Not a bad start

I’ve had some questions about the proposal for a national police, but reading this translation from 9-September El Universal makes it sound more like the Federal Government is adopting the reforms that have been (slowly) transforming the Federal District’s police.  Of course, General Garcia Luna said much the same thing over a year ago.

Mexico’s Federal Secretary of Public Security, Genaro García Luna, is seeking to create a single national standard model for police. He says the present problem does not lie so much with the individual police officer as with an inadequate police system. The present structure is corrupt, has no reach or scope and is continuing to deteriorate, he maintains. ”We are at the point of of introducing to Congress changes to the system, methodologies and the formation of a single model for police throughout the country,” he said. ”Police officers should have at least a high school level education. With such a standard, police could rise from municipal to federal levels,” he said. García maintains that the coming year will present the essential opportunity for transforming the system. ”In Mexico, recruitment of police was catching someone who had no job or education. The present operating system doesn’t work. Paying police wages less than necessary to actually survive doesn’t only lead to individual corruption, but department corruption. The fault is not the officer’s, it’s the system’s.”