Monday, June 14, 2010

Mexico’s Proposed Police Force Model Requires Impetus

By Jerry Brewer

Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon recently announced that he will submit a bill to his Congress when they reconvene for constitutional reform promoting a new police force model.  Stressing security and tranquility for Mexico as the hallmark of this initiative, this becomes a heady undertaking for a Mexican government to ponder. 

With last month declared the most violent month this year in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s murder capital has reached more than 5,000 murders since 2008.  Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, currently sustains a rate of 191 murders per 100,000 residents and was dubbed the most violent city in the world in 2009.

The majority of the graphic death and violence has been euphemistically attributed to the drug war and among rival drug trafficking organizations throughout the country.  It is said that these are, for the most part, gangs versus gangs for control of drug territory and supply routes.  However, Mexico appears to be at a loss to explain the number of young women that have been killed in Ciudad Juarez over the last two decades.   More than 370 women and girls were killed between 1993 and 2004, according to an Amnesty International report. But the number of victims is believed to be much higher. The majority all of the cases remain unsolved.

Policing solutions can’t be accomplished without knowing or by simply ignoring the contributing causes or associated problems.  Mexico is obviously the sanctuary of the Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs).  However, by simply anointing Mexico’s DTOs as the primary source of the problems in Mexico, it must be clear that Mexico’s security deficiencies are far much more than that.

The superior weaponry, expertise, and tactics of the DTOs quickly forced the growing proactive militarization initiatives by President Calderon.  Mexican police were faced with grenades tossed into police departments; police being killed and beheaded with impunity; boisterous narcoterrorists declaring their superiority over enforcement strategies and the rule of law; and nurturing anarchy.  These "terrorist-model” strategies were seen by Mexico’s police forces early in 2005 on the streets of Nuevo Laredo, and many police officials walked off the jobs or simply ran.

Local policing structures were never created or designed for this type of paramilitary insurgency.  Too, they were simply not equipped with the necessary resources to defend their jurisdictions or themselves.  This dilemma forced President Calderon to boldly make combating the DTOs and related drug violence a top priority of his administration.  He called the violence and carnage “a threat to the Mexican state.”

His military would soon face the wrath of a formidable enemy as these narcoterrorists stepped up the violence, laying into Mexico’s military head-on with violent assaults.  The Mexican military faced and subsequently captured armored vehicles, grenade launchers, explosive devices, and thousands of automatic weapons.

In a temporary and necessary element of immediately attempting to stem the violence and killings, President Calderon deployed around 5,000 Federal Police officers into the Juarez area.  However, the simple saturation method by enforcement officials into violent sectors or areas eventually swept the narcoterrorists to neighboring jurisdictions.

Although Calderon had no choice but to select his military for many of these battles, they in turn were not created to be a police force, and they lacked much of the expertise of an arm of the criminal justice system.  Criminal investigations, crime scenes/forensics, and other prosecutorial style mandates are necessary components of crime interdiction.

As well, Calderon’s use of extradition as a major tool to combat the traffickers has made a difference and many leaders have been killed resisting their capture.

The U.S. border and local U.S. police have much of the threat in common with Mexico due to the DTO’s superior weaponry and paramilitary tactics.  The City of El Paso and many other border-state jurisdictions have reported decreased crime rates in the face of the southern border threat, but the U.S. cannot deny the DTO’s infiltration into a reported 230 major U.S. cities.  It is spillover in plain language and is impacting police resources.

Calderon’s policing model will be an arduous task requiring senior criminal justice professionals and strategists. It is more than Mexico’s police simply “not doing their jobs well,” as has been suggested.  It will require a force prepared to leverage transnational criminal insurgency, terrorism, and organized crime.  The complexity of their present and future operational environment also requires the securing of Mexico's own southern border with Guatemala and Belize.

The Mexican police function can be built anew with the proper organizational strategies, professionalization and oversight, yet the battles will indeed continue with interdiction and suppression of transnational criminal networks.

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Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami, Florida.  His website is located at www.cjiausa.org.