A study carried out in the cities of Culiacán, Mazatlán and Los Mochis revealed that before the “Culiacanazo” almost half of the Sinaloans surveyed thought that organized crime made them feel safer.
This was revealed by the Percibe survey, carried out by the State Public Security Council before the events of October 17, 2019, better known as “El Culiacanazo”; the failed operation of the government of the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in which the authorities captured Ovidio Guzmán López, son of “El Chapo” Guzmán, and was later released after the cartel he leads unleashed violence in the country, showing that cartels still hold the power in Mexico.
The survey was applied in the three main cities of Sinaloa, where the El Chapo clan has ruled for decades. “Do you consider that in your city people feel protected by the presence of the drug trafficker?”, was the central question.
According to the results of the study, 48% of those interviewed stated that they felt safe because they considered that drug trafficking was taking care of their cities, compared to 35% who, on the contrary, stated that they did not feel protected.
Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, was the city with the highest percentage of citizens who felt protected by the drug traffickers at 54%, while in Mazatlán and Los Mochis, 51% also felt safer with organized crime in their cities.
At the local level, by neighborhood, in Mazatlán and Los Mochis, there was a higher level of rejection of the idea of the alleged “peace” caused by the control of organized crime, with 64 and 60 percent, respectively, of those surveyed who assured that they did not feel protected.
“The opinions expressed were collected in September 2022, that is, in a period of ‘tranquility’, far from the first Black Thursday and, obviously, before January 5, 2023, when Ovidio Guzmán López was rearrested and more violence was unleashed in the communities that were surveyed. This ensures us reliable results since the state of mind of the people interviewed was not affected by a recent violent situation,” said the general coordinator of CESP, Miguel Calderón Quevedo.
“The results of this survey are very interesting, but we also hope that the opinion of the Sinaloans presented here is an input for future public policy strategies,” he added.
Likewise, 43% of those surveyed in the three main cities of the city affirmed that the presence of drug trafficking affects the quality of life of the people moderately or a lot; while only 10 percent considered that it did not affect anything.
Juan Carlos Ayala Barrón, an academic at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS), said in October 2022 that a radical change after the Culiacanazo was the increase in apology for drug trafficking among the youngest cartel members. Joaquín and Ovidio Guzmán López, as well as Jesús Alfredo and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, the Chapitos: became the new idols and citizen myths.
From that date, hat-shaped key chains that hang from the rear-view mirrors of vehicles and the clothing of the new generations spread. The academic has detected an increase in the apologetic feeling in attributing heroism to the sons of Chapo Guzmán for not letting one of them go to jail.
That highlighted Sinaloa as the cradle of drug lords in Mexico, where there is a monument in a commercial plaza in Culiacán for the murder of the Ratón’s brother; adorations in the chapel of Jesús Malverde, the saint of drug traffickers; the Jardines del Humaya cemetery with mausoleums that look like small mansions; as well as a series of cultural products such as series, corridors, and narconovelas.
“There was a boom in youth groups that are dedicated exclusively to recording narcocorridos. It’s a fashion to be singing that kind of music. Right now everyone is singing the one about Ratón”, exemplified the Doctor of Philosophy about the rebound in drug culture as a result of the Culiacanazo.
A study carried out in the cities of Culiacán, Mazatlán and Los Mochis revealed that before the “Culiacanazo” almost half of the . . .
