Mexico tackles police reform as outrage at drug violence grows

It is dark on a weekday early evening and a Fuerza Civil convoy is lining up to drive out of barracks and out on patrol in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey.

These are no "bobbies on the beat": two officers of the force that likes to style itself the "best police in the country" sit in the cab of each pickup; another, toting a gun, is the "tower", standing on the flatbed behind; and two sit on either side, facing outwards, giving the unit a 360-degree view of any ambush or trouble.

Trained in Israeli commando techniques - which the Fuerza Civil says keeps officers safer than US tactics - the force is, according to its head, Commissioner General Felipe de Jesus Gallo Gutierrez, "a real miracle".

Now, with Mexico convulsed by the apparent murder of 43 students after corrupt municipal police in Iguala allegedly handed them to the drug gang with which they were in cahoots, President Enrique Pena Nieto is trying to overhaul police forces across Mexico. It is, he says, time to stop "excuses or apologies" about inefficient, underpaid and often crime-riddled police forces.

The Fuerza Civil is a remarkable success story, by any measure, and gives reassurance that change can be achieved quickly, but experts caution there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Just over three years ago, Monterrey in the northerly state of Nuevo Leon was one of the bloodiest front-lines in Mexico's drugs war, with gun battles among rival cartels responsible for an average of seven murders a day. Bodies strung from bridges were a grisly sight; there were shootings in broad daylight; and in one of the most horrific events, gangs stormed a casino, doused it in petrol and set it alight, killing at least 52 people trapped inside.

The Fuerza Civil was created from scratch and began operating in September 2011; now Nuevo Leon's crime rates are back to where they were before the drug lords' turf war exploded. Patrol pickups with flak-jacketed officers may look like they are still braving a war zone, but the state murder rate is down to 15 a month, burglaries have been slashed by a third and car theft is nearly 10 times lower than in mid-2011.

The president's police reform plan, submitted to Congress but in limbo until legislators return from recess in February, is to scrap the country's 1,800 municipal forces - the most susceptible to infiltration by organised crime - and put revamped state forces in charge under a "mando unico", or single command.

Critics say it is just a rehash of an old plan that has not been implemented fully or successfully. Guerrero, the state where Iguala is located, was supposed to have had mando unico when the students disappeared three months ago, after all.

Three states singled out by Mr Pena Nieto as among the reform's top priorities - Guerrero, Michoacan, where federal forces took control of security nearly a year ago, and Tamaulipas, which borders the US and is one of Mexico's worst security black spots - "are failed states, so the solutions there are going to be very different", says Pamela Starr, a Mexico expert at the University of Southern California.

Antonio de la Cuesta, at think-tank CIDAC, says: "You can't create institutions by decree. In some places, Mexican authorities are in league with criminality . . . You can't solve this with one single form of mando unico. Nuevo Leon has been supremely successful, but you have to tackle this problem case by case."

Nuevo Leon increased taxes and worked hand-in-hand with some of the country's biggest companies, such as cement firm Cemex, soda bottler Femsa and the Tec de Monterrey university, which have headquarters in the state, to design and implement the new police force. It offered far better pay and conditions to foster pride and ensure officers had too much to lose to be tempted by crime. Anyone who had previously been a police officer was automatically ineligible to apply.

"The first thing you need is political will. And a lot of money. This costs, and it costs a lot. But it costs more not to have it," Commissioner Gallo Gutierrez says.

Underlining the volatility even in Nuevo Leon, where the Fuerza Civil's success is tangible, he says that a headless body has been found in recent days, and that a couple of weeks ago, police picked up a stolen car containing, among other things, a rocket-propelled grenade.

Ms Starr expects changes to the police reform bill but notes a strong incentive to pass something, despite midterm elections in June that would ordinarily paralyse decision-making, because of such intense public outrage both at Mexico's endemic corruption and at the authorities and political parties.

"Regardless of what gets passed, the trick will be implementing it," she says. "Mexico is a work in progress."

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