海角大神

The murder rate in Mexico grew this year for the first time since President Enrique Pe帽a Nieto took office in 2012, a stinging statistic for an administration that鈥檚 boasted about the success of its security policies in combating homicides.

Despite high profile cases like the disappearance of 43 teacher鈥檚 college students last year, which implicated elected officials, public security forces, and organized crime, murder rates had been administration's war on drug cartels.

But since January, homicides , reports The Wall Street Journal. And in Mexico City alone, the increase was 21 percent, climbing to 566 murders, on track for a rate of roughly . That poses a major challenge to the embattled Mexican president, the Journal reports:

... [Pe帽a Nieto's] administration had trumpeted the decline in murders over the past two years as proof that the government鈥檚 security initiatives, such as improved coordination between crime-fighting agencies like the army and federal police, were working.

But the rising rate can be seen as evidence the government had little to do with the decrease in homicides during the past two years.

鈥淥ur authorities keep improvising. Pe帽a Nieto promised to reduce homicides but he has never said exactly how,鈥� said聽Ernesto L贸pez Portillo,聽the head of security think tank Insyde. ...

Experts say the rising murder rate is the result of an increase in common crime as well as murders linked to the country鈥檚 drug war.聽Ra煤l Toledo,聽a security consultant and former city official, said the rise in Mexico City鈥檚 crime rate coincides with estimates by local authorities of a 17% increase in drug consumption in the capital over the past three years.

August marked the fourth consecutive month that homicides grew here, the kind of , writes security analyst Alejandro Hope in his daily newsletter Silver or Lead.

For Mr. Hope, this increase may have less to do with how the streets are patrolled, and more to do with Mexico鈥檚 struggling justice system.

[H]omicides are rarely investigated and punished in Mexico. 鈥淕etting away with murder鈥� is a meaningless phrase in this country. Most everyone that tries it literally gets away with murder. Between 2000 and 2013,聽聽were killed intentionally in Mexico. But as of 2013, only聽聽were in prison for murder and manslaughter. And no, not all are serial murderers.

There is very little effort to find, capture, and prosecute murderers because homicide victims tend [to] belong to politically marginalized groups. They are mostly young, poor, and uneducated, living in fringe urban areas鈥�. Murder will become rare when it becomes expensive, i.e., when most murder cases are solved. But that will not happen unless structural political imbalances are corrected. Thus, we are in for the long haul.聽

Just over half of the Mexican population says the country isn鈥檛 safe, according to the most recent AmericasBarometer report, published in 2014. That has an impact on trust in the overall governing system, Elizabeth Zechmeister, director of LAPOP at Vanderbilt University, told 海角大神 late last year.

Across Latin America, citizens' fears about insecurity have risen over the past decade, according to聽聽Latin American Public Opinion Project鈥檚 (LAPOP) AmericasBarometer. Approval for local police performance has fallen, and the average level of trust for national justice systems has hit its lowest level since the survey began in 2004.

鈥淲hen there鈥檚 less trust in a justice system, it tends to decrease support for the [government] system as a whole,鈥� says [Ms.] Zechmeister鈥�. 鈥淭he exact consequences will vary across countries, but 鈥� it鈥檚 symptomatic of a system failing to deliver,鈥� she says, adding that citizens may decide to circumvent institutions like the police or courts, as seen in Mexico聽with the rise of vigilante self-defensegroups.

President Pe帽a Nieto鈥檚 approval ratings reflect this dissatisfaction. His approval has fallen dramatically, from 55 percent in August 2014 to 35 percent a year later, according to a Buendia&Laredo poll published earlier this month. And according to a recent Pew Research Center survey, approval is also low on "hot-button issues like the government's management of security (35 percent), the economy (34 percent), and聽education reform聽(43 percent)," 海角大神 reports.

In his state of the nation address earlier this month, Pe帽a Nieto recognized that violence, corruption, and Mexico鈥檚 economy were creating an , reports The Associated Press. He pledged that he would spend the last half of his administration combating corruption and crime.

"The last year has been a difficult one for Mexico," the president said in his speech. "Our country has been deeply wounded by a series of regrettable cases."