Does Violence Begets Violence? Evidence from Mexico

One familiar argument to explain violence rates is the common sense affirmation that violence begets violence. Imported from the biological sciences, this organic metaphor is well rooted in the discursive explanation of crime. However, the empiric evidence around this supposition is quite scarce. A typical combination of the “violence begets violence” argument with the lack of proper empirical evidence is easy to find in countries dealing with recent outbursts of criminal violence. This is the case of Mexico where the recent trend of criminal violence has been explained with a wide array of arguments including the spread-contagion argument. This one in particular has gained presence among the media and policy makers. Moreover, this assumption is being increasingly used to justify the design of prevention programs where significant amounts of public resources are being invested. In view of this, this paper presents the results of a study on the empirical validity of the hypotheses behind the “violence begets violence” assumption. For my research purposes I have selected a set of relevant hypotheses on the contagion of violence to verify its empirical validity for the case of México. With a combination of different quantitative techniques I have analyzed homicide rates at the local level for the city of México from 1990 to 2010. The results of this work will throw light on the empirical pertinence of the contagion of violence hypotheses, and it will help to inform public debate and public policy about the characteristics of criminal violence in México.