Playing with the Numbers

According to government figures, the number of innocent civilians killed by organized crime rose from 61 in 2009 to 166 in 2010. That represents a 172 percent leap in raw terms, but also basically a doubling in terms of the proportion of the total number of murders, from roughly 0.6 percent to 1.2 percent (I did the numbers in my head, so give or take). However, given that as recently as 2009 the government was saying that 4 percent of all deaths were innocent bystanders, these numbers are probably dubious. As the article points out, tallying a dead law-abider as a dead criminal is not the most difficult trick in the world.