Missing persons patterns from Mexico: evidence of a forensic emergency crisis

Abstract

The relatives of missing persons in Mexico have denounced the slowness with which a court prosecution file is created by the justice administration system. Theoretically, the search is immediate, but many cases must wait 72 h to build an investigation folder as a legal criterion. This standard has been copied from the UK and Australian police reports without adapting to the Mexican context. The analysis of disappearance reports between 2006 and 2018 shows that this timing criterion in Mexico is not supported. The analyzed database (the National Center for Planning, Analysis, and Information to Combat Crime, CENAPI) showed that in the 72-h range, only 34.53% of the people had been found alive or dead; figure far from 50% to 80% of Europe or Australia. This fact shows that those searching officers or the judicial bureaucracy can act as a factor that limits the search for missing persons. Additionally, there is a random pattern in the geospatial distribution of disappearance, with non-homogeneous frequencies per year. Results highlight the participation of families, the adoption of an evidence-based model, and the generation of geospatial forensic intelligence analysis to generate evidence-based public policies. The social demand of families to the government for not considering them takes relevance in forensic practice in Mexico, and the disappearance data support this assertion.