Efficiency of combating property violence in the Northwest region of Mexico

Abstract

The situation of violence in Mexico shows an alarming trend as the number of committed crimes increased by 10.9% in 2021 compared to 2020. In fact, 75.6% of the Mexican population perceives the insecurity. Due to the above, it is necessary to strengthen public security to combat this trend. However, the resources allocated to the public security in Mexico are limited. Although there are studies that investigate what causes the violence in Mexico, so far there is no study that measures the efficiency of combating the violence related to budgetary, human, and material resources of the public security. This article investigates the efficiency of combating the property violence in 206 municipalities in the Northwest region of Mexico through the Data Envelopment Analysis. The results show a low efficiency (56.67%) with significant differences between the states in the region. Baja California is the state with the lowest efficiency (17.61%), whereas the highest efficiency is found in Durango (67.25%). For the last, the need to carefully plan changes in the police force and the public security infrastructure was noted to improve the efficiency and the level of security.