The killings have also exposed the weaknesses of the justice system, which officials say is inefficient, poorly financed, corrupt and poorly equipped to fight organized crime.
These include education that excludes them, the lack of specialized health services tailored to their needs, weaknesses in juvenile justice and the failure to 'catch' those who slip through the social services net.
But the fact that evidence brutally coerced from detainees is inadmissible in our courts is not a weakness of our existing justice system.
And the failure to hold the country's most powerful drug trafficker reveals the weakness of Mexico's justice system and will add to the perception that the state has become riddled with corruption.
The initiative is a snapshot, first of the inherent weakness of the criminal justice system as a mechanism for cutting crime; second, of the inherent difficulties in allowing politicians to drive supposedly independent local forces from the centre.
Like voters, the Justices smell weakness, and respect strength.
Otherwise, any of us could be.There are certainly weaknesses in the criminal justice system that hamper the fight against terrorism.
He did so after seeing a documentary, "Invisible War," which told women's stories and also described the weakness of the military-justice system.
One of the weaknesses of the "global justice community," in which Power is a major player, is a preference for prioritizing platitudes while not emphasizing serious costs and benefits in responding to highly complex challenges.
"Given the weaknesses of the criminal justice system in Iraq, executing individuals whose guilt may be questionable merely compounds the sense of injustice and alienation among certain sectors of the population, which in turn serves as one of the contributing factors that is exploited by extremists to fuel the violence," Zeid said.
