Mexico shares a nearly 2,000-mile border with the United States, and the two countries have historically close trade, cultural, and demographic ties. Mexico's stability is of critical importance to the United States, and the nature and intensity of violence in Mexico has been of particular concern to the U.S. Congress. Rising murders, intimidation of Mexican politicians in advance of the 2018 elections, and increasing assassinations of journalists and media personnel have continued to raise alarm. In 2017, 12 journalists were murdered and that number may increase in 2018, as 7 journalists were killed in the first 6 months of the year. Mexico's brutal drug trafficking-related violence has been dramatically punctuated by beheadings, public hanging of corpses, car bombs, and murders of dozens of journalists and government officials. Beyond these brazen crimes, violence has spread from the border with the United States to Mexico's interior, flaring in the Pacific states of Michoacán and Guerrero in recent years, in the border state of Tamaulipas, and in Chihuahua and Baja California, where Mexico's largest border-region cities of Juárez and Tijuana are located. Organized crime groups have splintered and diversified their crime activities, turning to extortion, kidnapping, auto theft, oil smuggling, human smuggling, retail drug sales, and other illicit enterprises. These crimes often are described as more "parasitic" for local populations inside Mexico. Addressing the question of whether violence (as measured by the number of intentional homicides) has reached new heights, the Justice in Mexico project at the University of San Diego reports that total homicides in Mexico increased by 7% between 2014 and 2015. Drug traffickers continue to exercise significant territorial influence in parts of the country, particularly near drug production hubs and along drug-trafficking routes during the Peña Nieto administration as they had under the previous president. Although homicide rates declined during the first two years of Peña Nieto's six-year term, total homicides rose 7% in 2015, 22% in 2016, and 23% in 2017, reaching a record level. In 2017, government statistics from the National Public Security System indicate there were more than 29,000 intentional homicides—a new record that exceeded the previous high in 2011. In addition, several analysts have raised concerns about severe human rights violations involving Mexican military an d police forces, which, at times, have reportedly colluded with Mexico's criminal groups. Notably, the Mexican armed forces injured or killed some 3,900 individuals in their domestic operations, between 2007 and 2014, with the victims labeled as "civilian aggressors." However, the high death rate (about 500 were injuries and the rest killings) indicates the lethality of the encounters with Mexican military and official reports did not sort out in published statistics how many of the military's victims were armed or were mere bystanders. (Significantly, these statistics did not continue to be made public after 2014). Due to casualty estimates being reported differently by the Mexican government than by the media outlets that track the violence, some debate exists on exactly how many have perished. This report conveys government data, but the data have not consistently been reported promptly or completely. For example, the government of President Felipe Calderón released tallies of "organized-crime related" homicides through September 2011. For a time, the Peña Nieto administration also issued such estimates, but it stopped in mid-2013. Although precise tallies diverged, the trend during President Calderón's tenure was a sharp increase in the number of homicides related to organized crime through 2011, when the number started a slight decline before Calderón left office in late 2012. Of total intentional homicides since 2006, many sources indicate that roughly 150,000 of total homicides were organized crime-related killings. Violence is an intrinsic feature of the trade in illicit drugs. Violence is used by traffickers to settle disputes, and a credible threat of violence maintains employee discipline and a semblance of order with suppliers, creditors, and buyers. This type of drug trafficking-related violence has occurred routinely and intermittently in U.S. cities since the early 1980s. The violence now associated with drug trafficking organizations in Mexico is of an entirely different scale. In Mexico, the violence is not only associated with resolving disputes or maintaining discipline but also has been directed toward the government, political candidates, and the news media. Some observers note that the excesses of some of Mexico's violence might even be considered exceptional by the typical standards of organized crime. Yet, Mexico's homicide rate is not exceptional in the region, where many countries are plagued by high rates of violent crime, such as in the northern triangle countries of Central America—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Overall, the region of Latin America has a relatively high homicide level; with 8% of the world's population, Latin America has 33% of the world's intentional homicides. Mexico's quick rise in killings associated with the drug war along with the violence in six other countries in the region—Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Venezuela—is also concerning to many observers. University of San Diego researchers observe that although Mexico's homicide rates compared to homicide rates in other Western Hemisphere countries fall somewhere in the middle of the regional grouping, the rapid rise in both Mexico's rate of homicides and its absolute number of homicides is unmatched. Estimates of Mexico's disappeared or missing—numbering more than 34,000 as recently reported by the Mexican government—has created both domestic and international concern. Former President Calderón made an aggressive campaign against criminal groups, especially the large drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), the central focus of his administration's policy. He sent several thousand Mexican military troops and federal police to combat the organizations in drug trafficking "hot spots" around the country. His government made some dramatic and well-publicized arrests, but few of those captured kingpins were either prosecuted or convicted. Between 2007 and 2012, as part of much closer U.S.-Mexican security cooperation, the Mexican government significantly increased extraditions to the United States, with a majority of the suspects wanted by the U.S. government on drug trafficking and related charges. The number of extraditions peaked in 2012, but declined somewhat in the first two full years after President Peña Nieto took office. Another result of this "militarized" strategy was an increase in accusations of human rights violations against the Mexican military, which was largely untrained in domestic policing. When President Peña Nieto took office in late 2012, he indicated he would take a new direction in his security policy: more focused on reducing criminal violence that affects civilians and businesses and less oriented toward removing the leadership of the large DTOs. His then-attorney general, Jesus Murillo Karam, said in 2012 that Mexico faced challenges from some 60 to 80 crime groups operating in the country whose proliferation he attributed to the Calderón government's kingpin strategy. However, despite Peña Nieto's stated commitment to shift the focus of the government's strategy, analysts have noted considerable continuity between Peña Nieto and Calderón's security approaches. The Peña Nieto government continued the military and federal police deployments used by the Calderón government to combat the DTOs, but it recentralized control over security to Mexico's interior ministry. Moreover, the use of a strategy of taking down through arrest or killing the top drug kingpins has continued. President Peña Nieto streamlined cooperation with the United States under the Mérida Initiative, which began during President Calderón's term. The Mérida Initiative, a bilateral anticrime assistance package launched in 2008, initially focused on providing Mexico with hardware, such as planes, scanners, and other equipment, to combat the DTOs. The $2.9 billion effort (through 2017) shifted in recent years to focus on training and technical assistance for the police and enactment of judicial reform, including training at the local and state level, southern border enhancements and crime prevention. After some reorganization of bilateral cooperation efforts, the Peña Nieto government continued the Mérida programs. In 2014, the Peña Nieto administration implemented another security strategy element promised during his presidential campaign: standing up a national militarized police force, or gendarmarie . The scope of the force implemented in August 2014 was significantly scaled back from its original proposed size of 40,000 to 5,000 officers who were added to the federal police force. The new force had the mission of protecting citizens from crime and shielding their economic and industrial activities from harm, such as defending vital petroleum infrastructure, although many observers maintain that the gendarmerie's distinct purpose was never followed. President Peña Nieto's focus on crime prevention, which also received significant attention early in his term, eventually declined as well, in part due to slow growth. As world oil prices dropped dramatically in 2014 causing reduced economic expansion, the Peña Nieto administration imposed significant budget austerity measures, including on some aspects of security. For more than a decade, Members of Congress convened numerous hearings dealing with the violence in Mexico, U.S. foreign assistance, and border security issues. Congressional concern heightened after U.S. consulate staff and security personnel working in Mexico came under attack, with some killed or wounded, allegedly with corrupt police support. Occasional use of car bombs, grenades, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers—such as the one used to bring down a Mexican army helicopter in May 2015—continue to raise concerns that some Mexican drug traffickers may be adopting insurgent or terrorist techniques.