Why Global North criminology fails to explain organized crime in Mexico
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13624806221104562 |
| Published date | 01 November 2022 |
| Date | 01 November 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Why Global North criminology
fails to explain organized crime
in Mexico
Valentin Pereda
Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
Abstract
The prevailing definitions of organized crime and methodological approaches to studying
it derive mainly from the Global North. However, an emergent body of literature sug-
gests that organized crime in the Global South differs from organized crime in the
Global North. Focusing on the case of Mexico, I argue that mainstream criminological
theories’inability to explain significant aspects of organized crime in that country
stems from their underspecified scope. Mainstream theories analyse organized crime
as a phenomenon that transpires in societies characterized by high levels of internal
peace, rule of law and strong public institutions. In Mexico, a country that fails to adhere
to these conditions, organized crime manifestations defy prevailing theoretical
assumptions.
Keywords
Global South, Mexico, organized crime, southern criminology, violence
Assessing the limits of mainstream organized crime theories
In 2018, while collecting data on organized crime violence in Mexico, I met Hector, a
former officer in Mexico’s now defunct Federal Police.
1
During our first exchange, he
recalled that, early in his career, his superiors had assigned him to a special task force
that was established to disrupt criminal organizations in certain communities. In
Hector’s estimation, the advantage of this unit was that it did not need to comply with
Corresponding author:
Valentin Pereda, Ecole de Criminologie, Université de Montréal, 3150, rue Jean-Brillant, H3T 1N8, Montréal,
Québec, Canada.
Email: valentin.pereda@umontreal.ca
Article
Theoretical Criminology
2022, Vol. 26(4) 620–640
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13624806221104562
journals.sagepub.com/home/tcr
la burocracia (the red tape). ‘We kicked down doors, arrested people, and seized guns,
drugs, money. If we got a lead, we acted on it. We had support from judges who issued
the required search warrants after the arrests’(Int-3). Eventually, Hector’s operations
rattled the ‘wrong’people. In an ensuing conversation, he recounted the calamitous
end of his law-enforcement career (Int-3):
2
I was leaving the office, when a man claiming to represent a local criminal organization offered
me a suitcase filled with dollars. He specified that, unless I wanted to die, I had no choice but to
accept it. So, I did what I viewed as the best solution. I took the bag, distributed the cash amongst
my teammates, and told them nothing would change. We would not collaborate with thugs.
A few weeks later, my partner and I arrested the son of the local crime boss. Immediately after
the arrest, our supervisor told us that our detainee’s mother (the crime boss) wanted to meet with
us to negotiate her son’s release. He instructed us to go to the meeting place and arrest her. When
we arrived, a group of armed men surrounded us, released our prisoner, and nos levantaron (kid-
napped us).
For three days, they kept us hostage, naked and blindfolded in a room where they tortured us. I
thought they were going to kill us. However, on the third day, they informed us that we were
under arrest, charged with leading a gang of kidnappers. I then realized that those who had cap-
tured us were police officers on the criminal organization’s payroll. My boss had set my partner
and me up after I refused to cooperate with it.
Hector’s story is emblematic of how mainstream theories and research methods in crim-
inology appear to be ill-equipped for interpreting the data I collected in Mexico.
Prevailing theories of organized crime commonly depict law-enforcement institutions
as entities that are, generally speaking, separated from and antagonistic towards criminal
organizations (Abadinsky, 2012; Reuter, 1983; Von Lampe, 2015). Of course, research-
ers do recognize the existence of some degree of unlawful overlap between criminal orga-
nizations and police institutions in most societies (Lupsha, 1996). However,
criminologists assume, as a rule, that law-enforcement agencies operate against criminal
organizations (Paoli, 2002; Varese, 2010; Von Lampe, 2015). One methodological impli-
cation of this doxa is that law-enforcement narratives on organized crime are inherently
biased, by virtue of the fact that police officers perceive criminal organizations solely
from the ‘outside’and because their antagonism towards them colours their opinions
(Kenney, 2007).
However, the data I collected suggest that Mexico’s criminal organizations and police
agencies are so intertwined that it is impossible to distinguish them from each other.
Unfortunately, mainstream criminological models provide scant indication of how to
interpret information collected from such complex settings. In a country where police col-
lusion with criminal organizations is the rule, should researchers construe police officers’
narratives as those of biased ‘outsiders’?
As my research progressed, I discerned other aspects of organized crime in Mexico
that eluded criminological paradigms. For instance, some criminal organizations in
Mexico have evolved into large, enduring entities with both formal hierarchies and a
well-defined division of labour. While prominent scholars have long recognized both
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