InSight Crime, 8/6/12
According to data presented at the 33rd meeting of the National Public Security Council, 38,669 of Mexico’s municipal, state, and federal police failed to pass vetting tests due to links with organized crime, drug use, or lack of physical or psychological fitness.
Forty-eight percent of those who failed are concentrated in just 10 states: Coahuila, Zacatecas, Sonora, Jalisco, Veracruz, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Sinaloa, Mexico State, and Colima. The situation is particularly dire in Sinaloa, Coahuila, and Zacatecas, where half of security forces failed the evaluations.
The Executive Secretary of the National System for Public Security (SESNSP), who compiled the data, said that Mexico had 506,609 police officers across the three levels of government. As of June, 52 percent of those employees had taken tests such as polygraphs, toxicology screenings, and background investigations. Of those who failed, 15 percent belonged to federal agencies such as the Secretariat of Public Security (SSP), the Federal Police (PF), and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), while the majority worked for state or local authorities.
