New ideas on security

The problem of insecurity in the last 10 years has been one of the most important challenges for the country. Little progress has been achieved during this period: citizen perception and hard data confirm that there are areas where crime advances month by month.

In the federal anti-crime strategy, the Army has represented a fundamental support, although its function is not to carry out public security tasks, but the infiltration of criminals into different police corporations has left no other option more viable for the moment.

State and municipal police corporations - with trained, professional elements under constant control and decent salary –, who can fully assume the fight against criminal groups, are scarce. Other attempts such as the creation of the National Gendarmeri e have not yet been consolidated. Meanwhile, in the Congress of the Union, initiatives such as the Single Command remain stalled without agreement among the different fractions for approval.

In this context, the National Commission of Governors (CONAGO) announced that it will create an interstate police force to collaborate in the fight against crime.

The so-called CONAGO Force aims to be a group composed of elements from different entities that support the implementation of specific operations in the states. It will be made up of about 100 troops and its function will be based on the inter-prosecution or inter-police collaboration agreements. It will carry out tasks "with the frequency that each state requires" and would be authorities of the benefited entity, which would be in charge of the assigned operation. In principle, this force will go to Guerrero in order to combat car theft.

For some states like Tlaxcala, having 100 elements for a period would represent up to a 60% increase in the number of current elements.

One of the risks is that those entities that have delayed the updating of their corporations remain without giving priority to professionalizing their security bodies.

However, in combating crime, the sum of strategies, combined with adequate coordination - state in this case - can be a route that achieves results against insecurity. The formula proposed by CONAGO is new because it does not represent the creation of a corporation with the high costs involved, but rather the momentary contribution of a very small group of employees from another entity with a specific objective. Levels of insecurity require different schemes to be thought of.

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