Dismissed Mexico Police, Army Deserters Feed Ranks of Criminals, Says Expert Fabiola Martinez - La Jornada
go to original July 27, 2013

The cleansing of police ranks in Mexico, alongside military desertion, has created a reserve army for organized crime, said Dr. Franz Vanderschuren, former international coordinator of the Safer Cities Program of the United Nations.

In a lecture at the Secretariat of Government Relations (SEGOB), the current director of the Center for Public Safety at the Alberto Hurtado University in Santiago de Chile, said that twelve years ago, during the administration of Ernesto Zedillo, around 80,000 soldiers deserted. "Where did all those people go?" he asked.

In his opinion, the controls of confidence (evaluations applied to purge police forces) have resulted in indiscriminate expulsion of police designated as suspected accomplices of criminals, or for obesity issues or certain psychological characteristics.

That doesn't work, said the sociologist. What is needed to fight crime is to strengthen police intelligence mechanisms to know who is corrupt and who is not.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

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