If there are too many factors and too many dead to easily comprehend in the case of the murders in Juárez, there are some basic facts. Over the past decade and a half, women and girls as young as 5 have been beaten, raped and murdered, many with no outcome and often with police impunity. This has created a double bind for the women living in the city. On one side, they continue to be targets of the serial rapists and murderers committing the ‘unsolved’ crimes thus far. On the other, they are caught in a historically bound cycle of violence against women and now face a generalized atmosphere of violence in which women’s lives are without value and the taking of a woman’s life holds no threat of legal ramifications. At the same time, supposed and actual suspects are tortured into confessing to crimes they often did not commit as part of the larger scheme of governmental corruption and collusion.