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<p> A 14 year-old and his two older sisters, ages 19 and 23 were arrested in Cuernavaca airport December second. The siblings where about to board a flight headed to Tijuana and then take a shuttle to their final destination: San Diego.</p>
<p> The teen, — whom I will identify only by his nickname “Ponchis” is accused of being a vicious killer working for the Beltran Leyva Cartel in Morelos. His sisters, Elizabeth and Lina Erika Jiménez Lugo, are considered by federal authorities as the leaders behind Las Chavelas, a group of youngsters who got rid of the bodies of rivals for the Cartel.</p>
<p> Ponchis started his career as a killer when he was just 11 years old.</p>
<p> He was the youngest of a group of youngsters who uploaded a series of videos on You Tube showing their daily lives full of drugs, weapons, cars and killings. The videos became public in September of this year and some of the group’s members were arrested by the military soon after.</p>
<p> Before being properly booked, Ponchis was paraded in front of the Mexican media by the military and even allowed to answer reporter’s questions.</p>
<p> “I just slit their throat but I didn’t hang them from bridges” he said softly, answering reporters’ questions about his crimes.</p>
<p> On Monday, —just four days after his arrest— local newspapers reported that Ponchis mother was arrested in San Diego’s Barrio Logan by Border Patrol Agents.</p>
<p> Neighbors told reporters one of those arrested was 43 year old woman named Yolanda Jiménez Lugo, the mother of the three arrested siblings, who was detained with a man in front of her two young children when she returned from the gym.</p>
<p> Border Patrol officials said indeed they executed arrest warrants in that area on that date but they would not identify or elaborate on the identity of those arrested or the cause.</p>
<p> Public records show that Jimenez had been in trouble with the law in 1997 when she was prosecuted for cocaine possession and sentenced to 90 days in jail. Custody of Ponchis and his sister Lina was given over to their paternal grandma who died soon after.</p>
<p> Ponchis US citizenship remains unclear, but consular authorities visited him in an undisclosed location and have yet to verify the authenticity of the San Diego, California birth certificate he was carrying when he was arrested.</p>
<p><strong>Ponchis: a symptom of neglect</strong></p>
<p> Baptized by media mogul Televisa as “The youngest Mexican killer” Ponchis is less a threat to society than a clear symptom of the brutal abandonment of social policies both in Mexico and the US, according to sociologist and Iberoamerican University researcher Sara Espinoza.</p>
<p> “The fact that teens can be lured into a life of drugs and killing is a direct result of a lack of social investment and a system of failed institutions, where was Child Services (DIF) or responsible adults in this kid’s life?”</p>
<p> Espinoza claims Ponchis is being paraded in front of the media by Federal Authorities, crucified as an extreme case of brutality and yet, it is likely that there are many others like him.</p>
<p> According to recent national polls, Mexico has 7 million “ni-nis” a term used for those working age kids who neither work nor go to school and by 2012, Mexico will reach a critical point in the demand for high-school education.</p>
<p> “But policies were never put in place to face such demand and now we face a brutal education deficit, an inability to meet the demand that corners kids into dropping out of school or being left out” Espinoza explains.</p>
<p> The labor market is not in better shape, with unemployment and sub employment rates rising and maquiladoras’ paying an average of 4 dollars a day it is not surprising that getting into organized crime is perceived as a viable option.</p>
<p> “In this day and age the message is, “you are what you have” and the only perceived possibility to have is getting into a life of crime, why would you go to school or get a regular job if the result is poverty?” the researcher asks.</p>
<p> In this grim picture, Espinoza considers it is important not to criminalize marginalized youth and start to create better models so that teens like Ponchis can heal and be a productive part of society.</p>
<p> “What I worry about the most is that a case like this can be manipulated into a public outcry for harder sentences for teens; who will then be stuck behind bars, all lumped together with murderers mixed in with a kid who stole a bar of soap… without a true rehabilitation program, when in fact there is an urgent need for forgiveness, for healing.</p>
<p> “I think it is important to learn from other extreme experiences such as the ones with children used by the guerrillas in Africa, because in that case, —as in the case of Ponchis— children are both victims and perpetrators in the eyes of their communities” Espinoza added.</p>
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