The dark figure of crime is defined as a person or thing that is used to commit a crime. The term itself comes from the fact that these are the figures of shadows. The shadows appear when a person walks past the light source, and because of that these things appear like a person with a dark figure.

A dark figure is a person who commits certain crimes and also has matters on their record. It means that the person has taken part in actions that can be considered as criminal or illegal. That’s why it’s very important for you to understand the meaning of this figure.

According to this study by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), the entity is only below Guerrero (98%), Sinaloa (96.3%) and Veracruz (95.6%).

With a percentage of 95.2%, Oaxaca was among the five states with the highest percentage of black figures, understood as the number of crimes committed for which no complaint was filed, according to the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Security (Envipe). 2019.

According to this study by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), the entity is only below Guerrero (98%), Sinaloa (96.3%) and Veracruz (95.6%), and is above Guanajuato with 94.8%.

With this percentage, Oaxaca is located three points below the national average, whose black figure percentage is 93%.

This means that for every 100 crimes committed in the entity, not even five are reported. The foregoing is serious if one considers that the costs of reported crimes and insecurity in Oaxacan homes represented an amount of six thousand 633 million pesos in 2018.

More victims

The data released this week also indicates that the number of victims of a crime for every 100,000 inhabitants in Oaxaca increased 24% in six years, going from 14,335 in 2012 to 17,757 in 2018.

Despite this increase, Oaxaca is among the entities with the lowest crime prevalence rate with 17.8%, along with Veracruz (16), Chiapas (16), Michoacán (18.5), Yucatán (18.6) and Tamaulipas (19.3). This low percentage correlates with the high black figure that exists in Oaxaca.

According to these data, during 2018 in Oaxaca the rate of victims of women was higher than that of men, since 17 thousand 799 and 17 thousand 704 were registered, respectively in each sex, in a population of 18 years and over.

Additionally, during the past year, 23.1% of households in the state had a crime victim.

The most committed crime in 2018 was robbery or assault on the street and on public transport, which represented a rate of 5,733 per 100,000 inhabitants, that is, 21.9%.

The incidence of this crime increased in the state by 18% from 2012 to 2018, since a victim rate of 4,867 increased to 5,733.

Other crimes that are frequently committed in Oaxaca are extortion, with a rate of 5,193; verbal threats with four thousand 57; fraud, with three thousand 157; home robbery with thousand 899; total or partial theft of a vehicle with 1,786; other robberies thousand 327; and injuries 846.

Of the 713 thousand 603 crimes estimated in Oaxaca, 473 thousand 157 victims were present, which represented 66.3% of cases and of these, 14.4% of them involved some type of aggression.

Of the total number of crimes accounted for, in 81.5% of the cases the victim stated that they had suffered damage, in 47.7% the affectation was of an economic nature.

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