CRIME, FEAR, AND MENTAL HEALTH IN MEXICO

• Author: ANDRÉS VILLARREAL,WEI‐HSIN YU
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12150
• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Date: 01 November 2017

CRIME, FEAR, AND MENTAL HEALTH IN MEXICO∗

ANDR ´

ES VILLARREAL and WEI-HSIN YU

University of Maryland—College Park

KEYWORDS: fear of crime, mental health, social disorder, organized crime, Mexico

This article examines the effect of exposure to criminal violence on fear of crime

and mental health in Mexico, a country that has experienced a dramatic rise in violent

events resulting from the operation of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). Data

are drawn from more than 30,000 respondents to a national longitudinal survey of

Mexican households. We use fixed-effects models which allow us to control for time-

invariant individual and municipal characteristics affecting both exposure to violence

and mental health. The results indicate a substantial increase in fear and psychological

distress for individuals living in communities that suffered a rise in the local homicide

rate even when exposure to other forms of victimization and more personal experi-

ences with crime are taken into account. Because DTO killings occur in response to

factors external to a specific neighborhood, they generate fear and psychological dis-

tress at a larger geographical scale. They also seem to create a generalized sense of

insecurity, leading to increased fear of other types of crimes. We examine the effect of

large surges in homicide and the presence of military and paramilitary groups com-

batting DTOs as these conditions may approximate those in conflict zones elsewhere

in the world. We also explore differences in the relative sensitivity to homicide rates

between sociodemographic groups.

Social scientists have long been interested in the negative health consequences of liv-

ing in high-crime areas (Chandola, 2001; Ross, 1993; Ross, Mirowsky, and Pribesh, 2001;

Torche and Villarreal, 2014; Turner et al., 2013; Whitley and Prince, 2005). Yet most of

the research on the effect of exposure to crime on mental health has been conducted in

the context of ordinary crime in U.S. urban centers. In this article, we examine the mental

health consequences of exposure to high rates of violence by organized groups. We draw

on data from Mexico, a country that has experienced a dramatic rise in violent incidents

resulting from the operation of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs; Heinle, Ferreira,

and Shirk, 2014). In all, as many as 80,000 people are estimated to have died from DTO-

related violence since 2006 (Heinle, Ferreira, and Shirk, 2016; Molloy, 2013). This number

of casualties is comparable to those from armed conflicts elsewhere in the world (Geneva

Declaration, 2008; Mack, 2014).

A key distinguishing feature of criminal violence by organized groups such as Mexi-

can DTOs compared with ordinary crime is that it is less tied to the social conditions in

∗Additional supporting information can be found in the listing for this article in the Wiley Online

Library at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/crim.2017.55.issue-4/issuetoc.

Direct correspondence to Andr´

es Villarreal, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland–

College Park, 3131 Art-Sociology Building, 834 Campus Dr., College Park, MD 20742

(e-mail: avilla4@umd.edu).

C2017 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12150

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 55 Number 4 779–805 2017 779

780 VILLARREAL & YU

the immediate surroundings. Killings by DTOs are more likely to occur in response to

factors external to a specific neighborhood, such as conflicts over shipping routes for il-

licit drugs and military campaigns waged by the government against these organizations

(Molzahn, Rodr´

ıguez Ferreira, and Shirk, 2013; Shirk and Wallman, 2015). Thus, the cus-

tomary approach in studies aimed at examining the impact of crime in U.S. urban areas

of using signs of neighborhood disorder, such as abandoned buildings, vandalism, and

the public consumption of alcohol and drugs, as proxies for the level of threat felt by local

residents is not appropriate (e.g., Aneshensel and Sucoff, 1996; Christie-Mizell, Steelman,

and Stewart, 2003; Hill, Ross, and Angel, 2005; Latkin and Curry, 2003; Robinson et al.,

2003; Ross and Mirowsky, 2009). When assessing the threat of DTO violence, individu-

als are more likely to take their cue from reports of incidents occurring throughout their

city, state, or region rather than from events taking place in their specific neighborhood.

It therefore becomes important to consider the effect of violence measured at broader

levels of aggregation. We explore the geographical scale at which homicidal violence in

Mexico affects mental health. We test the effect of higher municipal and state homicide

rates, while controlling for perceived neighborhood disorder, and more immediate vic-

timization experiences at the individual and household levels.

The wave of violence from organized groups in Mexico also differs from the violence

experienced in U.S. urban areas in its intensity and brutality. DTO attacks include be-

headings, mutilations, and executions with high-caliber weapons (Molzahn, R´

ıos, and

Shirk, 2012). They also frequently involve coordinated operations in which paramilitary

techniques are used (Cambell, 2010; Kerr, 2012). These features of DTO violence and the

Mexican government’s response to it, which has included the occupation of entire cities

and towns by military forces, make the experience in the hardest-hit areas more compa-

rable to that of conflict zones elsewhere in the world than to that of inner-city neighbor-

hoods in the United States. The findings reported in public health studies have demon-

strated the detrimental effects that living in regions with military conflicts and civil wars

have on individuals’ psychological well-being (e.g., Barenbaum, Ruchkin, and Schwab-

Stone, 2004; de Jong, 2002; de Jong, Komproe, and Van Ommeren, 2003; Mart´

ın-Bar ´

o,

1989; Miller and Rasmussen, 2010; Mollica et al., 2004). In our analysis, we capture the

extreme conditions that may resemble those in war-torn countries by examining Mexican

municipalities that experienced large surges in homicides in recent years. We also test the

effect that the presence of military and paramilitary defense groups in a community have

on psychological distress.

In addition to examining the effect of DTO violence on mental health as measured

by a general index of psychological distress, we also consider its impact on a more spe-

cific psycho-emotional response to crime, namely, fear of personal victimization. A well-

established body of criminological research has been focused on the conditions that lead

individuals to be more fearful of crime, as well as on the consequences such fear may

have on personal behavior (e.g., Covington and Taylor, 1991; Ferraro, 1995; Jackson,

2009, 2011; LaGrange and Ferraro, 1989; Perkins and Taylor, 1996; Taylor, 2001;

Taylor and Hale, 1986; Warr, 2000; Warr and Stafford, 1983). Despite some similari-

ties, fear of crime is distinguishable from psychological distress by the narrower range

of affective states it encompasses. Like psychological distress, fear of victimization may

involve feelings of anxiety but does not include other emotional states like anger or de-

pression, which are encompassed within the more general concept of distress (Ross and

Mirowsky, 2001, 2009). Fear of victimization also differs from psychological distress in the