Policía, conducta y control: el caso de la policía de Guadalajara, México

Since the 1990s, Mexican police organizations made it evident that they were incapable of handling public security and had unprecedented levels of corruption and police-related crimes. To face these cases of police incompetence and misconduct, reforms to the law enforcement system were designed and implemented. However, twenty years have passed since these reforms were implemented and high levels of police misconduct are still noticeable.
This study answers the question “why have police reforms failed to end police misconduct?” To do so, we analyse the implementation of cleansing and professionalization policies and programs in the police corporation of Guadalajara. We also analyse internal and external controls for police behaviour that were formally established since the 1990s for said organization.
Government authorities and police chiefs have found it easier to attribute the lack of success of such reforms to police officers acting alone, or as a group, who are reluctant to change. Other studies regarding police behaviour explain police misconduct with the persistence of informal practices among chiefs and police officers who look for illegal profits for both parties.
In this study, we consider that it is not individual responsibility or informal practices arising from wanting illegal profit what explains persistent police misconduct. What makes it difficult to show some continuity in terms of policies, reforms, and control programs are some elements of the political environment, such as public security being so closely linked to politics, where political scandals are to be avoided; the protection of political loyalties, which limits authorities and police chiefs’ supervision; and a constant change of government authorities and police chiefs.
The internal control of the hierarchical chain has been rarely analysed in studies about the police in Mexico. When they are mentioned, it is usually to emphasize complicity relations among chiefs and subordinates, derived from informal practices or police subculture or, ultimately, due to corruption profit sharing purposes. However, in this study supervision deficiencies from chiefs over subordinates do not derive from these factors but from the fact that such deficiencies take place because no authority is certain about their position and hierarchy, in a context where authority changes happen for political reasons. This means that no one can be certain if the person under them will become their chief in the future, to whom they will owe obedience and who will possibly take revenge or oppose to personal plans and projects. From this point of view, for head police officers who must supervise subordinates, the best strategy to preserve their position is to carry out a friendly and loose supervision of subordinates.
In this regard, this study considers that there are plenty of police officers who join the ruling political party or keep close connections to people with political influence as a way of receiving legal and illegal benefits, or as means of protection from a superior who is closely monitoring behaviour.