Politics: An innovative, quantitative approximation of the number of people each cartel employs in Mexico, rate of turnover/recruitment
An article by analysts Rafael Prieto-Curiel, Gian Maria Campedelli and the late Alejandro Hope that appears in the magazine Science assesses the scale and dimensions of Mexican cartels. While conducting a sophisticated analysis that estimates the cartels' population size—roughly 175,000 people working for the 150 active cartels, up 52% or by 60,000 from 2012—and the factors driving cartel growth and shrinkage, they also report on the cartel’s degree of turnover in the decade since 2012, and the extent of the recruitment they systematically conduct to cover those losses and further expand their operations. As the title of the article, "Reducing cartel recruitment is the only way to lower violence in Mexico," indicates, they address the debate over whether it would be more effective to focus on policies designed to discourage people from joining the cartels' ranks or apply more resources toward arresting and imprisoning those working for the criminal organizations.
This week we also reflect on Mexico’s dismal rankings in the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index. Mexico is ranked the third least secure country and 124th worst in terms of resilience regarding effective policies and other measures to deal with organized crime.
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