Saturday, June 6, 2009

New Cops

Via Mex Files, the Latin American Herald Tribune had a short article earlier this week about a new police recruiting class: 
The Mexican government has launched a program to train 1,500 university graduates as federal police investigators and intelligence officers as part of an effort to upgrade law enforcement by introducing scientific methods.

“It gives me great pleasure to know that there are men and women trained at the country’s best universities who are willing to be investigative and intelligence police officers for the Federal Police,” President Felipe Calderon told the trainees in a videotaped message on Monday.

The federal police trainees should be “the human face of the state before the citizenry,” the president said, adding that those participating in the program would have “in their hands the very delicate task of providing security to the country.”

The 12-week program will be held at four universities and police academies, with Mexican university professors and foreign instructors teaching the courses.
Following Sean Connery's pattern of thinking before recruiting Andy Garcia into the untouchables, Calderón's team has placed a greater emphasis on hiring college students. They should keep it up; as I wrote in February, the economic crisis presents a great opportunity to fill the ranks with young, uncorrupted, diversely talented recruits. With joblessness spiking, at least some of the underemployed or unemployed lawyers, engineers, chemists, et cetera, would be willing to draw a salary with the federal police. 

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