Center for American Progress

Firearms and Injuries during Home Robberies in Mexico, 2010–2017
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Firearms and Injuries during Home Robberies in Mexico, 2010–2017

Author Eugenio Weigend Vargas analyzes data on reported injuries from home robberies in Mexico and argues that policies to address organized crime and halt easy access to guns should be prioritized in the country's national security agenda.

According to data from Mexico’s National Crime Victimization and Public Security Surveys (ENVIPE), from 2010 through 2017, home robberies involving an interaction between a victim and an aggressor occurred every two minutes and resulted in more than 257,000 injuries. The objective of this study is to explore whether victims of home robberies in Mexico are more likely to report an injury if perpetrators are armed with a gun. This analysis compiles data from ENVIPE and runs a binary logistic regression. In contrast to literature on robberies in the United States and studies on street robberies in Mexico, results show that when perpetrators are armed with guns, victims of home robberies in Mexico are more likely to report an injury, even though these injuries are rarely caused by a gunshot. These discrepancies may be explained by different factors.

The above excerpt was originally published in Trends in Organized Crime. Click here to view the full article.

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Authors

Eugenio Weigend Vargas

Former Director

Silvia Villarreal González