Woodman: Jalisco state authorities have found 20 burial sites in Guadalajara this year.
However, the number of bodies exceeds the capacity to identify them. Forensic facilities are underfunded and understaffed.
The fact that this is happening in Guadalajara is a damning indictment of the way the drug war has been handled. This is the country's second-largest city and one of its most beautiful. It is the Mexico the government would like the world to see — home to elegant architecture, a thriving startup scene and the largest annual book fair in the Americas. But Guadalajara's reputation as a cultural and investment hub has already taken a hit.
Mexico's president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has promised to tackle the security crisis throughout the country. Sadly, 10 months into his presidency, the national homicide rate has risen rather than dipped.
Read more: The US's top military-intelligence official describes how the war on Mexico's cartels has produced even more violence
You really need to adopt a regional perspective to describe the factors driving that violence. The demand for illegal drugs north of the border fuels much of it, and lax US gun laws mean Mexican criminals have easy access to firepower.
In Mexico, the so-called kingpin strategy of taking down major drug lords has simply created new, hyperviolent replacements. Corruption and impunity have undermined public trust. Inequality has fueled cartel recruitment. Many young people in Guadalajara — and across Mexico — grow up in neighborhoods where legal success is unimaginable.
That's a broad and complicated problem. However, any effective and long-lasting solution to the kind of violence we've seen recently would have to address all of those dimensions.