Opinion Archive

What to Make of Mexico's Security Dysfunction II

August 20, 2008

The tragic murder of 14 year-old Fernando Martí by his kidnappers has rightly sparked a new wave of outrage regarding crime. What it has not done is create a realistic strategy to stop what has become the longest crime wave in Mexican history. In fact, the nature of the problem is profoundly misunderstood not only by oft-criticized governments, but by our business community and NGO ("non-governmental organization") activist community, as well. A review is in order.

A brief history of crime

Mexico has spent most of its time as an independent country under authoritarian rule. Dictatorships and one-party states have a different view of crime prevention than democracies do. The job of their police is not only to protect law-abiding citizens, but also to stop political dissent. Crime is perceived less as a social problem than as a nuisance. With no checks or balances on power, it is often kept under control without regard for due process. Extrajudicial punishment is common.

Mexico City lived through a crime wave at the beginning of the 20th century. Dictator Porfirio Díaz promptly ordered the police to "deal with it". Much blood was reportedly spilled, but lore has it that for several years the DF was the safest major city in the world. Under the rule of the PRI's "perfect dictatorship" things were fairly similar. Under Mexico City Regent Ernesto Uruchurtu there were persistent rumors of extrajudicial killings and the DF spent most of the post-revolutionary years of the 1900s without major crime problems.

Then democracy came. In successful democratic transitions, the judiciary is strengthened and the police purged of old-school henchmen and political operators. Politicians are left to do their job, while law enforcement is professionalized. Such was the case in Chile, Spain, Taiwan and South Korea. But presidents Zedillo and Fox saw the transition more about what they would stop doing, rather than what they would do. It was more about letting go of the reins of authoritarian power than creating new mechanism of democratic governance.

The upshot is that Mexico lost the political will to act brutally against criminals, without creating the institutional framework to justly enforce the law. Mexico City was especially affected because it voted for a PRD government as soon as it held its first election in 1997. In Mexico, the Left has a foolish disdain of law enforcement because it is still haunted by the specter of authoritarianism. It also suffers from the tragic misconception that crime is mostly a result of poverty. It really, really isn't. Crime is mostly perpetrated by the disaffected urban lower-middle class because it is easy, profitable and safe (for them).

Hello, McFly?

Notice how not one of the three major parties knows how to deal with crime. As Excelsior columnist Leo Zuckerman points out, crime is "political kryptonite" and no one needs to touch it because everyone is equally inept. So, politicians make mollifying pronouncements, instead of executing major overhauls.

Meanwhile, the economic elite has been charmed by the siren call of the media and public "pressure". The powers that be ought to sit down quietly with public officials, hashing out a well-funded coordinated response where everyone has a role to play. The private sector could be funding best-practice analysis and some large-scale private monitoring of certain high-profile areas, people, and officials, among many other things.

For example, why wasn't an obvious target like Fernando Martí, who was a minor, wearing a GPS chip? Or why isn't there a database of officials who have been dismissed from their police forces? It would cost the equivalent of two ransom payments, but it is not being done.

Ya basta... de marchas

There are literally thousands of solutions to this problem, mostly involving intelligence and control of pre-determined physical spaces. Organizing another demonstration (which highlights the sense of lawlessness) is not one of them. Politicized working-class interest groups take to the streets because it is the best way for them to pressure a distant government. In contrast, business leaders whose families are being targeted were instrumental in bringing President Calderón to power. It's time for them to cash in their favors with a clear, unpublicized commitment to solve this problem once and for all. Forget the fanfare. Forget even going after criminals. Start with the government's own employees: aggressively purge every single institution of law enforcement and continue by professionalizing the new (better-trained, better-paid) hires. Then, create accurate databases for everything: citizens, visitors, cars, etc. Oh, and build lots of new jails that incorporate best practices to reform the convicts: the current system has generated a lot of wayward young men who need to be both incarcerated and rehabilitated.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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