Law enforcement in Mexico
Encyclopedia
Law enforcement in Mexico is divided between federal, state, and municipal entities. There are two federal police forces, 31 state police forces (and two for the federal district) and one estimate suggests over 1,600 municipal police
forces. There are 366 officers per 100,000 people, which equals approximately 500,000 in total, but systemic corruption
is endemic and police forces are often poorly trained and underpaid. The average wage of a police officer is $350 per month, around that of a builder's labourer, which means that many police officers supplement their salaries with bribes.
The government has found it hard to provide police forces with sufficient pay and protection to make it worthwhile resisting the threats and blandishments of drug traffickers, though recent efforts to reform the federal police saw a tenth of the 30,000+ officers fired in the first eight months of 2010. There has been a tendency to increase the militarization of policing. In 2006, 45,000 troops of the Mexican Army
were deployed to fight drugs cartels
, with the number rising to 50,000 by October 2010. In Monterrey
, police, soldiers and prosecutors have conducted joint patrols, which have seen violence reduced.
At all levels, policing in Mexico tends to maintain separate forces for patrol/response (preventive) policing on the one hand and investigative (judicial) policing on the other.
."
The PF replaced the Federal Preventive Police, which was created in 1999 combining several police forces into one, but lacking any investigative powers. When the PF was created a large number of investigators from the Federal Investigations Agency (AFI) were transferred and the AFI was replaced by the Ministerial Federal Police.
The PFM replaced the earlier Federal Investigations Agency
(Agencia Federal de Investigación, AFI) after much of its force was transferred to the new Federal Police (PF). The Federal Investigations Agency itself had replaced the notoriously corrupt Federal Judicial Police
(Policía Judicial Federal, PJF) by the presidential decree of former President
Vicente Fox
on November 1, 2001. In May 2008, the previous acting chief of the AFI, Édgar Eusebio Millán Gómez
, was assassinated.
Pública del Distrito Federal – SSP), unlike the previous two, does not have national
reach, but it does manage a combined force of over 90,000 officers in the Federal District
(DF). The SSP is charged with maintaining public order and safety in the center of
Mexico City.
The investigative Judicial Police of the Federal District (Policía Judicial del Distrito Federal – PJDF), are organized under the Office of the Attorney General of the DF (the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Distrito Federal). The PGJDF maintains 16 precincts (delegaciones
) with an estimated 3,500 judicial police, 1,100 investigating agents for prosecuting attorneys (agentes del ministerio público), and 941 experts or specialists (peritos).
The principal police force of Mexico City is the Protection and Transit Directorate, also known as the Traffic Police, which consists of some 32,000 officers organized into thirty-three precincts. It is the largest single law enforcement organization in Mexico.
The Bank and Industrial Police of the Ministry of Public Security of the Federal District provides specialized services for the protection, custody and supervision, not just banks and lending institutions, but also dependencies, institutions and government bodies, federal and local, as well as individuals and corporations that require it, with the arrangements put in place.
Mexico City has the second highest crime rate in Latin America
. More than 100 serious crimes are reported each day in Mexico City, and on average in the Federal District in the first quarter of 1997 one police officer was killed and one injured weekly. A sense of insecurity prevails among many citizens because of the lack of confidence in the police and the fear of police misbehavior and crime.
The Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, Crédito) Customs officers are deployed at borders and at international airport
s to interdict contraband entering Mexico.
The Bank of Mexico (Banco de México) also operates its own security division, which is charged with enforcing banking and monetary laws, including cases of counterfeiting, fraud, and money laundering.
maintain both preventive and judicial police called the State Judicial Police. State police are under the direction of the state's governor. The distinction between crimes investigated by State and Federal Judicial Police is not always clear. Most offenses come under the state authorities. Drug dealing, crimes against the government, and offenses involving several jurisdictions are the responsibility of the federal police. The state-level preventive police forces are together perhaps 90,000-strong, and the state-level judicial police perhaps 25,000-strong.
State police
forces operate from precinct stations, called delegaciones with each delegación has an average of 200 police officers attached to it. The ranking officer is known as a comandante , equivalent to a first captain in the military. Most of the remaining personnel hold the ranks of first sergeant, second sergeant, and corporal.
have their own preventive and municipal police forces, which are responsible for handling minor civil disturbances and traffic infractions. Of the 2,395 municipalities, 335 have no police forces. However, some of the municipal forces are large and important.
40 percent. The Mexican government has had serious problems in regulating these companies, most of which are illegitimate since they lack the necessary legal permits. It was estimated in 1999, that about 10,000 private security firms operated in Mexico, yet
only 2,000 had some form of official permit.
According to official figures in December 2000, there were 2,984 private security companies registered with 153,885 employees. The inability to regulate or control these forces creates potential security problem. Since many of these companies are unregulated, some will engage in criminality instead of (or as a means of) protecting their clients, thus exacerbating the problem of insecurity. According to a study by the Mexico City legislative assembly, in 1998 there were more private security guards than police. A substantial number of private security guards were formerly police officers or presently work as security guards while off-duty; these dynamics increase the likelihood of police corruption.
Municipal police
.Municipal police are law enforcement agencies that are under the control of local government, including the municipal government, where it is the smallest administrative subdivision. They receive pay from the city budget, and usually have fewer rights than the "state paid" police...
forces. There are 366 officers per 100,000 people, which equals approximately 500,000 in total, but systemic corruption
Systemic corruption
Systemic corruption is corruption which is primarily due to a weaknesses of an organisation or process.It can be contrasted with individual officials or agents who act corruptly within the system....
is endemic and police forces are often poorly trained and underpaid. The average wage of a police officer is $350 per month, around that of a builder's labourer, which means that many police officers supplement their salaries with bribes.
The government has found it hard to provide police forces with sufficient pay and protection to make it worthwhile resisting the threats and blandishments of drug traffickers, though recent efforts to reform the federal police saw a tenth of the 30,000+ officers fired in the first eight months of 2010. There has been a tendency to increase the militarization of policing. In 2006, 45,000 troops of the Mexican Army
Mexican Army
The Mexican Army is the combined land and air branch and largest of the Mexican Military services; it also is known as the National Defense Army. It is famous for having been the first army to adopt and use an automatic rifle, , in 1899, and the first to issue automatic weapons as standard issue...
were deployed to fight drugs cartels
Drug cartel
Drug cartels are criminal organizations developed with the primary purpose of promoting and controlling drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises. The term was applied when the largest trafficking...
, with the number rising to 50,000 by October 2010. In Monterrey
Monterrey
Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...
, police, soldiers and prosecutors have conducted joint patrols, which have seen violence reduced.
At all levels, policing in Mexico tends to maintain separate forces for patrol/response (preventive) policing on the one hand and investigative (judicial) policing on the other.
Federal
Mexico maintains two primary Federal Police agencies; the Policia Federal, the uniformed force, and an Investigative force called the Policía Federal Ministerial. They are sometimes referred to by the slang term "FederalesFederales
Federales is a short term for the Mexican Federal Police or any of its predecessors, including the Federal Investigations Agency or the Federal Preventive Police. The term gained widespread usage by English-speakers due to popularization in such films as The Wild Bunch, The Treasure of the Sierra...
."
Federal Police
The Federal Police (Policía Federal, PF), is the most prominent police force in Mexico. Under the guidance of the Secretariat of Public Security (SSP), the PF is nominally a "preventive" police force but with significant powers of investigation to prevent crime.The PF replaced the Federal Preventive Police, which was created in 1999 combining several police forces into one, but lacking any investigative powers. When the PF was created a large number of investigators from the Federal Investigations Agency (AFI) were transferred and the AFI was replaced by the Ministerial Federal Police.
Ministerial Federal Police
The Ministerial Federal Police (Policía Federal Ministerial, PFM) is the premier investigative arm of the Attorney General of Mexico (PGR).The PFM replaced the earlier Federal Investigations Agency
Federal Investigations Agency
The Federal Investigations Agency was a Mexican federal agency that existed to fight corruption and organized crime, through an executive order by President Vicente Fox Quesada. The AFI replaced an earlier agency, the Federal Judicial Police...
(Agencia Federal de Investigación, AFI) after much of its force was transferred to the new Federal Police (PF). The Federal Investigations Agency itself had replaced the notoriously corrupt Federal Judicial Police
Federal Judicial Police
The Federal Judicial Police was the former federal police force of Mexico.The jurisdiction of the Federal Judicial Police encompasses the entire nation and was divided into thirteen zones with fifty-two smaller detachment headquarters...
(Policía Judicial Federal, PJF) by the presidential decree of former President
President of Mexico
The President of the United Mexican States is the head of state and government of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...
Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox Quesada is a Mexican former politician who served as President of Mexico from 1 December 2000 to 30 November 2006 and currently serves as co-President of the Centrist Democrat International, an international organization of Christian democratic political parties.Fox was elected...
on November 1, 2001. In May 2008, the previous acting chief of the AFI, Édgar Eusebio Millán Gómez
Édgar Eusebio Millán Gómez
Édgar Eusebio Millán Gómez was a third-ranking member of Mexico's Secretariat of Public Security and acting commissioner of the Federal Preventive Police. Born in Mexico City, he received a law degree from the Universidad del Valle de México. After graduating he started his career in the Mexican...
, was assassinated.
Federal District Police
The Secretariat of Public Security of the Federal District (Secretaría de SeguridadPública del Distrito Federal – SSP), unlike the previous two, does not have national
reach, but it does manage a combined force of over 90,000 officers in the Federal District
(DF). The SSP is charged with maintaining public order and safety in the center of
Mexico City.
The investigative Judicial Police of the Federal District (Policía Judicial del Distrito Federal – PJDF), are organized under the Office of the Attorney General of the DF (the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Distrito Federal). The PGJDF maintains 16 precincts (delegaciones
Boroughs of the Mexican Federal District
Mexico City — politically and administratively constituted as the Federal District — is divided into sixteen boroughs for administrative purposes. They constitute second-level administrative divisions, on par with the municipalities of Mexico. However, unlike municipalities, they do not have...
) with an estimated 3,500 judicial police, 1,100 investigating agents for prosecuting attorneys (agentes del ministerio público), and 941 experts or specialists (peritos).
The principal police force of Mexico City is the Protection and Transit Directorate, also known as the Traffic Police, which consists of some 32,000 officers organized into thirty-three precincts. It is the largest single law enforcement organization in Mexico.
The Bank and Industrial Police of the Ministry of Public Security of the Federal District provides specialized services for the protection, custody and supervision, not just banks and lending institutions, but also dependencies, institutions and government bodies, federal and local, as well as individuals and corporations that require it, with the arrangements put in place.
Mexico City has the second highest crime rate in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. More than 100 serious crimes are reported each day in Mexico City, and on average in the Federal District in the first quarter of 1997 one police officer was killed and one injured weekly. A sense of insecurity prevails among many citizens because of the lack of confidence in the police and the fear of police misbehavior and crime.
Other
The Secretariat of Government (Secretaría de Gobernación), has Immigration officers who directed by the Mexican Immigration Service, these officers have the right to detain suspected undocumented aliens and, under certain conditions, may deport them without formal deportation proceedings.The Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, Crédito) Customs officers are deployed at borders and at international airport
International airport
An international airport is any airport that can accommodate flights from other countries and are typically equipped with customs and immigration facilities to handle these flights to and from other countries...
s to interdict contraband entering Mexico.
The Bank of Mexico (Banco de México) also operates its own security division, which is charged with enforcing banking and monetary laws, including cases of counterfeiting, fraud, and money laundering.
State Police
Each of the country's thirty-one statesStates of Mexico
The United Mexican States is a federal republic formed by 32 federal entities .According to the Constitution of 1917, the states of the federation are free and sovereign. Each state has their own congress and constitution, while the Federal District has only limited autonomy with a local Congress...
maintain both preventive and judicial police called the State Judicial Police. State police are under the direction of the state's governor. The distinction between crimes investigated by State and Federal Judicial Police is not always clear. Most offenses come under the state authorities. Drug dealing, crimes against the government, and offenses involving several jurisdictions are the responsibility of the federal police. The state-level preventive police forces are together perhaps 90,000-strong, and the state-level judicial police perhaps 25,000-strong.
State police
State police
State police are a type of sub-national territorial police force, particularly in Australia and the United States. Some other countries have analogous police forces, such as the provincial police in some Canadian provinces, while in other places, the same responsibilities are held by national...
forces operate from precinct stations, called delegaciones with each delegación has an average of 200 police officers attached to it. The ranking officer is known as a comandante , equivalent to a first captain in the military. Most of the remaining personnel hold the ranks of first sergeant, second sergeant, and corporal.
Municipalities
Some of the municipalities of MexicoMunicipalities of Mexico
Municipalities are the second-level administrative division in Mexico . There are 2,438 municipalities in Mexico, making the average municipality population 45,616...
have their own preventive and municipal police forces, which are responsible for handling minor civil disturbances and traffic infractions. Of the 2,395 municipalities, 335 have no police forces. However, some of the municipal forces are large and important.
History
There have historically been multiple government departments with varying levels of responsibility for law enforcement, a situation criticised by experts who suggest that all their functions should be merged into the Public Security Ministry.Training
Since 2007, all senior police officers from state and federal forces must complete a common year-long training program. However, training at lower levels remains poor. In some municipalities of Chihuahua, the municipal police have received training from Mexican Army advisors.Private security
Mexican security companies have grown significantly in recent years, in response to the state’s failure to provide security. Mexico holds third place world-wide in the purchase of security equipment. Between 1998 and 1999, private security companies increased some40 percent. The Mexican government has had serious problems in regulating these companies, most of which are illegitimate since they lack the necessary legal permits. It was estimated in 1999, that about 10,000 private security firms operated in Mexico, yet
only 2,000 had some form of official permit.
According to official figures in December 2000, there were 2,984 private security companies registered with 153,885 employees. The inability to regulate or control these forces creates potential security problem. Since many of these companies are unregulated, some will engage in criminality instead of (or as a means of) protecting their clients, thus exacerbating the problem of insecurity. According to a study by the Mexico City legislative assembly, in 1998 there were more private security guards than police. A substantial number of private security guards were formerly police officers or presently work as security guards while off-duty; these dynamics increase the likelihood of police corruption.
See also
- Crime in MexicoCrime in MexicoCrime is among the most urgent concerns facing Mexico, as Mexican drug trafficking rings play a major role in the flow of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana transiting between Latin America and the United States. Drug trafficking has led to corruption, which has had a deleterious effect on Mexico's...
- Presumed GuiltyPresumed Guilty (2009 film)Presumed Guilty shows the attempt by two young Mexican attorneys to exonerate a wrongly convicted man by making a documentary...
, a 2009 Mexican documentary film