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| According to recent research by Parametría, 77% of the population have little to no confidence in the State Police, and only 22% stated having “a lot of” or “some”. (image: Parametría) |
Translated by: Alexander Graham
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know our police are rotten. The degree of corruption and collaboration with organized crime varies depending on municipality and state, but in virtually all of Mexico, our ‘civil’ police are a failure and the impunity figures corroborate this. [MV Note: Because of lack of confidence in the police and courts, only 7 out of 100 crimes committed are reported and only 4.46% of reported crimes result in convictions. Thus, impunity is greater than 99%]
The Mexican police forces are poorly trained, ill-equipped, and worst of all, they answer to power groups as opposed to us, the citizens.
Despite the large quantity of resources recently invested in the likes of equipment, weapons, facilities and telecommunications, at the core of it all there still lies a lack of trust. According to recent research by Parametría, 77% of the population have little to no confidence in the state police, and only 22% stated have “a lot” or “some”.
Our police forces are among some of the least reputable institutions in the country, with only congressmen and political parties edging in front. The matter is serious: we are talking about the very institutions we created to prevent crime and protect us from criminals. However, this lack of trust has an even darker side: Mexicans are scared of their own police.
I emphasize this at the moment when legislators are debating the possibility of a Single Police Command [replacing municipal police with a single state police force]. I am not convinced that this model is the panacea to all our ills. Although it would bypass all the bureaucracy, speed up decision-making and increase efficiency, I am concerned that in the face of organized crime’s colossal power, the new heads of these commands would not have the capacity, the willpower, or the resources to spurn corruption. The monstrous Mexican mafia is not to be underestimated.
The vulnerability of our police against organized crime bosses is so considerable that it is exemplified by the recent operations in capturing Joaquin ["El Chapo"] Guzmán. In these operations the intelligence was singularly military, there was support from the U.S., and the actual undertaking was charged to a special division of the Mexican Marines, and all this without the knowledge of local authorities.
Neither the Sinaloa governor, Mario López, nor the state Government or Security Secretariats, or even the Sinaloa police chiefs, knew anything of the Mazatlán operation in 2014 or the Los Mochis operation in 2015. Why? Simply because they couldn’t be trusted because of the level of organized crime corruption in their ranks.
At the heart of things, this corruption is the same reason why organized crime controls prisons, and why inside of them we can find restaurants, spas, massage salons, and even organized parties for V.I.P prisoners. Mexican cartels have exerted their influence over prisons to turn them into recruitment centers, training camps and command centers and even, as evidenced in Nuevo León [Topo Chico prison, where, on Feb. 11, 49 prisoners were killed in a battle between factions of Los Zetas], have used them as the perfect way to take out their enemies.
Setting up the Single Police Command without first filtering out the corruption in the police forces via rigorous and professional confidence controls throughout the entire hierarchy, would be a grave error in judgement. We already have enough police chiefs who answer to crime bosses while at the same time live off our taxes. [MV Note: A recent report found that eleven percent of state police commanders and seven percent of state police have failed test of confidence, but are still on the job.]
Purifying the system in a quick and transparent way should be a priority for the government. While our police forces remain incapable of operating in an honest, meticulous and efficient manner, the few offenders that are caught will continue to go free, citing violation of due process or shortcomings in the chain of custody of evidence.
So far, what we are seeing is the creation of “elite” or “special” forces [the Gendarmerie] more as a way of silencing citizens’ demands than as sincere efforts to create transparent organizations. For this reason, the only alternative that the most violent regions in Mexico have, such as Ciudad Juarez, Reynosa or Culiacán, is to cry for help from the Armed Forces.
We are spending a lot of money in this area and the model has been less than successful. We cannot forget that the issue with our police forces is long-standing and structural: under-paid and under-trained members who obey chains-of-command corrupted by organized crime or political power.
It must be said, in many regions, that not only do the police not protect and serve their citizens, but they act as the operational branch for drug-trafficking cartels by kidnapping, murder and ensuring certain people ‘disappear’. One need not look further than the case of the youths ‘disappeared’ in Tierra Blanca, Veracruz, as proof.
Along with corruption, another of our serious evils is impunity. Much of this can be explained by the defects in our police forces and the rest can be blamed on the disgraceful role our justice system plays.
That’s why we have to clean up the Mexican police from the bottom up. Continuing the way we are will only thrust upon us more deaths and disappearances while our police forces fall further into disrepute and public confidence plummets. In this regard, honest and committed police officers (because we do have them), can do little against a system that is both corrupt, and corrupting.
It’s time to clean up the police, for real. Spanish Original
Adrián López Ortiz is an engineer and teacher of humanistic studies with a concentration in applied ethics at the Tec de Monterrey. Since 2012 he has been the Director General of Northwest Newspapers in Sinaloa. He is the author of "A Country without Peace" and "Attempt at Provocation" and co-author of "Culture in Sinaloa: Narratives of Society and Violence."