Common Crime in Mexico Remained Steady in 2014, Government Survey Shows Anthony Harrup - WSJ.com
go to original October 2, 2015

A woman walks past a wall with an image depicting two murder victims. (Henry Romero/Reuters)

The level of common crime in Mexico was stable last year compared with 2013, while the number of kidnappings fell sharply, a government survey published this week showed.

The National Statistics Institute, or Inegi, said 22.8 million people were victims of at least one crime in 2014, compared with 22.5 million the previous year, according to the nationwide survey conducted in March and April of this year at close to 96,000 homes.

The number of victims per 100,000 inhabitants was practically unchanged from 2013 at 28,200, the institute said. The results followed two consecutive years of increases in crimes such as theft, robbery, fraud, extortion and kidnappings.

Kidnappings, including so-called “express” kidnappings where victims are held for hours instead of days or weeks, fell to 102,883 from close to 132,000 in 2013, Inegi said. Telephone extortion, where victims are threatened or fooled into believing a family member has been kidnapped, remained the second most frequent crime after robbery and street muggings, although the number of cases where victims paid the money demanded fell to 5.4% from 6.4% a year before.

While common crime appears to be stabilizing, the number of homicide victims reported this year by the government began rising in April after two years of sharp declines. The Inegi survey doesn’t include homicides, drug trafficking, immigrant trafficking or weapons possession.

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