Only 1 in 10 Police Are Ready for Mexico's New Criminal Justice System Arturo Angel - Animal Politico
go to original November 12, 2015

With little more than six months to implement the new adversarial criminal justice system in Mexico, nine out of 10 police officers are not prepared, although they are the first link of its operation.

In June 2008, when the penal reform was approved, a time table of eight years was set to implement it, so that the country could prepare its police forces for a system where respect for human rights, appropriate custody of evidence, preservation of the scene of a crime and justified arrest of a suspect are fundamental. These are issues where the police are the main protagonists, as they are the first to have contact with a possible criminal act.

After seven and a half years, the federal government can confirm that they have properly trained and certified only 1 in 10 police. The rest have not received training or adequate courses on the new penal system.

The Technical Secretariat of the Coordinating Council for the Implementation of the Criminal Justice System (SETEC) is the body authorized to monitor the smooth transition to the new system. Its head, Maria de los Angeles Fromow, told Animal Politico that the Council has trained 17,000 state and municipal officiers, as well as just over half of the federal police. But that figure represents only a little more than 10% of all public security forces of the three levels of government [federal, state and municipal].

Therefore, the federal government has designed an "emergency plan" to train the police, which will begin November 16, Fromow confirmed. The plan is to conduct express workshops of 40 hours in each state.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Related: Mexico Justice System: Tests of Police Trustworthiness Are Failure (La Jornada)

Related: Citizens' Group Finds Police Unprofessional, Underskilled, Untrustworthy (The Fulano Forum)

Related: Mexico State and Municipal Police Departments Full of Administrative and Structural Dysfunctions - NGO Report (Animal Politico)

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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