Criminal Conflicts and the Killing of Law Enforcement Officers in Mexico

Bibliographic Data

ID10071463
AuthorsMarco Alcocer (0000-0003-1632-9284, University of California, Merced and The Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume70
Issue5
Pages870-895
Publication date2025-08-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Conflict Resolution (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0027 • E-ISSN: 1552-8766
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00220027251370091
OpenAlexW4413356994
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited36

Violence against law enforcement by criminal organizations is pervasive in Latin America yet largely unexplored. What explains why and where law enforcement is violently attacked, who is targeted, and how they are killed? This article contends that conflicts between criminal organizations incentivize warring organizations to attack law enforcement, particularly local officers, with more brazen violence. Two original datasets on killings of law enforcement in Mexico show that killings are overwhelmingly of local officers and most frequently perpetrated through coordinated attacks, not confrontations, executions, or kidnappings. Using data on cartels, I first document a strong association between criminal conflicts and the killing of law enforcement officers, and find that the association is driven by killings of state and municipal officers rather than federal officers enforcing the government crackdown. I further show that criminal conflicts increase brazen killings and killings of officers while off duty

Criminal law · Criminology · Enforcement · Law enforcement · Political science · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Law · Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses