Diego Valle-Jones’s blog, “Food and Fishing“, is actually more about Mexican crime rates than food and fishing! The blog, described by the author as “mainly about data analysis, programming and statistics, with the occasional interspersed post about food” has numerous posts analyzing the drug war in Mexico. These posts focus partly on geographic patterns of where most activity has occurred but mainly on the quality of the data available and its many deficiencies.
Valle-Jones’ analysis of drug war data is especially enlightening for anyone not familiar with the vagueries of crime-related data in Mexico. Most of his posts are illustrated by well-conceived and well-executed graphics, worthy of close examination in their own right. Posts in the past twelve months on “Food and Fishing” have included:
- Interactive map of the drug war in Mexico
- Crime at the municipal level
- Drug War Hotspots
- Strengths and weaknesses of crime data in Mexico
- The most violent metropolitan areas in Mexico
- When percentages mislead
- Statistical Analysis and Visualization of the Drug War in Mexico
All are worth reading. It is unfortunate that, unlike Valle-Jones, so many mainstream journalists have simply repeated facts and figures without any real understanding of where they came from, or what their strengths and weaknesses might be. Food and fishing? Fishing among the statistics should give them food for thought…
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