Homicide by Sexenio (Second Amendment) A Brief Research NOTE: INEGI Vital Statistics Data James H. Creechan, Ph.D.

Toronto, Ontario INEGI is the Mexican Government Agency that tracks, records and produces reports on Vital Statistics. Vital Statistics are based on guidelines authorized by the Mexican government in conformity with international standards and conventions. INEGI's web site has links to documents describing the methodology for recording data. According to INEGI, CAUSE of DEATH is one vital statistic that has been recorded in conformity with international conventions for more than 85 years in Mexico. The document "Sntesis Metodlogica de las EstadsticasVitales" ( http://www.inegi.org.mx/est/contenidos/espanol/metodologias/registros/sociales/sm_ev.pdf ) indicates that this vital statistic "cause of death" represents a standardized "summary count" that has been recorded, tabulated and reported in Mexico in conformity with internationally conventions since 1925. "En 1925 la Organizacin de la Salud de la Sociedad de Naciones, propuso las definiciones de nacimiento vivo y muerte fetal, adems revis con el IIE la Lista Internacional de Causas de Muerte y elabor un certificado mdico estndar con normas que definen la eleccin de la causa bsica de la defuncin. En 1928, una comisin formada por el IIE y la Organizacin de la Salud de la Sociedad de Naciones, asumi la responsabilidad de la elaboracin de la Lista Internacional de Causas de Muerte y posteriormente, en 1946 qued totalmente bajo la responsabilidad de la Organizacin Mundial de la Salud. Por otro lado, el IIE a lo largo de los aos elabor recomendaciones sobre diversos procedimientos relativos a las estadsticas vitales, especialmente sobre aspectos de la compilacin, tabulaciones bsicas y normas para la presentacin en forma tabular. Con la creacin de la Organizacin de las Naciones Unidas (ONU), en 1945, se intensific la promocin de la comparabilidad internacional, ya que la Comisin de Estadstica de la ONU consider que la comparabilidad slo se podra conseguir con la adopcin y aplicacin de los mismos conceptos, definiciones y clasificaciones generales, en todos los pases; por lo que en 1953 se publicaron los Principios para un Sistema de Estadsticas Vitales que contienen las recomendaciones de la Organizacin Mundial de la Salud y se consider la primera gua completa de conceptos, definiciones, clasificaciones y datos que se deban reunir para generar un programa mnimo de tabulaciones. En 1955, a partir de una encuesta aplicada en ms de cien pases, se prepar el Manual de Sistemas y Mtodos de Estadsticas Vitales y en 1968 la Comisin de Estadstica aprob un programa mundial para el mejoramiento de las estadsticas vitales " (op.cit. Page 6) The document also indicates that violent causes of death should be broadly categorized as an accident or a violent incident, and described as one of three categories - "TIPO DE ACCIDENTE O VIOLENCIA. Clasifica las defunciones accidentales y violentas en accidentes, homicidios y suicidios." (opcit. Page 34) I interpret these detailed instructions in this methodological manual to indicate that the category "difunto for homicidio" reported in INEGI vital statistic reports (defunciones) does not include additional legal distinctions Amended to correct totals for sexenios on August 2, 2013 Page 1 of 6

that may be applied to homicide. That is, INEGI's count of "difunto por homcidio" represents all violent deaths that were assigned the broad "code" homicidio by a medical examiner or by a reporting officer in any of the reporting jurisdictions. It is only later in the chain of "counting" that additional "legal" and "statistical" distinctions are applied by other "gatekeepers". In Mexico, homicidios are further categorized as "fuero comn" (State) or "nacional", and they are classified as "doloso", (intent) or "culposo" (no intent), and may be further subdivided into specific legally relevant categories such as "femicidio" etc. The data source for these finer categorizations of homicide is the SESNSP, but it has also been recorded in additional sources (e.g. Newspaper counts of "cartel-related deaths"). The INEGI data is a "raw count" of homicides recorded by more than 3,400 reporting bureaucracies that are charged with recording Vital Statistics according to Mexican Federal Law in conformity with international conventions and standards. In principle, this data has NOT been manipulated further to fit into legal distinctions and categories. INEGI homicide data is widely available through online sources as "tabulated reports", but it is furthermore downloadable as "raw data" that can be used to engage in further analysis (i.e. correlating homicide levels with other vital statistical data such as population totals,gender, age, location of death etc.) The online raw data source of the category "difunto por homicidio" is available online through INEGI back to 1990. I downloaded this online data and used it to prepare the following two graphic presentations of changes in homicide deaths since 1990. Figure 1 computes and compares the total number of homicides across each sexenio, and Figure 2 tracks changes in homicide levels for each year of Felipe Caldern's presidency. Please note that the totals for the sexenio of Carlos Salinas de Gortari uses INEGI data (online) that is recorded for 1990 through 1994 (ie. the last 5 years of Salinas de Gortari's sexenio). An additional data source (SINAIS) was consulted to obtain the homicide data for 1989. The SINAIS figure (15,399 homicides) was added to the INEGI total to compute the sexenio total homicide figure for the sexenio of Carlos Salinas de Gortari These figures also include the most recent INEGI statistics (2012) that were released earlier this week (July 30, 2013). There is a "standard" cautionary note that criminologists always attach to any statistical analysis that seems to suggest major changes or differences over time periods or between "statistical comparison units". Changes can be the result of one of three factors: a) a true statistical change in the count (rate) b) a change in recording practices or c) statistical error. Although homicide statistics are considered to be one of the most reliable "crime counts" in modern jurisdictions, this may NOT be the case in Mexico. It is too early to determine whether there has been a change in the way "homicide" has been counted in 2012. The INEGI web pages have been dramatically changed, the Mexican government of Enrique Pea Nieto has been desperately trying to change the "crime narrative", and even the President has acknowledged that some parts of Mexico are "beyond" the control of government ( this implies that "recording" of vital statistics may be affected in some regions of Mexico).

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Figure 1: Homicide totals by Sexenio

121,669 93,493 80,311 60,162 140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 Sexenio CSG: 1989-1994 Sexenio EZ: 1996-2000 Sexenio VFQ: 2001-2006 Sexenio FCH: 2007-2012

NOTE: CSG calculated using INEGI homicide data for years 1990=1994 and SINAIS (Sistema Nacional de Informacion de Salud) for 1989

The drop in the number of homicides during 2012 may be real, or it may be the result of a counting error. It is also very clear that Mexico's recent acknowledgement that there are at least 2,5000 "desaparecidos" that could dramatically affect the validity and change the value of these homicide counts. Figure 3 is a time line of the raw number of homicides in Mexico between 1932 and 2012. The data comes from a number of sources as reported by Ing. Manuel Aguirre Botello, using data from INEGI, SINAIS, PAHO y Presidencia/PGR (http://www.mexicomaxico.org/Voto/Homicidios100M.htm ).

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The plotted data through 2012 is not adjusted for population and therefore is not a homicide rate. There is a regression trend line super-imposed, and this line is the "least squares predictor" of an expected homicide total based on previous observations. In brief, the regression line "predicts" an expected number of approximately 16,000 homicides for 2012. Ing. Manuel Aguirre Botello has plotted a crime rate for these same years and it is available at URL (http://www.mexicomaxico.org/Voto/Homicidios100M.htm ). He also presents the raw data that he used to create his scatterline.

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Homicides

Total EJECUCIONES

Diferencia sin Ejecuciones

Poblacin 100,000

Poblacin

Year

Homicide Rate

9983 7904 7232 8098 11317 11266 11468 11445 13175 10434 9459 9809 9896 10815 11592 12124 12438 12404 12403 11889 11901 10805 10954 10782 10543 10446 10230 11250 11158 10602 9493 8438 8781 8231 8234 8632 8711 4625 8450 7808 7505

17,131,041 17,427,734 17,729,565 18,036,623 18,349,000 18,666,787 18,990,077 19,318,966 19,653,552 20,194,997 20,751,359 21,323,048 21,910,486 22,514,109 23,134,361 23,771,700 24,426,598 25,099,538 25,791,017 26,584,772 27,402,955 28,246,320 29,115,640 30,011,715 30,935,367 31,887,447 32,868,827 33,880,412 34,923,129 36,068,599 37,251,640 38,473,484 39,735,405 41,038,716 42,384,775 43,774,985 45,210,794 46,693,697 48,225,238 49,825,885 51,479,660

171.31041 174.27734 177.29565 180.36623 183.49 186.66787 189.90077 193.18966 196.53552 201.94997 207.51359 213.23048 219.10486 225.14109 231.34361 237.717 244.26598 250.99538 257.91017 265.84772 274.02955 282.4632 291.1564 300.11715 309.35367 318.87447 328.68827 338.80412 349.23129 360.68599 372.5164 384.73484 397.35405 410.38716 423.84775 437.74985 452.10794 466.93697 482.25238 498.25885 514.7966

1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

58.27 45.35 40.79 44.9 61.68 60.35 60.39 59.24 67.04 51.67 45.58 46 45.17 48.04 50.11 51 50.92 49.42 48.09 44.72 43.43 38.25 37.62 35.93 34.08 32.76 31.12 33.21 31.95 29.39 25.48 21.93 22.1 20.06 19.43 19.72 19.27 9.9 17.52 15.67 14.58

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7059 7529 10050 9679 11516 11272 11852 12225 12596 13323 12918 12473 14961 15909 15722 15204 15399 14,497 15,129 16,596 16,044 15,840 15,616 14,508 13,558 13,658 12,249 10,743 10,286 10,089 10,088 9,330 9,926 10,454 8,868 14,007 19,804 25757 27199 26,037 2,119 2,595 6,183 8,906 13174 13600 121,672 8,335 6,273 7,824 10,898 12,583 13,599

53,188,325 54,953,703 56,777,675 58,662,188 60,609,249 62,620,935 64,699,391 66,846,833 68,163,974 69,507,067 70,876,625 72,273,168 73,697,228 75,149,348 76,630,080 78,139,989 79,679,648 81,249,645 82,743,216 84,264,243 85,813,230 87,390,691 88,997,149 90,633,139 92,299,202 93,995,892 95,723,770 97,483,412 98,874,528 100,285,496 101,716,599 103,168,124 104,640,363 106,133,611 107,648,168 109,184,339 110,742,431 112,322,757 112,322,757

531.88325 549.53703 567.77675 586.62188 606.09249 626.20935 646.99391 668.46833 681.63974 695.07067 708.76625 722.73168 736.97228 751.49348 766.3008 781.39989 796.79648 812.49645 827.43216 842.64243 858.1323 873.90691 889.97149 906.33139 922.99202 939.95892 957.2377 974.83412 988.74528 1,002.85 1,017.17 1,031.68 1,046.40 1,061.34 1,076.48 1,091.84 1,107.42 1,123.23 1,123.23

1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

13.27 13.7 17.7 16.5 19 18 18.32 18.29 18.48 19.17 18.23 17.26 20.3 21.17 20.52 19.46 19.33 17.84 18.28 19.7 18.7 18.13 17.55 16.01 14.69 14.53 12.8 11.02 10.4 10.06 9.92 9.04 9.49 9.85 8.24 12.83 17.88 22.93 24.22

Source:

http://www.mexicomaxico.org/Voto/Homicidios100M.htm

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