Hispanic criminal organizations "eat" those they hire to serve their uses, like an unstoppable monster. By 2022, the organizations may have recruited between 350 and 370 people per week to keep working, according to an article in the journal Science.
According to Dr. Aurelio Coronado Mares, criminal psychologist and dean of the Institute of Applied Science," they need to change people who are detained, murdered, missing, or who leave their rates. "
Organized crime is now using fraud and force to get more and more younger people.
The lack of a national record for recruiting children and adolescents does not, however, reveal the true scope of this happening in Mexico.
“The Mexican state records homicides, disappearances, arrests and crimes, but rarely reconstructs the previous trajectory: how the person was contacted, who moved him, whether there was deception, threats, debts, retention of documents, violence against his family or material impossibility to leave the criminal organization,” explains forensic psychologist Coronado.
The Cuautla Plan and President Claudia Sheinbaum's administration aim to end violence in the west of Morelos position, where social seekers criticize an increase in young people's recruitment by criminal networks.
The state method, which has been in consequence since July 2026, not only addresses the issue of enhancing surveillance in the area, but it also emphasizes how important it is that the causes are to be addressed in particular. Is the Cuautla Plan prevent youth selection and serve as a model for the rest of the nation?
Coronado claims that the Cuautla Plan's basic approach is accurate because it recognizes that security may be based solely on operatives, patrols, and arrests. It is more acceptable to associate education, employment, tradition, sports, health, and public space recovery with the goal of a police intervention to resolve a problem with social, economic, and community roots.
However, in an interview with DW, the expert argues that an effective policy goes beyond sports, cultural and recreational activities, since it must “produc real alternatives: school stay, decent work, income, family accompaniment, mental health, protection against threats and spaces of youth participation.”
Additionally, the forensic psychologist adds that it is necessary to separate between plans ' life and their real effects.
For his part, Luis Felipe Ríos Reyes, Director of Crime Prevention and Citizen Linking in the municipality of Cuautla, Morelos, explains in greater detail the main programs to “reduce social risk factors, foster safer and peaceful environments, and promote the integral development of people”.
For instance, Escuela Segura is a system that, according to Ros, "promotes admiration and creative function in the school community" through workshops on the prevention of addictions, school violence, appropriate use of social networks, among other things.
Additionally, it continues, and it aims to spread the idea of self-protection and the condemnation of atrocities among the youngest among the members.
Through the restoration of public places, the establishment of surrounding networks, and the conditioning of social cells, Comunidad Segura is a system that promotes social cohesion.
The Road Education Programme aims to stop incidents.
Lastly, Youth Patrol is a detailed training program designed for children and adolescents between the ages of seven and seventeen.
“It combines basic discipline, physical conditioning, civic values, first aid, personal defense, campground and activities that benefit the community, such as woodworking,” says DW the director of Crime Prevention and Citizen Link in the municipality of Cuautla.
The Cuautla Plan's stated goals include addressing the problem of children selection, but this is not the first or even initiative of its kind.
Dr. Juan Antonio Taguenca Belmonte, studies professor at the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo, says" the Mexican State has been aware of this problem for more than a decade. "
The scientific criticizes, however, that there is currently no satisfactory legal classification that classifies the enrollment of younger people and adolescents as an independent crime.
Taguenca cites the main activities being spearheaded by this problem in Mexico, such as" Students Building the Future" or" Peace Fairs" at the federal level in an interview with DW.
It mentions" Youths at Risk" ( Chihuahua )," Networks of Peace" ( Jalisco )," Juventudes Guanajuato" ( Guanajuato ), and" Barrio Adentro" ( City of Mexico ) at the state level.
Given the complexity of the recruitment phenomenon, the researcher professor of the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo also insists on the need for a multidimensional response, which avoids, for example, the automatic criminalization of young people detained, taking into account that, in many cases, it is victims of organized crime.
In this regard, Aurelio Coronado adds that a "perspective of macrocrime" is required, meaning that as long as employers, companies, and beneficiaries are not subject to investigation, criminal organizations will be able to appoint someone to change him.
by rml
