bandits need not apply

Crime in Mexico is in the news again.


Before you say: "Here we go again with hysterical stories of how dangerous Mexico is!"  Just listen up a minute.  Sometimes, the news is good.

Most of us who live in Mexico have a completely different perception of how dangerous the place is than do our friends and family.  I received two letters this week from friends who made that very point.


A classmate from law school, who lives in Honolulu, has been concerned about my safety in Mexico since I moved south.  But now he has an alternative life style for me:

I am very concerned about your personal safety as the drug cartels seem to be extending their waves of killings and violence further south from the U.S./Mexican Border.  Can you arm yourself when you go to Mexico. What about retiring to Arizona or New Mexico or Nevada?

Ironically, a friend in Nevada (Lovelock, to be specific -- you have to love the name) sent me similar sentiments:

I assume you have seen the news about car bombs and politicians hiring prisoners as assassins in Mexico.  Tell me again why you want to live there.

I understand the sentiments.  I hear it almost every week from my colleagues at lunch.  They are content to believe the horror stories they hear on CNN are a daily occurrence in every Mexican village.


But those of us who live in Mexico know they are just that. Sentiments.


There are real crime problems in Mexico.  Most of it related to the war between the government and the drug lords -- not to mention the war the drug lords have going with one another.  But that violence is mainly clustered around the border with the United States.  And, even then, most of the dead are involved, to some degree, in the drug trade.


But in most of our villages, violence tends to be be more personal -- and almost universally involves a love triangle that has imploded like a black hole.  Love killings are always second cousins to the St. Valentine's Day massacre.  Not pretty.


Now there are numbers to support those of us who refuse to join the Chicken Little Brigade.


Mexico’s homicide rate is 14 per 100,000 inhabitants.  That is three times as high as the homicide rate in the United States.  But that is not saying much.


Twenty large American cities have homicide rates higher than that.    A couple 4 times higher.  Ironically, Brazil, Mexico's Latin American power rival, has a homicide almost twice as high as Mexico's.  And I do not hear anyone being advised to stay away from Rio.


But most areas of Mexico are as peaceful as Canada -- safer than some urban areas of Canada.  Including most of Mexico's resorts.  And including my small fishing village by the sea.


The morally disturbing drug war would keep me out of the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Durango.  But I am certain there are peaceful areas there, as well.  But not for me.


Crime is not an issue for me in Mexico.  When I return, I will be as cautious as I am in Salem.


There are real things to enjoy in life.  Being afraid of bogeyman criminals is not one of them.