Federal Police in Mexico. Image: Presidencia de la República Mexicana. Flikr. Some rights reserved.
Various obstacles have prevented real police reform from happening in
Mexico. Officers lack adequate training and support, receive dismal salaries,
and must work long hours because of understaffing – all of which hampers their
ability to fulfill their duties. At worst, these difficulties make officers
highly susceptible to corruption and infiltration from organized crime groups.
The public has taken note. Out of all of Mexico’s security forces,
citizens have the least confidence in the police. Just 6.1% of them have
confidence in the federal police, while only 4.6% are confident in the
municipal police, according to interviews with 1.200 citizens for an August
2018 survey conducted by the Social Studies and Public Opinion Center (CESOP)
of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies.
Almost half of respondents said authorities were likely taking part in
criminal activities, and over 27% felt that authorities were not adequately
performing their duties overall.
Just 6.1% of Mexicans have confidence in the federal police
The consequences of the ineffectiveness of Mexico’s police force are
complex. In part, the country saw more homicides in 2017 than any other year on
record, and violence has reached new heights in
2018. The country’s criminal landscape has also grown increasingly
fragmented – and more violent – due to the government’s controversial “kingpin
strategy”, which consists of arresting or killing the leaders of criminal
organizations.
Yet these high-profile arrests haven’t made the job any safer for the police.
One officer has been killed every day in 2018, almost half of which were
municipal police, according to a study by the non-governmental organization Common
Cause.
Police reform in Mexico is a monumental task that requires considerable
institutional and political support, but the country’s politicians have so far shown
little will to take action, as they benefit from the status quo.
According to Eric Olson, a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s
Mexico Institute, “The police have often been and in some cases continue to be
an arm of the ruling elite. This is particularly true at the State and
municipal levels, where the police are often still directed primarily by
politicians and governors”.
Police reform in Mexico is a monumental task that requires considerable institutional and political support, but the country’s politicians have so far shown little will to take action
In Mexico, politicians, and in particular governors, have a long history
of corruption and of having links to organized crime groups in some of the
country’s most embattled States, such as Veracruz along the Pacific coast, and
Tamaulipas along the US-Mexico border. These are also the places where police
reform is needed most.
These links can “in part militate against any kind of police reform”,
says Yanilda González, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago who
has conducted research on policing across the United States and Latin America. “Police
reform in some ways makes politicians lose their ability to direct the police
and police resources in a way that serves their own interests”, she explains. “Politicians are unlikely to
disturb this relationship by enacting reforms that would alienate the police”.
Olson agrees, saying that “politicians and policymakers often don’t want
to reform or professionalize the police force, and therefore weaken it and keep
it under their control.”
As a result, Mexico’s police officers have lost much of their
legitimacy, especially in municipalities hit hard by the presence and activities
of organized crime groups. Citizens often view their safety and destiny as
being in the hands of violent criminals or well-armed self-defense groups that
have formed to defend their communities, such as in the state of Michoacán.
These self-defense groups, however, come with their own problems.
“When the State is absent or fails to exercise its legitimate authority,
secondary impacts occur, such as criminal organizations replacing or
substituting the State”, Olson says. “In these cases, it’s extraordinarily
difficult to put the genie back in the bottle”.
From what we have seen so far from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
and his administration’s security policy, police reform in Mexico will have to
wait.
López Obrador has, among other things, pledged to create a “new”
national guard under military control, and allocate more resources to the army
and less to other security services. This will likely put off the reforms that
Mexico’s police so desperately need while potentially preventing authorities
from achieving any long-term reduction of crime and violence.
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This article was previously published by InSight Crime. Read the original here
