Day 6, and Safety

¡Saludos!

I would like to address a big concern most Americans have about Guanajuato and Mexico in general: Safety

But first, I know that most of you want to briefly hear about what I've been up to. Yesterday, I went to La Alhóndiga, a fortress during the Mexican Independence War, but it is now a museum. Next, I went to El Mercado Hidalgo, a huge market in Guanajuato full of food, souvenirs, and more.

Now, onto safety. Since there aren't as many city-by-city statistics in Mexico as in the United States, I had to do some research. The numbers that I am about to present are NOT by each individual, but by percentage. I had to do this since I could find information on the city of Boston, but not the city of Guanajuato; I could only get information on the STATE of Guanajuato. Also, I could only find reliable statistics for Boston's population in 2013, so I am using 650,000 as the population of Boston, and 5,854,000 for the STATE of Guanajuato.

Here is what the numbers say (I did my own calculations by comparing the victims to the total population) (Links can be found at the end of this post) (Also, these were the three most concrete statistics I had, so excuse the lack of information):

Murder rate:
Guanajuato: (Malicious homicide) 0.000150153741% (Higher rate)
Boston: 0.0000584615385

Vehicle Robbery:
Guanajuato: 0.000932183123% (Lower rate)
Boston: 0.00198%

Burglary (Robbery of a place of residence)
Guanajuato: 0.000753501879% (Lower rate)
Boston: 0.00368923077%

Remember, I´m no crime or statistics analyst, so do not use these numbers as if they are super accurate.

So what do these numbers tell us?

Well, they say that while you are more likely to get murdered in Guanajuato, you also are less likely to get robbed (both residential and automotive).

But also, most people care about their life more than something of theirs getting robbed. The murder rate was ~0.00015%, and according to the NOAA, you are far more likely to get struck by lightning.

I could agree that Guanajuato is not the safest place in the world, but it is by far, not the most dangerous either. Even though it is "not real numbers", my host brother has told me that there was only 1 or 2 car accidents (pedestrian-car, car-car, car-object, ect.) in the past month in Guanajuato city. This makes sense because there are many, many speed bumps and the drivers are very good. There are also callejónes, roads made just for pedestrians.

I have also seen a good amount of police around and I have never seen anyone get hurt in Guanajuato whether it was robbery, assault, or just fighting. I might even say that Guanajuato, in terms of people, is nicer than Massachusetts. Here, people are very friendly and personal in the stores and they are very attentive and just a lot nicer than many Americans.

That's all for now. I plan to post later during the weekend or Monday and again during the middle of next week, where I will talk about la comida. If you want to know what that means, you'll have to read it!

Hasta luego,
Benjamín



Links:
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ma/boston/crime/

http://www.ocl.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/OCL-Reporte-de-Incidencia-de-los-Delitos-de-Alto-Impacto-2015.PDF

http://www.bing.com/search?q=Boston%2C+Massachusetts+population&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=boston%2C+massachusetts+po&sc=0-24&sk=&cvid=77FCCFE907BF448C9508ADC0A176E8F5

http://www.bing.com/search?q=guanajuato+population&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=guanajuato+population&sc=2-21&sk=&cvid=97883471A2E54573832F73B50403E4C0