Law enforcement in Mexico

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Law enforcement in Mexico is divided between federal, state, and municipal agencies. There are two federal police forces, 31 state police forces including two for Mexico City, and (per an investigation of the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Safety System) 1,807 municipal police forces.^[1] There are 366 officers per 100,000 people,^[2] which equals approximately 500,000 in total.

Police corruption in Mexico is endemic, and police forces are often poorly trained and underpaid.^[3] The average wage of a police officer is $350 per month, around that of a builder's labourer, so many police officers supplement their salaries with bribes.^[2] The government struggles to provide police forces with sufficient pay and protection to make it worthwhile resisting the threats and blandishments of the Mexican cartels,^[4] though recent efforts to reform the federal police have succeeded; reforms in 2010 saw a tenth of the 30,000+ officers fired in the first eight months of the year.^[2]

Militarization of police and Mexican Armed Forces involvement in domestic law enforcement are significant in Mexico. In 2006, 45,000 troops of the Mexican Army were deployed to fight the cartels,^[4] with the number rising to 50,000 by October 2010.^[2] In Monterrey, police, soldiers, and prosecutors have conducted joint patrols, which have seen violence reduced.^[2]

At all levels, policing in Mexico tends to maintain separate forces for patrol/response (preventive) policing on the one hand and investigative (judicial) policing on the other.