Morning Meeting

Today the National Council of Public Security reunites to discuss the thirteen recommendations made last week by the Senate's Commission on Public Security. The group, which was reconfigured in January, will also analyze whether states are fulfilling their crime-fighting duties, and could conceivably withhold federal funding for states whose effort is deemed inadequate. This last element seems unwieldy and poorly thought out. It's like the old counter-narcotics certification battles in the US Congress, transplanted south. Let's say the government concludes that Michoacán is not doing its part (understandable!); withholding federal cash doesn't incentivize the changes in behavior the government would want. Morally dubious local officials would have all the more incentive to sell their services to drug gangs, and the odd honest cop would be all the more alone. Plus, the already insufficient federal-state cooperation would suffer even more, just as the US's relationship with Mexico and Colombia cooled every time congressmen used the nations as punching bags. Federal money alone doesn't work as much of a stick or carrot.