Attachments
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This is the 11th edition of the Mexico Peace Index (MPI), produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP). It provides a comprehensive measure of peacefulness in Mexico, including trends, analysis, and estimates of the economic impact of violence. The MPI is based on the Global Peace Index, the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness, produced by IEP every year since 2007. The MPI consists of 12 sub-indicators aggregated into five major indicators.
Mexico’s peacefulness improved by 1.4 percent in 2023. This was the fourth straight year of improvement, following four consecutive years of deteriorations. However, more states deteriorated than improved, with 15 states improving and 17 deteriorating.
Mexico’s organized criminal landscape continues to be reshaped by the ongoing decline of the market for illicit marijuana and heroin in the United States and criminal groups’ growing reliance on activities such as extortion, domestic retail drug sales, and the manufacture and trafficking of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. Against this backdrop, there has been increased competition over trafficking routes and control of local rackets between groups, especially the country’s two most powerful cartels, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel. It is estimated that between 2017 and 2022 about 19,000 casualties resulted from the conflict between these two groups.
Mexico is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a politician. A recent global measure found the country had one of the highest numbers of politically motivated killings in the world.2 Moreover, analyses within Mexico have shown political violence substantially increasing over the last three years, rising from 51 assassinations of political figures and government officials in 2020, to 171 in 2023. This is the third successive year of deterioration.
In 2023, the states with the highest homicide rates were Colima, Morelos, Baja California, Zacatecas, and Chihuahua. Colima’s capital city recorded the highest homicide rate of any major municipality in the country.
Colima also ranked as the country’s least peaceful state last year, followed by Baja California, Morelos, Guanajuato, and Zacatecas. In contrast, Yucatán was once again the most peaceful state in Mexico, followed by Tlaxcala, Chiapas, Durango, and Coahuila. There is a large divergence in violence throughout the country, with the most peaceful states recording an average homicide rate of 4.2 deaths per 100,000 people, compared to an average rate of 72 in the least peaceful states. Last year, Colima registered the highest homicide rate of any state on record, with 111 deaths per 100,000 people.
In 2023, the largest improvements in peacefulness occurred in Zacatecas, Michoacán, Durango, Sonora, and Tabasco. In contrast, Morelos, Sinaloa, Quintana Roo, Chihuahua and Nayarit recorded the largest deteriorations.
All five indicators in the MPI improved in 2023, although several sub-indicators deteriorated. Homicide and firearms crime registered the largest improvements, with their rates improving by 5.3 and 2.7 percent, respectively. The homicide rate fell to 23.3 deaths per 100,000 people, its lowest level since 2016. This fall marks the fourth straight year in which homicide has improved. Despite this, homicides continue to be widespread in Mexico, with more than 30,000 victims each year since 2018, substantially more than in 2015, when there were fewer than 18,500 victims.
The fear of violence indicator also recorded a notable improvement last year. In 2023, 74.6 percent of the country perceived the state in which they resided as unsafe, an improvement of 1.7 percent compared to 2022. In the past nine years, national perceptions of insecurity have generally tracked with overall levels of violence in the country.
For the first time since 2020, the violent crime and organized crime indicators improved. The violent crime rate decreased by 0.8 percent, driven by an improvement in robbery, the most common form of violent crime, with the rate falling by 8.9 percent. In contrast, the other three subindicators – sexual assault, family violence, and assault – all registered minor deteriorations, with each of their rates rising by less than five percent. In the past nine years, the violent crime sub-indicators have followed divergent patterns. Assault and robbery rates have not varied more than 33 percent from their 2015 levels. However, family violence and sexual assault have increased each year, with both rates more than doubling since 2015. It is difficult to know whether the underlying rates have increased or if heightened awareness of family violence and sexual assault has contributed to these crimes being reported more frequently.
After peaking in 2022, the organized crime rate improved by 1.7 percent. This was the result of an improvement in extortion, which improved by 6.5 percent. All other organized crime indicators deteriorated. Major offenses, which include federal drug trafficking violations, recorded the largest deterioration, while kidnapping and human trafficking and retail drug crimes registered more modest deteriorations.
Despite the improvements over the past four years, Mexico was substantially less peaceful in 2023 than in 2015. In that time, peace in Mexico has deteriorated by 14.4 percent, with many crime indicators significantly higher than they were nine years ago. The homicide rate, for example, was 54.1 percent higher in 2023 than in 2015, while the firearms crime rate was 63.8 percent higher.
Organized criminal activity has continued to be the main driver of homicides and gun violence in Mexico. The proportion of homicides associated with organized crime is estimated to have risen by 145 percent between 2015 and 2022. This means that, over the past nine years, the annual number of organized crime-related homicides rose from about 8,000 to about 20,000, while the number not linked to organized crime has shown comparatively little change.
Violence against security forces in Mexico has been on the rise in recent years. Between 2018 and 2023, over 2,600 police officers have been killed in Mexico, with Guanajuato recording the most officers killed and Zacatecas recording the highest police homicide rate. During this time, the country registered an average annual police homicide rate of 96.8 killings per 100,000 officers, meaning that being a police officer in Mexico is about four times as dangerous as being a member of the general public.
In the past nine years, guns have become the primary cause of homicide for both men and women in Mexico. Between 2015 and 2023, the proportion of male homicides committed with a firearm rose from 60.9 percent to 72.4 percent, while the proportion used in female homicides rose from 37.8 percent to 61.2 percent. This would indicate a higher availability of guns.
Since 2010, there have been more than 95,000 reported cases of missing and disappeared persons in Mexico. Last year saw by far the most cases on record, with over 12,000 missing persons reported. Historically, more men than women are reported missing, but in the past few years a growing share of missing people have been women, with a record 29.1 percent of the total being women in 2023.
The economic impact of violence has improved in each of the past four years. In 2023, the economic impact of violence in Mexico was estimated to be 4.9 trillion pesos (US$245 billion), equivalent to 19.8 percent of Mexico’s GDP. On a per capita basis, the economic impact was 37,430 pesos, more than twice the average monthly salary of a Mexican worker. Last year, the impact decreased by one percent, or 49 billion pesos. The decrease in homicides drove the improvement nationwide, as its impact fell by 2.9 percent.
Mexico’s spending on domestic security and its criminal justice system is the lowest of all OECD countries and was equivalent to 0.65 percent of GDP. This is also less than half of the average for Latin America. In 2023, spending on domestic security was lower than it was in 2008.
To tackle crime and violence more effectively, Mexico’s judicial system is especially in need of increased investment. The country has an average of 4.4 judges and magistrates per 100,000 people, one-fourth the global average. This has resulted in large numbers of people being incarcerated while awaiting trial or sentencing. Strengthening the judiciary is of particular importance for combatting Mexico’s high levels of impunity.
Mexico’s socio-economic resilience, as measured by the Positive Peace Index (PPI) score, has deteriorated by 3.7 percent in the last decade. This contrasts with an average improvement of 0.4 percent for the greater Central America and the Caribbean region. Positive Peace is a measure of the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies, and a measure of resilience.
Mexico’s deterioration in Positive Peace since 2013 has been mostly driven by deteriorations in four Pillars of Positive Peace: Well-Functioning Government, Low Levels of Corruption, High Levels of Human Capital, and Sound Business Environment. The Mexico Positive Peace Index (MPPI), a sub-national measure of Positive Peace, further shows that Well-Functioning Government and Low Levels of Corruption were the Pillars with the highest levels of correlation with the peacefulness of states.
Simply combatting the factors that drive violence is not enough to sustain peace. Improving peacefulness in Mexico requires broader strategies that include addressing corruption and building effective institutions that are trusted by the public. To address systemic violence, a holistic public security and peacebuilding framework is needed.
The 2024 MPI report provides evidence for policymakers, business leaders, and civil society organizations to help develop new and broader peacebuilding solutions for Mexico.