I love that graphic. Reminds me of the old axiom: "lies, damned lies, and statistics". Yes, the murder rate for Mexico overall and Mexico City are lower than some cities in the US, but this graphic is massively misleading. It is meant to make the point that you should not paint the entire country with a single brush. But, it does so by painting the US with a single brush. They compared the national and one city's homicide rate to that of the cities in the US with the highest homicide rates. It's also not accurate in some places.

If we want to be fair, let's compare apples to apples here. The 2011 homicide rate for Mexico was 20 per 100,000, which is over 4 times the US rate of 4.7 per 100,000. While, some cities in the US have murder rates pretty high, in a list of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world, 5 of the top 10 are in Mexico. Yes, New Orleans has been pretty bad at 57.88 (2011, worst in US), how about Acapulco at 127.92 or Juarez at 147.77.

Worst of all, this comparison focuses on murder rates. Now, I'm certainly not wanting to get murdered, but I figure the chance I will get caught in the drug crossfire in Cancun or Zipolite is minuscule (but there is no way I'm going to Acapulco). What I worry about more is theft, since that's much more likely, and was the catalyst for this conversation. We just went to Paris and you have to watch constantly for pickpockets and other pretty crime. The tiny murder rate in France certainly does not reflect how much of a problem that is. I could not find statistics on petty crime by cities, but I'm sure even Cancun dwarfs the stats in most US cities. I'm not going anywhere in Mexico that does not have a safe in the room.