Politics: A tall order for the new public security head

MEXICO - Report 09 Nov 2020 by Guillermo Valdes and Francisco González

With Alfonso Durazo’s departure from the Ministry of Public Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) to run for governor of his home state, the first chapter of President López Obrador’s security policy has come to an end. But the next chapter may well prove as ineffective as Durazo’s tenure, in which recurring government promises to lower the murder rate led to new record levels of violent deaths, with quarterly moving averages continuing to hover near 3,000 per month.

Femicides are averaging slightly more than 80 per month, an issue that has converted a reinvigorated feminist movement into the president's main public security critic alongside the family members of femicide victims and the disappeared. Durazo's legacy will be one of public insecurity after he failed to put a dent in homicides, gender violence, domestic violence, vigilante justice, roadblocks, as well as a broad range of other criminal activity.

AMLO quickly replaced Durazo with a public servant who had built her experience during her time with the Mexico City government under López Obrador, Marcelo Ebrard and Claudia Sheinbaum. But the problem is not with the personnel at the helm of the SSPC, who are entirely subordinate to the military, including a fully militarized National Guard. Durazo admitted as much to members of Congress in July 2019, saying in reference to the ostensibly civilian National Guard that was still coalescing, "Tell me the name of a civilian who has the recognition and the capacity to lead 50,000 military personnel.”

SSPC officials are utterly constrained by a security approach dictated by the president himself, and are dependent on the defense minister's approving every move. And with the security services already severely understaffed, the government is proposing deep funding cuts for a third year even after having lopped off more than a quarter of his inaugural security budget. For next year it is projecting a real 16% or 52 billion peso cut to the lowest level since such spending peaked in the final year of the Calderón administration.

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