Although Mexico has invested 1.8 trillion pesos ($97 billion) in security and defense, between the years of 2008 and 2015, crime rates have not stopped increasing in the different states of the country.
About 34 percent of the total budget goes towards security and defense. In other words, around 609 billion pesos were allotted by federal entities to security institutions, according to the 2016 Security and Defense Atlas of Mexico.
In the State of Mexico, the state government allocated 75.3 billion pesos to security, in addition to 17.9 billion supplementary pesos, that come from the federal budget. However, between 2008 and 2014, instead of registering a decrease in the crime rate, it had the opposite effect. In fact, there were 858 more crimes registered, according to the National Public Security System.
Public security spending between 2008 and 2015 totaled 312.7 billion pesos, equivalent to 17.17 percent of the total budget for Security and Defense and 8.61 percent, which comes out to about 156.9 billion pesos, were assigned to the Navy Secretariat (Semar).
The total awarded to the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) represents 23.35 percent of the total state expenditure, with 425.8 billion pesos, in addition to the 205.5 billion pesos that are granted to states and municipalities through federal funds and subsidies.
The lack of professionals that understand how to organize and direct the police corporations is one of the latent problems with the country’s security. At the start of 2012, of the 32 states, 15 were lead by either active or retired military, five by career policemen and 12 by politicians. At the end of 2015, there were nine military personnel, six career policemen and 17 politicians.
MARCIA CHI
GILBERT GIL