Police Reform in Mexico’s Municipalities

Daniel Sabet

Georgetown University

September 17, 2009

The need for local police reform

The military is a limited tool

• Human rights abuses

• Too blunt an instrument

• Cannot be effective if its efforts are undermined by corrupt police

Current reform and police professionalization efforts

• SUBSEMUN (over US$ 300 million, 2009)• Vetting (over 100,000 tests, 2008-9)• Police civil service• Standardization and information sharing• Legal reforms • National agreement • CALEA • Judicial reforms

City

Minimum education

requirement

Percent of officers with a

high school degree or

above

Duration of cadet training

(months)

% of police receiving

annual in-service training

Guadalajara Secondary 34.70% 8 Majority

Monterrey Secondary 33.97% 6 All

Mérida Secondary 28.39% 3 All

Ahome High School 55.15% 12 All

México DF Secondary 40.03% 6 Majority

San Luís Potosí High School 35.27% 8 Majority

Torreón Secondary - 6 Majority

Chihuahua High School 47.07% 10 All

Puebla High School -. . All

Cuernavaca HS for transit 55.80% . All

Zapopan Secondary 34.55% 6 All

Source: Survey of municipal police departments. Non-representative sample

City

Basic monthly

salary (pesos)

Trucks and patrol

cars per police

SUBSEMUN as a percent

of other 2008

budgetary sources

Internal affairs

employees per 100

police

Average annual

firings as a percent of

police?

Guadalajara $7,916 0.17 24.55% 2.94 0.76%

Monterrey $7,243 0.20 22.04% 3.72 1.90%

Mérida $4,672 0.15 59.82% 0.64 1.71%

Ahome $6,269 0.12 . 0.50 3.12%

México DF $8,186 0.12 5.46% 0.84 3.09%

San Luís Potosí $6,506 0.15 33.65% 1.35 3.81%

Torreón $6,625 0.35 100.90% 0.40 16.05%

Chihuahua $8,745 0.49 33.11% 0.44 0.97%

Puebla $7,226 0.25 . 0.43

Cuernavaca $5,952 0.20 5.40% 1.13 1.40%

Zapopan $9,050 0.14 . 1.14 0.36%

Source: Survey of municipal police departments. Non-representative sample

Many accountability mechanisms but little accountability

• Vetting• Human rights commissions• Compstat• Citizen services • Internal affairs departments

– Reactive investigation of individual incidents based on complaints

– Few cases of corruption– No complaints from fellow officers – Does not address collusion with organized crime– Focused on rotten apple rather than the rotten barrel

Continued weaknesses

• Uneven advances between rural and urban areas

• Accountability mechanisms

• Merit based promotions

• Transparency and civil society oversight

Why don’t good policies work?

• Problems of design – Accountability mechanisms

• Problems of implementation– Education– Merit based promotion – Vetting

• Problems of institutionalization– Procedures– Selection criteria– Training– Equipment – In-service training– Citizen outreach

Procedures in Mexicali

Timeline 1998-2001 2001-2004 2004-2007 2007-2010

Party in Power

PAN PRI PAN

MayorHermosillo

CeladaDíaz

OchoaRamos Flores

Valdez Gutiérrez

Policy ISO-9001Japanese

quality control

Internal CALEA

The importance of a long term approach in Chihuahua

Timeline 1998-2001 2001-2002 2002-2004 2004-2007 2007-2009

Party in power

PRI PAN

MayorReyes Baeza

Barousse Moreno

Cano Ricaud

Blanco Zaldívar

Borruel Baquera

Police Chief

Raúl Grajeda Domínguez Lazaro Gaytán Aguirre

Policy CALEA Accreditation

The key questions

• Can civil society oversight overcome the continuity problem?– And if it can, is civil society prepared to play

this role?

• Given the empirical inability to develop effective anti-corruption efforts in the current environment, is it reasonable to presume that accountability is the last step in a sequence of police reforms?

Gracias!

Daniel M. Sabet

Georgetown University dms76@georgetown.edu

http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/dms76/home.html