Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro’s slick publicity machine has worked hard to try and persuade citizens that his administration’s law enforcement and public security strategies have been a success.
However, a cloud obscuring the positive statistics showing declines in robberies, assaults and homicides is the increasing number of missing persons in the state.
In its latest update, the state government’s own Missing Persons Information System (Sisovid) shows that 1,903 people (1,680 men and 223 women) were reported missing and not located between January and November of this year, compared to 1,790 in 2022. The total number of people currently listed as missing in Jalisco according to Sisovid, stands at 14,415, of which 60 percent (8,638) have been reported during the five years of the Alfaro administration.
This means an average of 5.7 people per day are reported missing in Jalisco. Sadly, few are located: Of the 2,341 persons who disappeared in 2022, only 577 were found.
Prosecutions are almost non-existent. Since 2019 Jalisco has registered more missing persons than any other Mexican state but, to date, judges have handed down a mere five sentences in cases involving disappearances, notes the Centro de Justicia para la Paz y el Desarrollo (CEPAD), a Guadalajara-based NGO whose stated aim is to provide “access to truth, justice and accompaniment to victims of torture and disappearance in Jalisco.”
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