More on the Anniversary

Here's a portion of the op-ed piece from Alejandro Martí, in honor of last week's first anniversary of the National Agreement for Security, Legality, and Justice:

One year from the signing of the National Agreement for Security, Justice, and Legality offers an opportune moment to acknowledge that there have been advances and will in directly confronting organized crime. Nevertheless, said advances are clearly insufficient.

The balance is in general negative, tasks remain incomplete and there are irrefutable indicators that insecurity has worsened instead of improving.

There are at least four aspects that in Mexico SOS we consider to be a failure: first, all that having to do with the strengthening of the penitentiary system. Bands of kidnappers continue to operate with impunity, even from inside the jails, many of the bloodiest criminals that in recent months have been actors in heart-wrenching cases, are ex-convicts, and some even enjoyed the benefit of parole, which they took advantage of to return to the streets to commit crimes and harm society.

Second, the creation of Specialized Anti-kidnapping Units. According to Conago and the National Agreement's System of Information and Follow-up, 26 entities reported the creation of these entities, but only seven operate with the respective official decree of creation. Despite those "advances" a generalized increase in kidnapping and other crimes has been reported in practically the entire national territory.

Additionally, the meager advances in terms of cleaning up and strengthening security and justice institutions stand out. Every time there is a kidnapping we are surprised to see among the criminals one or several persons that are or were a part of the authority. As was recently published in some media, four of every ten agents who have resigned from the AFI --now the Federal Investigative Police-- have gone on to the ranks of organized crime. This the overwhelming proof of the degree of deterioration from which our principal "security" agencies suffer.

Lastly, we have everything that has to do with the system of indicators for monitoring crime. Even though we in civil society have made some important efforts and strides in the creation of these mechanisms, commonly called "observatories", we continue to suffer from a lack of solid, up-to-date, and verifiable information from the authorities that supply our systems and help us to evaluate the problem in her proper dimension.