Control

Jorge Chabat returns to the theme of control of the police in his latest column, arguing that in order to allow the police to effectively replace the military in the fight against the drug cartels, the former should ape the latter.

[T]he idea of having greater controls on the police agencies, by way of the
establishment of military-style disciplinary measures, doesn't sound
hair-brained. One of the characteristics of the Mexican army for which it has
been used in combating drug trafficking is precisely that: there
are stronger mechanisms of corruption control, although it hasn't
disappeared, nor will it.

But, unlike what is occurring today with the country's police, the incomes
of the soldiers are known by everyone and there's no possibility of, through
legal means, earning more. If a soldier with a low salary appears overnight with
a house in Bosques de las Lomas and a Ferrari, it's obvious that he is receiving
illicit money. It's that simple.

There's also a very strict control of the activities that they carry out:
where they are and where they go. There exists, at the same time, a greater
institutional support in the case of sickness or incapacity, which generates
esprit de corps, a sense of belonging to the institution, which doesn't exist
in the great majority of Mexican police forces.