Prieto-Curiel Rafael, Campedelli Gian Maria, Hope Alejandro
Complexity Science Hub, Vienna, Austria.
Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
Science. 2023 Sep 22;381(6664):1312-1316. doi: 10.1126/science.adh2888. Epub 2023 Sep 21.
Mexican cartels lose many members as a result of conflict with other cartels and incarcerations. Yet, despite their losses, cartels manage to increase violence for years. We address this puzzle by leveraging data on homicides, missing persons, and incarcerations in Mexico for the past decade along with information on cartel interactions. We model recruitment, state incapacitation, conflict, and saturation as sources of cartel size variation. Results show that by 2022, cartels counted 160,000 to 185,000 units, becoming one of the country's top employers. Recruiting between 350 and 370 people per week is essential to avoid their collapse because of aggregate losses. Furthermore, we show that increasing incapacitation would increase both homicides and cartel members. Conversely, reducing recruitment could substantially curtail violence and lower cartel size.
由于与其他贩毒集团发生冲突以及成员被监禁，墨西哥贩毒集团损失了许多成员。然而，尽管有这些损失，贩毒集团多年来仍设法加剧暴力活动。我们利用过去十年墨西哥的凶杀案、失踪人员和监禁数据以及贩毒集团互动信息来解决这一难题。我们将招募、国家执法不力、冲突和饱和状态作为贩毒集团规模变化的来源进行建模。结果显示，到2022年，贩毒集团有16万至18.5万名成员，成为该国最大的雇主之一。每周招募350至370人对于避免因总体损失而崩溃至关重要。此外，我们表明，执法不力情况加剧会导致凶杀案增加和贩毒集团成员增多。相反，减少招募人数可大幅减少暴力活动并缩小贩毒集团规模。
