The Violence in Mexico

Mexican leaders report almost inconceivable numbers of casualties in the war against drugs. Officials report that close to 48,000 persons have been killed there in violence connected to drug activity just since 2006. In the first four months of 2011, 13,000 more people died drug-related deaths. The Mexican National Human Rights Committee says that as horrendous as those figures are, they do not include the greater than 5,000 citizens who have gone missing as a result of drug violence nor include the thousands of children who have become orphaned as a result of drug-inspired violence.

Growing Violence in the United States

The violence is paying almost no regard to the U.S. – Mexican border. The billions of dollars in profits that drug cartels realize annually are largely made selling drugs on U.S. soil. The U.S. Justice Department has reported that drug cartels were present in 230 U.S. towns and cities in 2008, but today that number is closer to 1,000 cities. Gangs on the streets of border cities like Los Angeles, Dallas and others are often connected to drug cartels in Mexico. In one infamous recent case, a 14 year old known as ‘El Ponchis’ (the Cloak) was found guilty of acting as a cartel assassin who tortured and beheaded his victims. The boy is serving a three year prison sentence in a Mexican prison for his crimes.

The Love of Money

U.S. officials are wondering just how long the violence in Mexico can go on. After all, at some point the harm is destroying not only their own country but even their own families. At the center of the murderous violence is the struggle among cartels for control over smuggling channels from Mexico into the U.S. Greed is behind it all. Cocaine grown south of our border costs around $2,000/kilo to produce but sells for anywhere from $34,000 to $120,000/kilo on the streets of American cities. It is estimated that the combined annual income of traffickers in Mexico and Colombia runs close to $40 million. With no ideology but the love of money, as long as U.S. buyers will buy, the violence is unlikely to cease.

The Mexican government seems to be losing the battle for control of its long border with the United States. Instead, the border is falling into the control of bloodthirsty cartels with no apparent regard for human life. Those cartels are attempting to push their control northward essentially moving the border. As they do, more and more American law enforcement agents and innocent civilians are paying a heavy price. Until Americans decide to stop consuming, the killing is likely to continue.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that 40 percent of criminal convictions leading to incarceration of women at the turn of this century were for drug-related crimes. The latest victims are mothers, sisters and daughters, suffering in a system bent on punishment instead of rehabilitation.

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske has said it is time to evaluate how U.S. policies affect the women of this country. The gravity of the economic and social costs for such policies is essential, especially given the fact that more than 75 percent of women in prison are mothers.

There are some who argue that the incarceration for a drug-related crime should result in the termination of parental rights. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 dictates the initiation of the termination of parental rights proceedings if a child has been placed in foster care for 15 of the last 22 months.

A study by the U.S. General Accounting Office shows the median prison sentence for women is 60 months and as a result, the majority of mothers in prison lose their parental rights. More than 75 percent of women incarcerated in federal prisons are there on nonviolent drug offenses.

A study issued by the Sentencing Project showed that 1,706,600 minor children had an incarcerated parent in 2007, and half of these children were under the age of 10. Based on current statistics, many of these children will be incarcerated as juvenile offenders.