Results?

One of the achievements trumpeted at the meeting of the National System of Public Security this week was a 3.8 percent increase in the number of cases handled by federal and state authorities, and a 33.6 percent increase in the number of kidnappers arrested. Both of these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. The 3.8 percent increase is good insofar as it demonstrates that kidnap victims are increasingly trusting the legal authorities, but that could just as easily be interpreted as a reflection of an increase in the total number of kidnappings, which is the more important figure for the average citizen. And as to the 33.6 percent spike in arrests, it sure seems as though the government has been taking down more kidnapping groups, but if the statistics about drug arrests offer any indication (and I suspect that they do), this doesn't necessarily mean that the arrestees are being put behind bars.