Safety, Security, Crime & Emergency Numbers

One of Mexico’s biggest problems is the high crime rate in the country, out of these the largest and most prevalent problems are drug trafficking and organized crime as well as the violent crime as a result of the former two. Out of 100,000 people the crime rate is at around 1500 in total, with around 13 murders (2 of these with firearms), 250 assaults (186 of these being aggravated), 14 rapes, 112 general thefts, 139 automobile thefts, 146 robberies, 54 frauds and 23 drug offences. The worst cities are Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, other cities and towns have lower but still serious crime rates.

The high crime rate is generally due to poor law enforcement through both low apprehension and conviction rates, the main reason for the low apprehension and conviction rates is due to the distrust of the authorities by citizens and as such, only one out of every ten crimes is reported in Mexico and only one out of every hundred crimes goes to the sentencing stage, this means that only one out of every thousand crimes is punished.

Emergency Numbers

General Emergency – 911
Ambulance – 065
Police – 066
Fire Department – 068