Law enforcement in Mexico City

For the federal agency, see Secretariat of Public Security (Mexico).

The Ministry of Public Security (Template:Lang-es; SSP) is the law enforcement agency of Mexico City, headquartered in Venustiano Carranza. It manages a combined force of over 90,000 officers in the Federal District (DF).

The Federal District Police (Policial Distrito Federal) is the police department of the Federal District of Mexico. The Federal District (the DF or Distrito Federal) contains the heart of Mexico City and the seat of federal Mexican government. There are 8.84 million residents of the DF, according to 2009 estimates, and another 21.1 million people in the metropolitan region.

The SSP is charged with maintaining public order and safety in the center of Mexico City where public insecurity and crime rates are highest in the nation. As a result, there have been concurrent efforts to increase accountability and improve police effectiveness. Beginning in 1996, authorities began a dramatic restructuring of the SSP, which included replacing major officials with army officers. Recently, the most recent high-profile effort has been Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s announcement in 2002 that the DF would contract former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as a consultant to the SSP.

The SSP also regulates the huge private security industry in the DF and operates the Animal Control Unit (Brigada de Vigiliancia Animal).

Organization

The DF stands out for having the highest crime rates in Mexico, as well as a huge uniformed "preventive police" force of approximately 34,000 officers, not to mention 40,000 auxiliary police and 15,000 banking police. These nearly 90,000 officers work for the Secretariat of Public Security of the DF (Secretaría de Seguridad Pública – SSP DF). In 2000, the SSP had a budget of about $10 billion pesos and is organizaed into six major divisions.

Preventive Police - DF Organization

• Sectoral Police (Policía Sectoral)- the blue uniformed Sectoral Police provides community policing throughout Mexico City, the Sectoral Police consists of slightly less than half of the Preventive Police are distributed geographically in the first major division the Sectoral Police, who six main regions with usually three precincts in each (a total of 16 precincts) and a number of sectors within each precinct. There are a total of 70 sectors.

The remaining five divisions of the Preventive Police containing over 17,000 of the 34,000 total, are organized into special divisions:

• The Metropolitan Police (Policía Metropolitana), consists of six special units:
  • Public Transit Police,
  • Tourist Police, gives information on law, customs and cultural attractions in the local community and places to be visited by all tourists. The officers of the Tourist Police wear a distinctive green uniform and deal and speak English and some other European languages. They can be called upon in all kinds of situations, such as road traffic accidents, theft, disputes with hotels or shop keepers where a foreign tourist is involved. They will also act as arbitrators in disputes, and are supposed to do so in an unbiased fashion.
  • Grenadiers (Granaderos) protect the historic areas of the district
  • Mounted Police,
  • Feminine Police (Policía Femenil) who work in schools, with juveniles, at public events and in public parks and gardens,
• Emergency Rescue Squad (Escuadron de Rescate y Urgencias Medicas or ERUM).
• Special Squadrons (Fuerzas Especiales) consisting of four main groups:
  • Helicopter Squadron (Escadron Elicopteros);
  • Special Unit (Buczo Especial) , a specialized unit responsible for combined duties involving traffic enforcement, crowd control, and special weapons and tactics (SWAT) services within the city. One unique feature of the unit is that the Special Unit primarily relies on the use of motorcycles in their daily patrols allowing the unit to perform routine traffic enforcement; accompany parades, crowds, and visiting dignitaries; and to quickly travel to situations wherein the unit's SWAT skills are requested. Specialized trucks and support vehicles are also used to transport equipment and officers when needed.
  • Task Force (Fuerza de Tareas) which deals with terrorists and bomb threats;
  • Alfa Group, a secretive, ad hoc force that works with the Special Unit and fights drug trafficking.
• Roadway Security (Seguridad Vial), which maintains a force of brown-uniformed police that patrol the roads and highways.
• Internal Affairs is the final division.

Two separate forces under the SSP but not part of the Preventive Police, are the Complimentary Police containing two security police forces:

• Auxiliary Police (approximately 40,000 strong), a security police force that guards official buildings and other specific locations like the airport;
• Bank Police (Bancarios) (about 15,000 officers), which guards businesses, financial institutions and banks.

Judicial Police of the DF

The DF is also unique for maintaining its own force of judicial police, the Judicial Police of the Federal District (Policía Judicial del Distrito Federal – PJDF), which are organized under the Office of the Attorney General of the DF (the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Distrito Federal). The PGJDF receives complaints and reports of possible crimes and investigates them.

The PGJDF maintains 16 precincts (delegaciones) with an estimated 3,500 judicial police, which includes 1,100 investigating agents for prosecuting attorneys (agentes del ministerio público), and 941 experts or specialists (peritos).

The PGJDF budget exceeds $3 billion pesos each year.

Police Corruption and Public Confidence

Corruption and severe inefficiency plague the Mexican police. Further, low pay and lack of resources have hindered efforts at improving police performance, battling corruption and professionalizing the forces. A related lack of public confidence has further eroded the ability of the police to respond to crime: A survey in 1999 found that 90% of respondents in Mexico City had “little” or “no” trust in the police. Such a lack of public confidence translates into a lack of support—that is, an unwillingness to report crimes or assist in investigations, which is crucial to solving crimes. Nationwide, only 12% of the population has expressed confidence in the police.

In 2002, an advocacy group (Transparency International) estimated that the median Mexican household spends 8% of its income on bribes (mordidas or “bites”). On the TI scale, Mexico ranks 57th worldwide in perception of corruption, one notch better than China at 58 and well below Brazil and Peru at 45. In 1997, Mexico ranked 47th; in 1998, 55th. A management consulting firm (A.T. Kearney) reported, also in 2002, that Mexico’s attractiveness to foreign investors dropped, from fifth to ninth place worldwide, due to concerns with corruption and crime.

Private security

Mexican and Mexico City 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 some 40 percent. The Mexican federal and state governments 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

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• Presumed Guilty, a 2009 Mexican documentary film

References

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• Crime in Mexico

External links

• Mexico City Public Security official page Template:Es icon
• Mexico City PGJDF official page Template:Es icon
• Federal Police Forces