Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, London, Toronto, Mexico, etc. Nassau, Bahamas is the surprise and more Americans get arrested in Guadalajara than Mexico City. Here is the list of cities and the story. Beijing is not on the list so Alex can relax though Hong Kong cracks the top ten.
Very cool list. Quick questions:
1. These numbers seem low – in Tijuana, <1.5 Americans are arrested per day? (And that’s BEFORE you exclude drugs, so the average non-narcotics-using American faces an even lower rate.) Is “# of US citizens arrested” a proxy for some other, more interesting statistic?
2. A lot of Americans spend time in TJ, not as many in Nassau. One would expect the former to be higher on this list. Does anyone have a sense for the # of arrests as a rate, for example, per 1000 visiting Americans? I would expect that to be the more interesting statistic.
Second the colonelbob, that’s the real story… the relative risk of getting arrested. The fact that American high schoolers get arrested in TJ is not news.
If prostitution laws were ever to actually be enforced in Thailand and the Philippines, Bangkok and Manila would jump to the top of this list very quickly in my experience.
These numbers seem low – in Tijuana, <1.5 Americans are arrested per day? (And that's BEFORE you exclude drugs, so the average non-narcotics-using American faces an even lower rate.) Is "# of US citizens arrested" a proxy for some other, more interesting statistic?
I’m sure it doesn’t include teenagers arrested solely to get a bribe from them. I’m sure if they measured on the street arrests and then bribes to be set free, the number would be much, much higher.
I’d say that guadalajara has so many arrests do to the massive american community here. around lake Chapala (45 minutes from the city center) there is a group of over 50k canadian and american ex-pats, mostly retirees. Some the arrests are accounted by this group, and some by their many visitors, and the rest by the tourists (at least that’s my guess)
Only 2,500 US citzens arrested abroad per year? If that is right, US citizens are either impressively law abiding or even more impressively good at evading arrest.
The question isn’t the number it is the rate. Mexico seems like a very unlikely place for Americans to get arrested. Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo are the closest to the US and they rank first and third in terms of the most arrested.
I was in Mexico City for 4 days and personally met 4 people who were threatened with arrest if they didn’t pay a bribe. Now, they did generally break the law (no open containers!), but wow.
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