Criminal Conflicts and the Killing of Law Enforcement Officers in Mexico

Violence against law enforcement by criminal organizations is pervasive in Latin America yet largely unexplored. What explains why and where law enforcement is violently attacked, who is targeted, and how they are killed? This article contends that conflicts between criminal organizations incentivize warring organizations to attack law enforcement, particularly local officers, with more brazen violence. Two original datasets on killings of law enforcement in Mexico show that killings are overwhelmingly of local officers and most frequently perpetrated through coordinated attacks, not confrontations, executions, or kidnappings. Using data on cartels, I first document a strong association between criminal conflicts and the killing of law enforcement officers, and find that the association is driven by killings of state and municipal officers rather than federal officers enforcing the government crackdown. I further show that criminal conflicts increase brazen killings and killings of officers while off duty.