No Controls, No Trust

According to an official from the National System of Public Security, 9 percent of Mexico's municipal police forces are verifiably trustworthy. Just 189 of the municipal forces have adopted the system's "program of credible police", compared with 1,822 that have not. Additionally:

"The 1,800 police that aren't passing through the process of adopting of the integrated police system are poorly paid, badly constituted, poorly equipped, and without any process for evaluating controls over honesty.

Those 1,800 forces are the most vulnerable and weakest, the most likely to be co-opted by organized crime. That police is not a guarantee of security nor of honesty and, unfortunately, it now constitutes a universe of 90 percent of the police bodies."

Upon mentioning the state police, [SNSP Executive Secretary Miguel] Alcántara recognized that the issue is worse, because "there isn't a single state that has presented its program for the adoption of the integrated system of police development as the framework of the law".

These means that no officer has been submitted to tests of control and honesty, much less of professionalization, he said.

After recognizing that there are complications in bettering the performance of the officers, he mentioned that...many mayors in the country continue to act like "little caudillos", without having the disposition or the capacity to combat criminality and organized crime.

For the record, the most recent report on the issue that I've seen says that just under 10 percent of state police have been vetted. Which is horrible, but not quite so bad as he makes it out to be.