24 per 100,000 in 2011; more significantly, the homicide rate in 1940 was 67 per 100,000; and even circa 1960 – when no revolts happened and the "Peace of the PRI" (the then ruling party) prevailed – it was higher than it is today. Twentieth-century Mexico is in fact a good example of Steven Pinker's thesis of long-term declining violence; only in 2007-11 did the trend dramatically reverse, chiefly as a result of government policy. Whether than was a sharp spike or a secular shift remains to be seen. Alan Knight Professor of the history of Latin America, Oxford University |
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