The police that take care of us 2023/10/01

There is no doubt that organized crime is immersed in Mexican society, at all levels and in all regions of the country. We are not only talking about the almost 100 homicides a day, but also about the control they exercise in the various areas of daily life. They impose rulers, determine which businesses must pay them a floor and are the authority de facto.

We know that the tentacles of these organizations extend in many ways, but much of this control is carried out through co-opting the police in the three levels of government: municipal, state and federal.

When presenting the results of the National State Public Security Census (CNSPE) 2023, Inegi reported that 222 thousand people were assigned to the public security institutions of the entities last year. On the other hand, in Mexico there are more than 1,600 police forces.

There are plenty of cases that demonstrate that public security corporations were infiltrated. But not only because of conviction, but also because of the violence that the criminal organizations themselves exert against them.

According to the organization Causa en Común, from 2018 to June 2023, 2,482 uniformed personnel have been murdered throughout the country.

Last July, at least 36 municipal agents resigned from the police in Cajeme, Sonora, after the kidnapping, torture and murder of three police officers.

The truth is that our leaders have not understood what to do to achieve a strong and reliable police force that can fulfill its objective. Therefore, for citizens, in almost all cases, interactions with uniformed officers are a toss-up on the outcome. From bites to the work they do for criminal organizations.

There are the emblematic cases, such as that of Ayotzinapa, where it is documenting that it was the Iguala and state police who handed over the normalistas to organized crime.

Also, a few days ago, it was confirmed that it was state police who on January 21, 2021, in the community of Santa Anita, in the municipality of Camargo in Tamaulipas, murdered and burned 17 migrants.

For more than a decade there has been an attempt to “shield” the police with commanders drawn from the military ranks, but the result has been the same.

Without seeking to simplify the problem – which is clearly complex – it has not been understood that what makes a police force strong is the mysticism of being part of a corporation, the sense of belonging. This is how the Federal Police was intended to be consolidated, which was destroyed with a stroke of the pen by the president Lopez Obrador.

A good example of a successful national police in Latin America is the Carabineros of Chile. It is an institution created in 1927 that is the second public and civil society institution that generates the greatest trust among citizens, according to the results of the fourth national study by Research Chile.

It is necessary to deepen the design of police officers who work, who are accountable and do not fall into the clutches of organized crime. Today we are far from institutions of that type.

*Master in Public Administration

by Harvard University

and Professor at the Pan American University

X: @ralexandermp