States in Mexico Leave Millions on the Table, Thwarting Police Reform Patrick Corcoran - InSight Crime
go to original January 27, 2014

Mexico’s state governments are failing to make use of federal funds to clean up the police, a telling example of the lack of coordination and follow-through that can sink well-designed plans.

As reported by Milenio, over the first half of 2013 Mexico’s 31 states plus the Federal District failed to make use of 88 percent of the federal funds available to them for vetting their police bodies. The funds were to be used on a wide range of measures, such as drug and polygraph testing. In 2012, the states neglected to spend 33 percent of the money available, essentially leaving roughly $190 million on the table.

Partially as a consequence, programs to submit state police to vetting processes are woefully behind schedule. Indeed, the information was made public by the Chamber of Deputies as the lower house issued an extension to the deadline for full vetting of the state police. While they had been required to complete the programs prior to December 29, 2013, now the states will have until October 2014.

Because of the track record of police officers at all levels working with local criminal groups, carrying out quality control programs in both state and local police departments is considered a vitally important task. Furthermore, this is one of the few initiatives undertaken in Mexico over the past several years that directly attacks the problem. Though a single vet of all of the nation’s police would not be sufficient to make a definitive break with the longstanding patterns of corruption, it would go much further toward addressing the problem than all of the helicopters transferred in the Merida Initiative.

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