Ok so this comment isn't as much related to "security" as it is to Spring Break since most are knocking the young folks so I want to give you a 50 year olds perspective from experience.
When I arrived to Cancun from Mexico City some 15 years ago coming off an 18 month vacation I started teaching scuba diving again full time in Cancun. My first encounter with spring breakers, ever was there taking these lads scuba diving. Our instructors in the hotels were pumping out 50 or 60 sometimes more discover scuba diving classes at the hotels per day and we were taking 26 divers at a time on our boats with 10 or 12 instructors and divemasters (yes our dive boats were 48 footers capacity of 30 divers) with 3 departures daily.
I found that the kids who we took diving although at times had horrible hangovers or got sea sick were probably the most respectful divers we took out. Listened to instructions carefully, followed the instructions and were attentive not only to the instructors and crew but also to each other while diving or gearing up.
Things Change? Not too much, later in life here in Mexico my wife who is a wedding and event coordinator got called upon to cater to 200 spring breakers who were renting homes in the north of playa del carmen Playa Secreto and Playa Paraiso. We handled all of their food and beverage for their stay and at the same time did 5 open bar parties at different places during their stay. Again my wife who was her first experience with spring breakers didn't know what to expect so we tried to prepare the staff. The result and comments from EVERYONE on the teams who catered to these kids and we are talking 200 to 230 kids spread across 2 miles of beach houses and condos said the kids were POLITE, RESPECTFUL, KIND and most of all THANKFUL to everyone even the clean up people and chefs. That was in mmmm 2009 so things haven't changed too much.
Some of the parents e-mailed us thanking us and asking about the behavior of their kids and of course we had only good things to say. No thats NOT to say that we didn't arrive to prepare breakfast and find the kids passed out on the beach, around the pool, on the floor etc. even kids from other houses wandering around looking for their pants or shoes or underwear but in general I have to say they were well behaved and
to the parents of those 200 plus kids for brining up the kids in a respectful manner.
I know it is hard to be around thousands of screaming kids during spring break if you are an older couple or maybe a family with young kids, might be something that you don't want your 12 year old to see at that time to start planning his senior trip but you can plan your vacations around the 2 spring break weeks or select a hotel that doesn't allow spring breakers, there are a lot of them in Cancun especially.
For security in general, I feel safe in Mexico City, Cancun and even here in Playa, and the report that someone quoted 107 foreigners killed in Mexico in 2010? That is indeed a small number when you take into account the number of foreign travelers that arrive to Mexico each year and the report doesn't give demographics nor does it say WHAT that person was doing. Maybe he was buying drugs or doing some other illegal activity that would put ones life in danger no matter where he was from. Oh and yes I was the victim of violent crime in Mexico but not in a tourist area and not in Mexico City, in a small city in a nice mountainous state where we were assaulted at gun point by masked me in our office.
Just my 13 cents... (inflation you know
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OK so here is the number for 2010 --> 22,400,000 + FOREIGN visitors to Mexico and 107 deaths by violence so we are talking about what about a fraction of .000000001%? I am sure there is someone who wants to do the exact math but why not look at the statistics for the US? i am sure that there were more than 107 murders of visitors in the US any given year and much fewer foreign visitors.