Abstract

In the mid-2000s, Mexico began to experience an increase in violent acts perpetrated by organized crime groups (OCGs) involved in drug trafficking, even as overall levels of societal violence continued a decades-long decline. By 2007, when Mexico’s homicide rate reached the all-time low of 8.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, the number of homicides attributed to organized crime groups involved in drug trafficking had more than doubled from about 1,000 such killings in 2001. Yet, this was only the beginning. Over the next five years, Mexico’s homicide rate nearly tripled as a result of a dramatic increase in the number of so-called drug-related killings – or ‘drug violence’ – that accompanied an all-out shooting war among OCGs.