Mexico's Young Hitmen Are Both Victimizers and Victims, Experts Say Marti Quintana - Fox News Latino
go to original August 10, 2015

Professional killers hired by Mexican drug cartels kidnap, murder and torture rivals, with some hitmen as young as 12 years old. (Al Jazeera English)

Some 5,000 young men are imprisoned in Mexico after being convicted of serious crimes, with 22 percent of them serving time for murder, a high number that obscures an even more painful reality.

Many of these youths and teenagers fall in the trap of organized crime as a result of family troubles, poverty, dropping out of school or addictions, and they see themselves pushed to commit crimes that will brand them for life.

"Most of these kids who join organized crime live in hell," a former juvenile offender known as "El Maru," who is now an outreach facilitator for the social organization Cauce Ciudadano, told EFE.

"They are in shock and never imagined they would have to kill or dismember a person," he said.

"They are victims of abandonment by the government, their families and their communities although, at the same time, once they become criminals, being neglected does not exempt them from legal accountability," Juan Martin Perez, executive director of the Mexico Children's Rights Network, or Redim, said.

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