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EL PASO -- As the bloody struggle for control of Ciudad Juarez continues just across the Rio Grande, police in neighboring El Paso are boasting yet another year of lower violent crime rates.
Overall, reports of violent crime are down about 4 percent compared with 2007, El Paso police spokesman Darrel Petry said.
The news about crime in El Paso, a West Texas border city of about 600,000, is a stark contrast to the situation in Juarez, a sprawling city of 1.5 million people, where violence has taken over with nearly 1,500 slayings this year.
Most notable, Petry said, is that El Paso police have investigated only 16 homicides this year -- the same number recorded last year.
But just across the Rio Grande, Mexican police are dealing with daily reports of slayings, bank robberies, carjackings and other armed robberies. Crime has skyrocketed this year, and fears have been mounting in the U.S. that the lawlessness would soon seep across the border.
Those fears appeared to be well-founded this year when El Paso police confirmed that they had received credible information that cartel leaders in Mexico had given hit men permission to kill people in Texas.
But so far, those threats haven't materialized.
"Everyone keeps singing that song, and it just isn't happening," Petry said.
Andrea Simmons, an FBI spokeswoman in El Paso, said the lack of spillover in El Paso is likely the result of a "combination of a number of things."
"The people they [the cartels] are disciplining are in Mexico. They have access to them, so they don't need to go beyond their own borders."
Simmons said a fundamental difference in law enforcement strategies in the U.S. is also likely a factor.
"Considering the circumstances in that city and state, there's a breakdown in law enforcement and government, so it makes it easier for them to discipline their people," Simmons said. "There's just a lawlessness there. If you saw that in El Paso, you would see a major law enforcement response."
Mexican federal authorities have launched an offensive against warring drug cartels across the country, but corruption among police and military ranks continues to be a problem.
