Determining factors of the perception of security in Mexico: statistical analysis at the regional level

In Mexico, one of the strategic and fundamental objectives of development plans is focused on guaranteeing security and citizen coexistence, for which it is necessary to approach the subject from different methodological perspectives. Nowadays, the topic of security, as well as its counterparts, crime, and violence, is broad and rich in contributions, however, there are not many contributions on what are the factors that determine that a person feels insecure. In this sense, the objective of this article is to find empirical evidence on what are the determinants of the perception of insecurity in Mexico. In order to reach this objective, a logistic model by mesoregions is used. The data used come from the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Safety of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography. In addition, we estimate a probabilistic model, separating the effects for population groups, to identify the existence of heterogeneous results. Among the main results, a strong relationship was found between urban infrastructure, such as lack of street lighting, and the perception of insecurity. Likewise, women and the elderly population tend to feel more insecure in their place of residence. Finally, having youth employment programs and neighborhood committees improves the levels of perception of security.