Current projects

• Neither NEET nor Unemployed: Mexican Youth Homicide Inmates in Organised Crime

Documento de trabajo no. 22. Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias.

Since 2007, academia, media and politicians in Mexico have discussed the causes and precursors of the Mexican Drug War. One of the contentious points is the profile of those participating in the violent conflict. Many from diverse positions have pointed out that the Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) youth population is the leading participant. These assertions have cultivated policy design for the federal government with a new first-job trainee program. I dispute this characterisation with data from vital statistics and the recent official inmate survey. Rather than a set fixed profile, I propose an adaptable life-course development description using the inmate survey data with a logit analysis of the probability of being sentenced for homicide in Mexico since 2006, the year of the war onset. By theoretically criticising NEET, I propose studying youth transitions to adulthood and socioeconomic marginalisation instead. The primary purpose of these criticisms is to inform and improve development policies focused on youth crime prevention and reduce violence in Mexico and other countries in Latin America facing increasing violent youth crime.

• Relaciones intergubernamentales entre Escuelas Normales y autoridades educativas: el estudio de caso de la Escuela Normal de Ecatepec, Estado de México (in Spanish)

Sugiero que las Normales en México tienen impedimentos de capacidades humanas e institucionales para atender demandas de cambio curricular, con la mayor eficacia posible, debido a problemas de cargas administrativas, clima organizacional, coordinación intergubernamental y de múltiples principales. Sostengo esto a partir de los resultados de una observación participante que hice en la Escuela Normal de Ecatepec, Estado de México.

• Inequalities and probabilities of ending in prison: findings from the National Survey of Prison Inmates (ENPOL) 2021 (with Luis Ángel Monroy Gómez Franco).

By using logistic regressions on the recently released data from ENPOL 2021, the second wave of the National Survey of Inmate Population in Mexico, we aim to study which are the socioeconomic factors behind the probability of being imprisoned in Mexico.

• Alternative measures of inequality and their relationship with violence in Mexico (with Diego Castañeda and Fernanda Amaros)

A long debate about the causal relationship between income inequality and violence has risen in recent years with mixed results. Usually, many of the papers and books surrounding this topic focus on using Gini as a proxy for income inequality.  In this paper we aim to use alternative measurements of income inequality that address polarization of inequality rather than distribution to search its effects on violence, using homicide rates in Mexico afterwards the declaration of the ‘War on Drugs’ in 2006.