Crime, Trust, and Signaling

Today, Mexico is faced with a severe crisis in the fields of security and crime which has seeped into all areas of political and social life. In the last three decades, kidnapping has seen a puzzling evolution from a politically driven act in the 1970s to a crime that targeted the wealthy in the 1990s to a widespread crime that targets middle- and low-income victims today, thus producing many more deaths and higher victimization rates. Explaining these changes and how they affect communities in Mexico is the central objective of this book. This chapter outlines the theoretical framework for the book. I will use signaling theory to explore problems of trust in the context of kidnapping in Mexico City. This chapter presents a discussion of these theories in the broader context of governance.