Mexico, along with Russia, are the two most notorious mafia states. And notice the problems have been getting worse as the amount of oil diminishes, which was predicted. This, on our own doorstep, cannot be contained and will affect our own country. There will be even more refugees, too, because of this.
I never felt unsafe in Mexico and actually enjoy it a lot more than my yearly visits to the US.
Incredibly friendly people, great food and beautiful places.
Regarding violence, I find that most drug related violence stays contained within the cartel-world. Whilst in the US, random shootings are.. random..
Not that I feel unsafe in the US either though, the odds are pretty good that nothing will happen in either country.
(Most of my time in Mexico is spent in NL, Monterrey, and most of my time in the US near San Antonio, Texas. So I can't speak for either country in it's entirety of course)
Interesting, I grew up with have inclusive/exclusive forms in Indonesian but never really thought about how it would really help in situations like this!
The US military or national guard would be deployed as necessary if the cartels began firing on the contractors and government workers building a theoretical wall. Cartels are certainly threatening in their environment, they're entirely worthless in actual military style engagements. In terms of gear, logistics, training and soldiers, they're less capable than the most mediocre of nation armies. It's not what they're good at. They fare extremely poorly against the Mexican military.
It'd be just about the dumbest thing a cartel ever did, to engage the US Government in such a moronic 'war.' They'd quickly abandon that idea. It's the reason they don't target prominent people in the US Government as it is now: the US can kill their leadership top to bottom, with just a bit of effort and resources pointed that direction. They know that, so they stay within certain bounds of behavior accordingly.
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. How's the US military holding up against fighters in Afghanistan or Iraq? Guerilla style warfare has always been a problem for the United States. Case in point, Vietnam. Now throw the Cartel into the mix with the funding they have and you'd have a much bigger problem at hand. "They fare extremely poorly against the Mexican military." Show proof of this statement? Ever since the Mexican government announced the war on drugs and deployed the military violence is at its highest in recent years and the rise of even more sophisticated Cartels with actual military training has risen. You should stop watching Hollywood movies.
The reason the US can't stop them has nothing to do with guerrilla warfare. The CIA dictates the policy and the military follows it. Their policies are ineffective because they are interested in delaying the war.
I think the issue can be explained without conspiracy theories. US military can't win against guerrilla, because US public cares about their image as the "good guys". And to be good guys you have to avoid any civilian casualties, which significantly raises the difficulty of all military operations.
The war against ISIS in Syria is a good example: Americans struggled for years, and then Russians came and pretty much ended the whole thing in 3 months. How? By bombarding civilians, including the hospitals, and (allegedly) using chemical weapons.
So, US have no problem winning the fight against guerillas, other than its own restraint.
Alternatively, some portion of the US public is against slaughtering innocent civilians, and it's not just about public image. I do agree with your general sentiment, though.
I still don't believe that brutality and disregard of civilians is the only way to efficiently win an armed conflict against insurgent groups, though.
US military can drop few nukes and end a war even faster. The weak joint is not a military. The weak point is cohort of bribed journalists, which write everything Russia want for small amount of money. When USA bomb civilians, bribed journalist will make woes. When Russia bomb civilians, bribed journalist will be silent or supportive. Why not to support state, which pays your bills?
It is well documented that the judges in Mexico are openly corrupt and more than 80% of narco kingpin arrests are "pay offs" and they are released. One Mexico President acted "astounded" when he learned this . . .
There is a huge gulf (ocean) in motivation between trying to bring "democracy" to third world countries and an attack on the country's doorstep. When only 1 DEA agent was murdered in Mexico, it provoked an enormous response.[0]
There's a great line at the end of Tora! Tora! Tora! from Admiral Yamamoto that would undoubtedly apply in such a scenario,
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
I don't understand why they don't upgrade their methods for the 21st century and get into legality. I'm sure they would be quite successful in pharma/opioids/tabacco/gambling businesses. There would be no need to use axes on average people.
Because running legal business is a lot harder than running illegal one. With legal business there are laws/regulations and there is competition. When you run drug business and competitor show up you just take a gun and eliminate your competitor (simplifying here of course). Another thing is that you will get respect from a lot people in certain circles and a lot will fear you if you've built successful crime organization. It's a lot harder to get that running pharma business. Why do you think people like Escobar didn't just retire having hundreds millions of dollars? Sometimes its not all about the money in the end game. They do invest in legal businesses to launder money most of the time.
Being on top of large criminal organization is intoxicating just like having power is.
Black markets have decreased supply, increased demand due to decreased supply (through legal limitations and criminal interactions) all this leads to more margin and profits.
To fight criminality and massive gains in black markets, the only way is to regulate and decriminalize black markets.
In the drug war for instance, compressing markets to a few players, especially in a black market where that is a natural reaction, only pressurizes the danger and leads to: mafias, violence, synthetics to get around legality, unsafe substances, people buying more dangerous substances or wrongly marked products such as opioids of safer types that are really fentanyl or carfentanil synthetics that are acutely more dangerous [1] and made in unsafe conditions, etc. The Controlled Substances Act and list run by the DEA is a cartel dream to create the margins they desire.
Prohibition of alcohol, a dangerous drug that is more dangerous illegal, should have taught this lesson, even back then alcohol was more dangerous to take when made in moonshine and other dangerous types as well as the mafias it created. It seems silly now to make shipping and producing alcohol legally and regulated illegal, no alcohol trafficking crimes happen today as a result of illegality.
> counties that enacted and enforced prohibition had homicide rates increase by about 30 to 60 percent relative to counties that did not enforce prohibition [2]
> When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, many bootleggers and suppliers simply moved into the legitimate liquor business. Some crime syndicates moved their efforts into expanding their protection rackets to cover legal liquor sales and other business areas. [2]
If something is dangerous, to add in more safety you need decriminalization and regulation on legal markets which handle safety much better. This adds in safe players into the game not just the underground black market criminal enterprises.
One day we maybe will learn that making non-violence a crime doesn't always make it safer, in most cases it makes it more dangerous. Though making something illegal or criminal when it is a health issue sure can increase profits on the underground at the expense of safety and harm reduction.
The hardline on opioids in the US, pressurizing doctors with liability and patients addicted that get cut off, they end up on their own and most of the overdoses today are people getting opioids they think are one thing and end up overdosing on fentanyl or carfentanil synthetics from the black market [3][4].
If people are addicted they should be able to get decriminalized opioids safely with the liability on them while they work to get off if they can, that will reduce overdose deaths by possibly half.
Hardline approaches to addiction do not work and it is not criminal, it is a health issue. However, making that illegal makes it not only a health issue, but also more dangerous due to the black market which leads to violence and deaths transforming this approach to a tragedy that we keep doubling down on.
To solve black markets you have to take the decriminalized/healthy/safety/peacekeeping/economic/market/opportunity approach over the force/illegality/hardline approach. Economic opportunities arise in legal regulated markets, safety and harm reduction increase in those markets. In some cases people don't want to turn to crime/black market but that is the better opportunity and may appear to provide more safety for their own survival.
Ultimately economic opportunities in legal/decriminalized markets win more than forceful approaches, because the latter make the criminal opportunity better. We need to take a smarter economic approach, end the war on drugs for instance and come into Mexico with a Marshall Plan like economic push that can help legal/investable markets which will provide more opportunity and everyone wins. You can't win a liberation with force, you need peacekeeping and economic opportunity.
I'm very strongly in favor of drug decriminalization, I believe it's oppressive for states to attempt to control the behavior of non-violent, well-informed, adult citizens who want to consume a substance.
However, I think the overall situation is more complicated than that, as this article details. The organized crime cartels have many streams of revenue. There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft.
When you have a corrupt and weak state, criminals will see opportunity in preying on innocent civilians and companies through threat of violence.
Edit: Changed "There's nothing here to legalize." to "There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft." to clarify my statement.
> The organized crime cartels have many streams of revenue. There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft.
True, however with less criminal opportunities due to more legal/decriminalized markets such as ending the drug wars, there are legal market opportunities to offset the draw to black market opportunities, and help stop theft and other crimes by reducing demand providing alternatives to make a safer good living.
Economic opportunities on legal markets need to be safer and comparative or better to the criminal opportunities/markets for any real change to be made.
Theft and any violent crime not related to non-violent markets like drugs that should be legal/decriminalized, those are real crimes that can be pursued as they take other's civil, human and property/ownership rights away.
Would there still be theft and other crimes? Sure but much less so if people had other routes to make money and survive.
The Russian government is a mafia, we just call them oligarchs. If one gets a little uppity he gets whacked. The leader is worth 50 billion dollars. It's the sopranos on steroids and has nuclear weapons.
Yeah but my point was that Mexican cartels are so openly brutal and that effects everything. Yeah, Russian government and mafia are one, but it's done differently.
Through out it's history Russia has been far worse without a strong Sorpano at the top. Putin may me worth 50 or 150B and he came to power by blowing a few apartment blocks, but pensions, life expectancy, standard of living have sharply risen during his reign.
Maybe if the strongest cartel leader came to power in Mexico, he'd be able to eliminate most of the crime, but USA wouldn't allow that.
Recommended movie: Elite Squad and especially the sequel Elite Squad: Enemy Within.
It's about BOPE, the special operations unit of Rio de Janeiro police. The first is about the military anti-gang exploits, the second is a good hard look at what corruption looks like. The drugs aren't going away if you break up a cartel, neither is the money.
They are really tough movies to watch, and also pack a grisly and realistic storyline. I dont know if I enjoyed them or not. One thing is for certain, I can't unsee them.
For some reason City of God to me was just some stylizing ... on top of some shocking violence that happened to involve a lot of kids. I really missed whatever was supposed to be great about that film...
It is poverty porn for middle class people. I cannot talk about the rest of the world, but one of the main reasons a large portion of Latin-American movies suck it is because of the huge disconnect between the middle-upper class people who do them and the more 'salt of the earth" common folk who are portrayed on them.
OK, we're going down that eoute3. Rhen I recommeend "Bus 174" which takes a look at the story of a bus hijackers life and how he found himself in that desperate situation. I'd say this one is more throwing nd depressing than Tropa Do Elite1/2. I got more understanding of those kids fate before I visited Rio for a month. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bus_174/
Underscoring their veracity: most of my Brazilian friends won't watch them because they are too realistic. They are incredible films, and tough to watch.
I wrote a little extra about the amazing story behind the film here:
tl;dr: the movie was leaked to the internet before widespread theatrical release to prevent police censorship and still became a financial success. It's a moment in Brazilian internet history that is important to know about.
How much cocaine can you dissolve in gasoline-based/like solvents to smuggle and then reconstitute? How much cash can you smuggle in the middle of a fuel tanker?
How easily/efficiently can oil companies launder money?
Why is no one addressing the seemingly obvious truth that the entire world is nothing but a complex corrupt criminal system of lies? Or am I just far too cynical?
The Russian mob did that with the rail distillery McCormick. They dyed the vodka blue and would ship it as window cleaner in 55 gallon drums. Then remove the dye to avoid taxes.
hey so I noticed you were getting downvoted, but in a way you are right.. I worked at a large bank in mexico and construction business is divided by different firms, some more corrupt than others, the construction isn't really controlled by cartels or mafias, but their own construction corrupt syndicates, kinda.. but definitely it is a pain to deal with them when they decide certain bribes are not enough, they often block entrances to buildings with heavy machines or interfere in other construction firms work.. But is is a seperate problem from drug cartels completely
> “This guy grabs his phone and dials up the general. For $50,000 and 50 kilos of marijuana, they let him go. He also gave up 10,000 pesos he had on his person. That’s how it works with los militares.”
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 caused many opium poppy planters to move to Mexico.
During WW1, WW2, the high demand for opioid-based analgesics like morphine resulted in increased opium planting.
Why were there opium poppy planters in the US in the first place? Opium poppy is not a plant that is not endemic to the Americas. It starts with the opium wars, where the British fought to force China into tolerating their opium trade at the cost of millions of people becoming addicted.
Every country has crime organizations than runs illegal drugs. Mexico or Colombia are special because they're right where the one most profitable drug in the world is produced.
Mexico has only recently become a major poppy growing heroin producer. Before that the cartels were largely making money by dominating the flow of cocaine produced in South America. http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/mexico-primary-source-...
A saying in Mexico is that the nation's troubles are due to being so far from God and so close to the United States.
Can we agree that "mafia" related violence levels are much, much higher in MX?
Mexican cartels have the infrastructure already in place: "Miguel, get 25 guys and hijack the fuel trucks"...or rob armored trucks. That infrastructure, including manpower, political protection etc was built and is probably maintained with drug money.
We know the answer already. The Sicilian Mafia was a landowners' association and traded in citrus fruit. Vito Corleone was a literary figure, but it's understandable why he was averse to moving into the drug trade.
I get that other countries had their time when a valuable product was around and the government was not in control of it. But I was asking about Mexico.
No one ever seriously suggested the latter. But reducing the size of black markets will reduce the revenue from them. I mean gangs are moving bootleg cigarettes around to get around taxes but it’s not major driver of violence.
It collapses the second narrative, but not the first. It could still be that drug money was the driving force behind the cartels, but after they grew to sufficient size, the cartels could sustain themselves otherwise.
The second narrative is kind of obviously too simple. Of course the cartels won't just dissolve, and maybe they will find ways to sustain themselves indefinitely. But maybe we shouldn't continue to feed them? Surely that doesn't help.
> That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear
Nothing will make violence disappear completely.
That said, legalizing drugs will most certainly reduce cartel activity.
Cartels exist because they sell a product with a huge margin that people can't really buy from anywhere else. Even when selling stolen products such as gasoline their market and margin is much smaller.
It's not smaller, it's more constrained. Gasoline prices don't shoot up when the government organizes a big crime fighting initiative. I would bet the interviewed people are not correctly accounting for their risks.
Buying illegal gasoline only makes sense for some individuals in transportation because in Mexico there is no fiscalization on a large portion of the economy (street vendors for example).
Big transportation companies couldn't do it. They need to justify expenses, get invoices, etc. A couple of years back it was easy to get fake invoices since everything was on paper, but there was a reform in 2016 and now all invoices are electronically signed by the Mexican IRS.
You can't really have a gas station and not declare who are you buying your product from, not even in Mexico. The ones that get away with it have links to organized crime, colluded with the authorities.
And the locals know because the cartels use those stations to fill their tanks for free, and they do that in convoy. At least it was like that 10 years ago, maybe the cartels are more discrete now.
Many US truck drivers are owner-operators. They pay their own taxes and only have to keep driver logs. They are audited as often as the average American. Buying stolen gasoline is a no brainer.
>They found it extremely profitable, with no need to smuggle the product across the increasingly militarized U.S. border, and with a much broader market than illegal drugs. “Everybody needs gasoline,” El Polkas says. “You’re always going to have customers. Especially when it’s cheap.”
If gasoline theft was to become prevelant in the US, surely the authorities and regulators would be in a much better position to take action than those in Mexico? (Mexico less so, largely because the cartels were borne into existence because of the prohibition of drugs)
Also, isn't being an owner-operator a good reason to play by the rules? By using stolen fuel you'd be risking a very expensive asset, and indeed your livelihood.
Legalizing marijuana (btw I’m a huge proponent) was supposed to hurt the cartels and decrease violence but has made cartels much more violent and brutal. Instead of pushing weed across the border, they’ve been heavily pushing Meth, Heroine, and Cocaine instead. Their distribution from the north east to Chicago to LA is insane, they’ve got people hooked on these terrible drugs.
Look at the stats of drug deaths from different drugs over the last 10 years and see the huge spike. I believe double for cocaine, and triple for meth and heroine in just a few years. This is worse than 80s crack epedimic in terms of death. The cartels also didn’t get weaker they became more violent and richer.
I can’t beliebe I was so naive to think about legalizing drugs when I was in college. I am 100% for marijuana, medical marijuana without a doubt should be legal in every state anyone disagreeing has basically no merit. But the rest of them, I’m okay with a mild version of the Reagan crackdowns. We’re a lot less racist and a lot more forgiving from 30 years ago, I think we need to be a lot more forgiving for personal drug use or force the courts the option to send repeat offenders to rehab or prison and 100% they’d choose rehab, prison makes absolutely no sense for heavy hard drug users. We need to be even harsher for heavy drug dealing, gang violence, drug violence, and need far more agents stopping the drug inflows from the southern border and need to beef up our coast guard.
Also need to help the economy of flyover states because a lot of the drug deaths are from there.
Then they’d push heroin, fenatyl, synthetic opiates, etc. they’d push weapons, other illegal stuff and no way should meth be legal in flyover country. Cocaine is mehh no strong feelings either way there
It seems the bigger problem is not specifically what they are trafficking, but their ability to get it north of the border. Much more stringent border controls are definitely a good idea. That would diminish the seemingly unlimited supply of cheap Mexican labor though. Tough call.
> Instead of pushing weed across the border, they’ve been heavily pushing Meth, Heroine, and Cocaine instead.
Citation needed. They've always pushed all of the above across the border, but you seem to be conflating two unrelated things: legalization in a few states with the opioid epidemic. What seems to be a far more likely driver of the opioid epidemic is the availability of cheap synthetic opiates like fentanyl that are highly concentrated, and therefore easier to smuggle.
First thing I searched up, not the article I originally read but I’ll find it. You tell me how is cocaine related to opiates? Cocaine overdose deaths doubled since 2013...that’s 5 years and it DOUBLED. Cartels are pushing all of these especially meth.
Addiction and abuse rates would skyrocket, though. With an availability similar to alcohol, that would begin a plague that would envelop the country with astonishing speed. The problem with those drugs now is already a big problem, but if you put them within reach of every single adult you could bring a country to its knees.
Yes, legalizing them would be a boon for commercial interests, but that is practically the only people who would benefit from this. Oh, and drug treatment industries! They'd become as ubiquitous as mental health businesses. Big Constipation would replace Big Tobacco.
> prevent deaths from adulterated drugs.
The influx of death and destruction introduced by that legalization would make adulterated drug deaths look quaint.
Whatever the solution to this problem is, it won't be full-scale legalization. These drugs that are almost impossible to use responsibly, and are guaranteed to be highly addictive.
> Addiction and abuse rates would skyrocket, though.
That's quite an assumption. For example, I don't have thoughts like "I wish heroin was legal, because I want to be a junkie!" Somehow, I'm not an alcoholic nor a smoker, despite them being readily available.
Well you're damn lucky then. This is a case of public policy where the typical upper middle class guy who drinks a glass of red wine every night with dinner is not helpful in understanding the problem. I've seen people's lives ruined by alcohol. It's a damn serious drug and we hardly have any discussion about how dangerous it is to a small but significant minority of people. Opiates are FAR more addictive than alcohol.
Legalize weed? Perfect. Cocaine? Probably no worse than alcohol. Opiates? Absolutely not.
Why do you discount the role of my making a choice? I see smokers coughing up their lungs, junkies who care for nothing other than their next fix, and drunks lying in their vomit. It's not hard to choose not to take that path.
There is no doubt that a fully formed criminal organization would diversify its income if the drug money suddenly vanished.
The question is how lucrative its their new initiatives, how much of structure they are able to upkeep and how much crime there consist of "inherited" structure that is not viable with their new margins.
No organizational collapse looks good, and this is one that didn't look any good even on its best times.
There's another comment of mine on the thread, but basically, I doubt the small gang their interviewed has the big picture correctly (distressed gangs are not famous for correctly assessing the big picture).
Specifically, I do think they aren't correctly measuring their risks, so the gangs will fall, one by one, while all of them think they are making a great deal.
The Los Zetas are not a small gang. Have you read the article in full? It’s really interesting with a good build up. They start with the small-timers and build up to the big league.
>That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.
I'm super skeptical of this argument. My sense is that they'd just diversify into other industries and create their own black markets - and it seems they're already doing this.
The institutions of Civil Society in Mexico and the United States are extremely different, both in terms of their scope and adherence to rule of law. Mexican Cartel activity today and organized crime of the post-prohibition era in the United States are not exactly apples to apples.
Edit: I'm probably not being clear ... I don't disagree with your point. You're correct that they diversified. I just don't think it's wise to use that as a good proxy.
You should be skeptical of that argument, which is why nobody has ever really used it. Drug cartels have long been in the business of people trafficking, kidnapping, illegal casinos and weapons trafficking. Drugs are one of their most lucrative industries, but certainly not their only income stream.
Legalizing alcohol after Prohibition greatly reduced the scope of organized crime. Drive by shootings disappeared (only to reappear following the rise of the War on Drugs).
A while back, Canada drastically raised the prices of cigarettes, and drive by shootings started up between the cigarette smugglers. It went away after quickly lowering the price again.
Drive by shootings also appeared during WW2 with gas rationing, and went away when rationing was ended.
Basically Latin America has been like the entire Middle East for the last 10 years.
For all Steven Pinker writes about the decline of violence, this cannot be in anyway true about Latin America.
The crime rate is up 10% since the early 2000’s, even after aggressive “statistical management” by the governments. After including what crimes aren’t reported, it’s probably closer to 30% or 40%.
The Navy Seals have done training exercises in the favelas of Brazil; it’s that bad.
The entire continent has been plunged into the same chaos Columbia experienced in the late 80’s (when they would bomb an entire jet airliner just to kill 1 person).
Perhaps this was inevitable. Maybe some “age of violence” just happens on the way from dictatorship to democracy. After the Soviet Union fell, it didn’t seem like that in Eastern Europe, but events in the Middle East and South America now seem to suggest otherwise.
" After the Soviet Union fell, it didn’t seem like that in Eastern Europe" it was pretty bad after USSR collapsed there were organized crime groups with membership in high thousands. Some of the richest oligarchs in Ukraine and Russia came from those groups including Rinat Akhmetov in Ukraine and a good number of people from putin's inner circle.
“Basically Latin America has been like the entire Middle East for the last 10 years.”
This is a gross generalization. There are over 600 million people in Latin America and 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Each has had different levels of development, violence and corruption, and overall are vastly improved over the past 10-20 years. Brazil, the largest country in Latam, despite its problems has still grown GDP per capita almost by 100% since 2006, and is making enormous progress in the fight against corruption with the ‘Car Wash’ investigations. Mexican GDP per capita has also been steadily improving for 20 years. Over time improvements in security will follow.
“The Navy Seals have done training exercises in the favelas of Brazil; it’s that bad.”
The US military trains law enforcement and military in many people in many countries, including countries like Australia and the UK.
"A death sentence" is exaggerating but just as in any city of 20m people in the developing world there will be some very dangerous areas.
Just because an enormous city has some dangerous areas does not mean it is not a "normal, functioning, society". It also doesn't mean it should be equated to the middle east, assumed to be the same as the other 32 countries on the continent.
It has increased in some unfortunately (Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador) it has however decreased in others. Colombia, a country you name in your example has had a 92% decline in crime since the year 2000[1].
Once I spoke to a colombian on Omegle, he suddenly left say 'WTH' and came back saying someone stabbed his car tires. No apparent reason. He said it wasn't uncommon there.
I disagree with your disagreement - if China or Russia or EU or India where at the top they'll interfere in weak countries affairs as much as USA did/does.
If a country population and elites are unable to stand strong together, external forces (e.g. CIA) will find ways to promote foreign interests.
This is xenophobic nonsense. I have travelled extensively all over Latin America (a massive and heterogeneous place by the way) for the last 20+ years and literally none of this rings true at all.
I mean are you extending this “age of violence” theory to Chicago, or Orlando nightclubs, the Las Vegas strip, or a typical American public school?
Or do you confine your contempt to brown people who speak a different language?
Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. It's possible, and much better, to correct misinformation without attacking someone for being wrong. Even if you don't owe that person better, you owe it to the community you're participating in.
Very different, the middle east violence is sectarian and religious based, latin america is a crime problem and it is hard to generalise anyway because some countries are doing well in both places and some don't.
I always wondering how the US managed to tame the Mafia in the early 20s to late 70s. Is there something the Mexican government can mimic or is there something either political or cultural that prevents this?
Certainly, that was depicted in the movie Casino for example. Not that I would take a Hollywood movie as any sort of history lesson, but it is demonstrative of that point of view. Taking it as the true explanation for the sake of argument, why does the same thing not happen in Mexico?
It was multifacted involving culture, demographic, immigration, law enforcement and external competition.
1. Banning of italian immigration in 1924 ( Immigration Act of 1924 ).
2. The integration of italians into american life.
3. Poor immigrant italian families transitioning to wealthier italian-american families generation after generation.
4. Decades long government crackdown on organized crime.
5. Competition from non-italian mafia ( russian, ukrainian, asian, cuban and of course the mexicans ).
As immigration stop and as italian american moved out of cities to suburbs and got professional jobs, the mob lost its prestige and demographic base. And as the government cracked down, the structure of the mafia was slowly dismantled along with its reputation. Finally, just like the italian mafia usurped the irish mafia, the italian mafia was being squeezed by other younger and stronger ethnic mafia groups.
Whenever you see a government that doesn't have a significant organized crime problem, it's because either (a) the government is the organized crime (Russia), or (b) the government has resources at its disposal that are an existential threat to the organized crime while overlooking moderate operations (the US).
The US government has significantly overlooked organized crime operations in general (and while some members of government may have pursued them, it was largely a sideshow by the "legal" arm and not by the "operational" arm - and had organized crime retaliated against those senators, you can bet that there would have been an "operational" response). At times, we've worked with organized crime (running cocaine with the CIA, etc, or the CIA working with Lucky Luciano in WW2).
That's the thing with organized crime - it's not all that secret. So there's typically an informal balance stuck between the government and the criminals - don't be too much of a problem to civilians, and especially not members of government, and we'll leave enforcement to local law and not bring in the big guns, and we won't work with your competition against you.
I think the big difference, as others have noted, is that in Mexico there isn't significant corporate corruption in politics. So the money lining politicians' pockets was more likely to be drug related, and cartel specific. So the cartel wars extended into government and there isn't a sufficient corporate interest in stability to have pushed back against it. And well, now it's far past the point of a balance being stuck.
It's worth noting that we've had instances of significant local corruption and infiltration of organized crime into local police/AG/government in the US (including killing of local civilians by the police - you can search for "The Boys on the Tracks" - the argument against Dan Harmon is compelling) - it's just not as widespread and it's not at a national level.
"The armed conflict between the cartels and Mexico’s military, which has dragged on for 12 years, now ranks as the deadliest war in the world apart from Syria."
Do people still voluntarily go on holiday in Mexico?
Pretty sure the vast majority of the gang/cartel related violence doesn't take place in the tourist areas, and that the few reports we hear about where a tourist has been involved in some violence are a tiny percentage of the overall problem. I've never had the feeling that tourists in the main tourist areas in Mexico were any less safe than at home.
Certainly I'd be more afraid of my safety in many parts of most major US cities.
"Canadians travel to Mexico more than any other country except the United States. But many visitors may be unaware of the growing violence in a main city that was once hailed as one of the country’s safest: Cancun. This week, five people were found dead near the public prosecutor’s office in the city on the Yucatán Peninsula, bringing the death toll by violence in the beach city to more than 100 since the beginning of the year."
Doesn't really sound like the kind of place I'll consider visiting any time soon. I like living in one of the safest places in the world, and I have no interest in going somewhere like this.
I’ve been to every country in Central America from Mexico to panama.
I was in areas that had active gang wars between rival cartels, where gangs were driving around in technicals and that had razor wire up on the walls of the hotel I stayed at.
I never once felt like I was in danger, and I was going into way risky areas — comparatively speaking the resort areas are Disney land.
There’s no money and a lot of risk in fucking around with tourists. In fact in one town i went to in Guatemala was heavily implied that the locals murdered a guy that robbed a tourist so they wouldn’t risk the tourist dollars coming into town.
I lived in Mexico City for a couple of years and visited around 20 cities. Not only did I never feel uncomfortable or scared, I discovered many beautiful places I could see myself retiring in. When your expectations are very low about a place, you are swept off your feet when you see the amazing reality.
After my travels in Mexico and Latin America, I feel like statistics without proper context and sensationalist news do a big disservice to people. It's a lot more exciting and interesting to focus on pockets of areas where gang-on-gang violence is occurring. People would rather click on article to read about drug related news rather than a piece discussing the many great festivals coming up in Mexico City and around the country.
However, the reality is that life in the majority of the country is just like anywhere you'd imagine, sometimes fun, sometimes normal, and sometimes boring. The only danger being from purposefully looking for trouble or being very unlucky by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
To put it in another way, someone can also ask why would anyone want to visit the US after all the news about gun violence? Why would anyone want to visit the US after reading about the crime in Detroit, Memphis, South Chicago, Baltimore, etc.
I've been to the US (including Detroit and Chicago) enough to know what it's really like and now understand the context better when reading news articles about crime and violence there.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] threadJust FYI, not everyone on HN is from US.
Incredibly friendly people, great food and beautiful places.
Regarding violence, I find that most drug related violence stays contained within the cartel-world. Whilst in the US, random shootings are.. random..
Not that I feel unsafe in the US either though, the odds are pretty good that nothing will happen in either country.
(Most of my time in Mexico is spent in NL, Monterrey, and most of my time in the US near San Antonio, Texas. So I can't speak for either country in it's entirety of course)
What you are saying is astonishingly untrue.
https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...
But, my previous message might have indicated an idea of random shootings everywhere every day, which is not what I meant.
As mentioned, it is not that I feel unsafe in either country and I realise most parts are safe.
Thank you for the interesting link though!
https://xkcd.com/1138/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clusivity
It'd be just about the dumbest thing a cartel ever did, to engage the US Government in such a moronic 'war.' They'd quickly abandon that idea. It's the reason they don't target prominent people in the US Government as it is now: the US can kill their leadership top to bottom, with just a bit of effort and resources pointed that direction. They know that, so they stay within certain bounds of behavior accordingly.
The war against ISIS in Syria is a good example: Americans struggled for years, and then Russians came and pretty much ended the whole thing in 3 months. How? By bombarding civilians, including the hospitals, and (allegedly) using chemical weapons.
So, US have no problem winning the fight against guerillas, other than its own restraint.
I still don't believe that brutality and disregard of civilians is the only way to efficiently win an armed conflict against insurgent groups, though.
— Hey, you! Don't kill civilians! — Okey.
— Hey, you! Don't kill civilians! — Идите на х! — Okey
There's a great line at the end of Tora! Tora! Tora! from Admiral Yamamoto that would undoubtedly apply in such a scenario, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki_Camarena
If you'd review the rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post only civilly and substantively from now on, we'd appreciate it.
Being on top of large criminal organization is intoxicating just like having power is.
To fight criminality and massive gains in black markets, the only way is to regulate and decriminalize black markets.
In the drug war for instance, compressing markets to a few players, especially in a black market where that is a natural reaction, only pressurizes the danger and leads to: mafias, violence, synthetics to get around legality, unsafe substances, people buying more dangerous substances or wrongly marked products such as opioids of safer types that are really fentanyl or carfentanil synthetics that are acutely more dangerous [1] and made in unsafe conditions, etc. The Controlled Substances Act and list run by the DEA is a cartel dream to create the margins they desire.
Prohibition of alcohol, a dangerous drug that is more dangerous illegal, should have taught this lesson, even back then alcohol was more dangerous to take when made in moonshine and other dangerous types as well as the mafias it created. It seems silly now to make shipping and producing alcohol legally and regulated illegal, no alcohol trafficking crimes happen today as a result of illegality.
> counties that enacted and enforced prohibition had homicide rates increase by about 30 to 60 percent relative to counties that did not enforce prohibition [2]
> When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, many bootleggers and suppliers simply moved into the legitimate liquor business. Some crime syndicates moved their efforts into expanding their protection rackets to cover legal liquor sales and other business areas. [2]
If something is dangerous, to add in more safety you need decriminalization and regulation on legal markets which handle safety much better. This adds in safe players into the game not just the underground black market criminal enterprises.
One day we maybe will learn that making non-violence a crime doesn't always make it safer, in most cases it makes it more dangerous. Though making something illegal or criminal when it is a health issue sure can increase profits on the underground at the expense of safety and harm reduction.
The hardline on opioids in the US, pressurizing doctors with liability and patients addicted that get cut off, they end up on their own and most of the overdoses today are people getting opioids they think are one thing and end up overdosing on fentanyl or carfentanil synthetics from the black market [3][4].
If people are addicted they should be able to get decriminalized opioids safely with the liability on them while they work to get off if they can, that will reduce overdose deaths by possibly half.
Hardline approaches to addiction do not work and it is not criminal, it is a health issue. However, making that illegal makes it not only a health issue, but also more dangerous due to the black market which leads to violence and deaths transforming this approach to a tragedy that we keep doubling down on.
To solve black markets you have to take the decriminalized/healthy/safety/peacekeeping/economic/market/opportunity approach over the force/illegality/hardline approach. Economic opportunities arise in legal regulated markets, safety and harm reduction increase in those markets. In some cases people don't want to turn to crime/black market but that is the better opportunity and may appear to provide more safety for their own survival.
Ultimately economic opportunities in legal/decriminalized markets win more than forceful approaches, because the latter make the criminal opportunity better. We need to take a smarter economic approach, end the war on drugs for instance and come into Mexico with a Marshall Plan like economic push that can help legal/investable markets which will provide more opportunity and everyone wins. You can't win a liberation with force, you need peacekeeping and economic opportunity.
[1] Kaveren ↗ I'm very strongly in favor of drug decriminalization, I believe it's oppressive for states to attempt to control the behavior of non-violent, well-informed, adult citizens who want to consume a substance. drawkbox ↗ > The organized crime cartels have many streams of revenue. There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft.
However, I think the overall situation is more complicated than that, as this article details. The organized crime cartels have many streams of revenue. There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft.
When you have a corrupt and weak state, criminals will see opportunity in preying on innocent civilians and companies through threat of violence.
Edit: Changed "There's nothing here to legalize." to "There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft." to clarify my statement.
True, however with less criminal opportunities due to more legal/decriminalized markets such as ending the drug wars, there are legal market opportunities to offset the draw to black market opportunities, and help stop theft and other crimes by reducing demand providing alternatives to make a safer good living.
Economic opportunities on legal markets need to be safer and comparative or better to the criminal opportunities/markets for any real change to be made.
Theft and any violent crime not related to non-violent markets like drugs that should be legal/decriminalized, those are real crimes that can be pursued as they take other's civil, human and property/ownership rights away.
Would there still be theft and other crimes? Sure but much less so if people had other routes to make money and survive.
Are referring to the U.S? This partially started when drugs found a market in U.S.
If you’re referring to Mexico, well we’re U.S. slave and a conservative country with a broken government. Maybe I just lost hope of my home country.
But if 12 headless people are found hanging from the town's main bridge, that's different, people will be scared.
Maybe if the strongest cartel leader came to power in Mexico, he'd be able to eliminate most of the crime, but USA wouldn't allow that.
It's about BOPE, the special operations unit of Rio de Janeiro police. The first is about the military anti-gang exploits, the second is a good hard look at what corruption looks like. The drugs aren't going away if you break up a cartel, neither is the money.
Along with Elite Squad, these movies are simply amazing.
Wagner Moura. the main character in Elite Squad, also stars as Pablo Escobar in Netflix's original series Narcos.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0609944/?ref_=tt_cl_t1
I felt City of God occasionally seemed to have some sympathy for the subjects... but other times treated them like characters and video game NPCs...
I wrote a little extra about the amazing story behind the film here:
http://webiphany.com/2010/12/14/is-brazil-finally-ready-to-f...
tl;dr: the movie was leaked to the internet before widespread theatrical release to prevent police censorship and still became a financial success. It's a moment in Brazilian internet history that is important to know about.
How easily/efficiently can oil companies launder money?
Why is no one addressing the seemingly obvious truth that the entire world is nothing but a complex corrupt criminal system of lies? Or am I just far too cynical?
It isn't.
> Or am I just far too cynical?
Yes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/19/nyregion/a-smuggling-oper...
That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico.
That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 caused many opium poppy planters to move to Mexico.
During WW1, WW2, the high demand for opioid-based analgesics like morphine resulted in increased opium planting.
Why were there opium poppy planters in the US in the first place? Opium poppy is not a plant that is not endemic to the Americas. It starts with the opium wars, where the British fought to force China into tolerating their opium trade at the cost of millions of people becoming addicted.
I wonder, however, if drugs had never become illegal would a major crime organization managed to form in the first place?
Mexican cartels have the infrastructure already in place: "Miguel, get 25 guys and hijack the fuel trucks"...or rob armored trucks. That infrastructure, including manpower, political protection etc was built and is probably maintained with drug money.
It's still a massive source of revenue and it's what made these cartels big in the first place. Otherwise, they wouldn't be called "drug cartels".
> That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.
It would drastically reduce the problem, just like ending the prohibition on alcohol drastically reduced, but didn't eliminate, Mafia activities.
The link between cartels and US demand for drugs is clear. This is just something local that is happening over and above the international trade.
The second narrative is kind of obviously too simple. Of course the cartels won't just dissolve, and maybe they will find ways to sustain themselves indefinitely. But maybe we shouldn't continue to feed them? Surely that doesn't help.
Nothing will make violence disappear completely.
That said, legalizing drugs will most certainly reduce cartel activity.
Cartels exist because they sell a product with a huge margin that people can't really buy from anywhere else. Even when selling stolen products such as gasoline their market and margin is much smaller.
>their market and margin is much smaller
you think there's a smaller market for gasoline than drugs?
Buying illegal gasoline only makes sense for some individuals in transportation because in Mexico there is no fiscalization on a large portion of the economy (street vendors for example).
Big transportation companies couldn't do it. They need to justify expenses, get invoices, etc. A couple of years back it was easy to get fake invoices since everything was on paper, but there was a reform in 2016 and now all invoices are electronically signed by the Mexican IRS.
Organized crime isn't thriving because authorities don't have intelligence, it's thriving because it has greased the surrounding gears.
In some cities, most gas stations are forced to buy from them.
> Locals know which of them and who's the owner
Why would they know?
And the locals know because the cartels use those stations to fill their tanks for free, and they do that in convoy. At least it was like that 10 years ago, maybe the cartels are more discrete now.
Also, do you think the profits are so big that gangs would fight for territory to be able to sell illegal gasoline?
I seriously doubt it.
>Also, do you think the profits are so big that gangs would fight for territory to be able to sell illegal gasoline?
the article says this very thing in fact occurs!
Also, isn't being an owner-operator a good reason to play by the rules? By using stolen fuel you'd be risking a very expensive asset, and indeed your livelihood.
For people like truckers, etc, if stolen gasoline is not immediately available, they will pump from a gas station.
You cannot get addicted to gasoline.
Look at the stats of drug deaths from different drugs over the last 10 years and see the huge spike. I believe double for cocaine, and triple for meth and heroine in just a few years. This is worse than 80s crack epedimic in terms of death. The cartels also didn’t get weaker they became more violent and richer.
I can’t beliebe I was so naive to think about legalizing drugs when I was in college. I am 100% for marijuana, medical marijuana without a doubt should be legal in every state anyone disagreeing has basically no merit. But the rest of them, I’m okay with a mild version of the Reagan crackdowns. We’re a lot less racist and a lot more forgiving from 30 years ago, I think we need to be a lot more forgiving for personal drug use or force the courts the option to send repeat offenders to rehab or prison and 100% they’d choose rehab, prison makes absolutely no sense for heavy hard drug users. We need to be even harsher for heavy drug dealing, gang violence, drug violence, and need far more agents stopping the drug inflows from the southern border and need to beef up our coast guard.
Also need to help the economy of flyover states because a lot of the drug deaths are from there.
Citation needed. They've always pushed all of the above across the border, but you seem to be conflating two unrelated things: legalization in a few states with the opioid epidemic. What seems to be a far more likely driver of the opioid epidemic is the availability of cheap synthetic opiates like fentanyl that are highly concentrated, and therefore easier to smuggle.
First thing I searched up, not the article I originally read but I’ll find it. You tell me how is cocaine related to opiates? Cocaine overdose deaths doubled since 2013...that’s 5 years and it DOUBLED. Cartels are pushing all of these especially meth.
Actually ignore the first link, check out the .gov link here on overdose deaths: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...
Both links have good visuals. Meth quadrupled in 5 years, FIVE times as many deaths from 1 drug, heroin increased even by a larger magnitude.
Clearly there is a big market for these drugs, so that commerce might as well be part of the local economy instead of the international black market
Addiction and abuse rates would skyrocket, though. With an availability similar to alcohol, that would begin a plague that would envelop the country with astonishing speed. The problem with those drugs now is already a big problem, but if you put them within reach of every single adult you could bring a country to its knees.
Yes, legalizing them would be a boon for commercial interests, but that is practically the only people who would benefit from this. Oh, and drug treatment industries! They'd become as ubiquitous as mental health businesses. Big Constipation would replace Big Tobacco.
> prevent deaths from adulterated drugs.
The influx of death and destruction introduced by that legalization would make adulterated drug deaths look quaint.
Whatever the solution to this problem is, it won't be full-scale legalization. These drugs that are almost impossible to use responsibly, and are guaranteed to be highly addictive.
That's quite an assumption. For example, I don't have thoughts like "I wish heroin was legal, because I want to be a junkie!" Somehow, I'm not an alcoholic nor a smoker, despite them being readily available.
I do love my coffee, however :-)
Legalize weed? Perfect. Cocaine? Probably no worse than alcohol. Opiates? Absolutely not.
Why do you discount the role of my making a choice? I see smokers coughing up their lungs, junkies who care for nothing other than their next fix, and drunks lying in their vomit. It's not hard to choose not to take that path.
The question is how lucrative its their new initiatives, how much of structure they are able to upkeep and how much crime there consist of "inherited" structure that is not viable with their new margins.
No organizational collapse looks good, and this is one that didn't look any good even on its best times.
Specifically, I do think they aren't correctly measuring their risks, so the gangs will fall, one by one, while all of them think they are making a great deal.
It would be interesting to see how their revenue progresses with time.
I'm super skeptical of this argument. My sense is that they'd just diversify into other industries and create their own black markets - and it seems they're already doing this.
Edit: I'm probably not being clear ... I don't disagree with your point. You're correct that they diversified. I just don't think it's wise to use that as a good proxy.
Indeed, though it's often paradoxically employed by some libertarians who advocate for full decriminalization.
A while back, Canada drastically raised the prices of cigarettes, and drive by shootings started up between the cigarette smugglers. It went away after quickly lowering the price again.
Drive by shootings also appeared during WW2 with gas rationing, and went away when rationing was ended.
Drugs are much different from gasoline. Gasoline is available everywhere and legal.
The cartels moving to gasoline is like the mafia moving from liquor during prohibition to other trades like racketeering, extortion, etc.
It perhaps signals that drugs are not so lucrative anymore.
For all Steven Pinker writes about the decline of violence, this cannot be in anyway true about Latin America.
The crime rate is up 10% since the early 2000’s, even after aggressive “statistical management” by the governments. After including what crimes aren’t reported, it’s probably closer to 30% or 40%.
The Navy Seals have done training exercises in the favelas of Brazil; it’s that bad.
The entire continent has been plunged into the same chaos Columbia experienced in the late 80’s (when they would bomb an entire jet airliner just to kill 1 person).
Perhaps this was inevitable. Maybe some “age of violence” just happens on the way from dictatorship to democracy. After the Soviet Union fell, it didn’t seem like that in Eastern Europe, but events in the Middle East and South America now seem to suggest otherwise.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
“The Navy Seals have done training exercises in the favelas of Brazil; it’s that bad.” The US military trains law enforcement and military in many people in many countries, including countries like Australia and the UK.
Are they wrong? That's not a normal, functioning, society, regardless of GDP.
Just because an enormous city has some dangerous areas does not mean it is not a "normal, functioning, society". It also doesn't mean it should be equated to the middle east, assumed to be the same as the other 32 countries on the continent.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Colombia#cite_note-au...
Have a look at this list (especially during/after the 50s) [1] and tell me what most countries have in common.
> Perhaps this was inevitable.
I very much disagree.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
If a country population and elites are unable to stand strong together, external forces (e.g. CIA) will find ways to promote foreign interests.
I mean are you extending this “age of violence” theory to Chicago, or Orlando nightclubs, the Las Vegas strip, or a typical American public school?
Or do you confine your contempt to brown people who speak a different language?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
1. Banning of italian immigration in 1924 ( Immigration Act of 1924 ).
2. The integration of italians into american life.
3. Poor immigrant italian families transitioning to wealthier italian-american families generation after generation.
4. Decades long government crackdown on organized crime.
5. Competition from non-italian mafia ( russian, ukrainian, asian, cuban and of course the mexicans ).
As immigration stop and as italian american moved out of cities to suburbs and got professional jobs, the mob lost its prestige and demographic base. And as the government cracked down, the structure of the mafia was slowly dismantled along with its reputation. Finally, just like the italian mafia usurped the irish mafia, the italian mafia was being squeezed by other younger and stronger ethnic mafia groups.
The US government has significantly overlooked organized crime operations in general (and while some members of government may have pursued them, it was largely a sideshow by the "legal" arm and not by the "operational" arm - and had organized crime retaliated against those senators, you can bet that there would have been an "operational" response). At times, we've worked with organized crime (running cocaine with the CIA, etc, or the CIA working with Lucky Luciano in WW2).
That's the thing with organized crime - it's not all that secret. So there's typically an informal balance stuck between the government and the criminals - don't be too much of a problem to civilians, and especially not members of government, and we'll leave enforcement to local law and not bring in the big guns, and we won't work with your competition against you.
I think the big difference, as others have noted, is that in Mexico there isn't significant corporate corruption in politics. So the money lining politicians' pockets was more likely to be drug related, and cartel specific. So the cartel wars extended into government and there isn't a sufficient corporate interest in stability to have pushed back against it. And well, now it's far past the point of a balance being stuck.
It's worth noting that we've had instances of significant local corruption and infiltration of organized crime into local police/AG/government in the US (including killing of local civilians by the police - you can search for "The Boys on the Tracks" - the argument against Dan Harmon is compelling) - it's just not as widespread and it's not at a national level.
Do people still voluntarily go on holiday in Mexico?
Certainly I'd be more afraid of my safety in many parts of most major US cities.
"Crime and violence are serious problems in Mexico and the security situation can pose a risk for foreigners"
"There have been a number of violent car-jackings and robberies along the Pacific Highway and you should be careful when travelling on this route. "
https://globalnews.ca/news/4171527/cancun-mexico-violence-tr...
"Canadians travel to Mexico more than any other country except the United States. But many visitors may be unaware of the growing violence in a main city that was once hailed as one of the country’s safest: Cancun. This week, five people were found dead near the public prosecutor’s office in the city on the Yucatán Peninsula, bringing the death toll by violence in the beach city to more than 100 since the beginning of the year."
Doesn't really sound like the kind of place I'll consider visiting any time soon. I like living in one of the safest places in the world, and I have no interest in going somewhere like this.
Just a quick google search..
I was in areas that had active gang wars between rival cartels, where gangs were driving around in technicals and that had razor wire up on the walls of the hotel I stayed at.
I never once felt like I was in danger, and I was going into way risky areas — comparatively speaking the resort areas are Disney land.
There’s no money and a lot of risk in fucking around with tourists. In fact in one town i went to in Guatemala was heavily implied that the locals murdered a guy that robbed a tourist so they wouldn’t risk the tourist dollars coming into town.
After my travels in Mexico and Latin America, I feel like statistics without proper context and sensationalist news do a big disservice to people. It's a lot more exciting and interesting to focus on pockets of areas where gang-on-gang violence is occurring. People would rather click on article to read about drug related news rather than a piece discussing the many great festivals coming up in Mexico City and around the country.
However, the reality is that life in the majority of the country is just like anywhere you'd imagine, sometimes fun, sometimes normal, and sometimes boring. The only danger being from purposefully looking for trouble or being very unlucky by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
To put it in another way, someone can also ask why would anyone want to visit the US after all the news about gun violence? Why would anyone want to visit the US after reading about the crime in Detroit, Memphis, South Chicago, Baltimore, etc.
I've been to the US (including Detroit and Chicago) enough to know what it's really like and now understand the context better when reading news articles about crime and violence there.