President Fox proudly proclaims that the
crime rate in México is dropping and complains about the perception
north of the border that México is a lawless country, but let's look at
reality here. Assume that the reported crime rates are dropping but see
what Mexicans feel about the structure of law and order in México.
In a column by Kelly Arthur Garrett of The Herald México recently,
he recounts some things that are well known about crime in México. He
quotes Rafael Ruiz Harrell, a respected criminologist; "Crime can go
down as much as you want and the population . . . will still feel a
lack of security as long as reporting a crime takes four hours (or all
day) and then nothing happens anyway." Getting into numbers, no more
than 20% of crimes are even reported! And over half of those reported
are incorrectly reported, many to the wrong police office (we have so
many types of police), paperwork mistakes and so on. The actual process
can take hours and hours until you finally give up in the wee hours of
the morning. So, out of every 1,000 crimes, 117 crimes get actually
reported. And due to paperwork mistakes, only 12 of these are even
investigated. The bottom line is that out of 1,000 crimes committed,
there is only one conviction. Not bad odds for contemplating a life of
crime here. These figures are not new, and have been the case for a long
time. But let's look at this from the people's perspective. There is
more to this than cold numbers.
For the past few years a new style of kidnapping has been practiced
called "express" kidnapping. The victim is taken hostage (usually after
coming out of a bank) and is forced to go to one ATM after another and
withdraw all his funds from his credit and debit cards. Then he is let
go in a remote neighborhood. The interesting thing in the reports is
that the many victims see a police car in the area in clear view when he
is taken for his ride. And the government tells us that some of arrested
kidnappers are former and sometimes even active police.
A while back, there was an assault on a manufacturing plant not too
far from where I live. It ended up with one of the guards being shot and
killed. The getaway was clean. With a corpse on the premises, you have
no choice in reporting the crime. But when the police did come, they
were more interested in shaking down the plant owner than catching the
robbers. After bringing up all kinds of spurious charges against the
owner and threatening the owner to shut down the plant for days to
"investigate", the police relented . . . after receiving a fat
"gratuity". The plant owner wondered who were the biggest threats to
him, the robbers or the police. Could it be that they were one and the
same?
In another case, a man discovered that his wife and one of his
children had been kidnapped on returning home from work. This man is not
a rich man by any means, a midlevel manager in an industrial plant. Then
he received the phone calls demanding money. The kidnappers were good
and ran him ragged with constantly changing instructions on how and
where to pay for the release of his wife and child. But in the process,
he made a mistake. He reported the crime to the police. Finally, he
received instructions to bring cash for the release of the victims.
After negotiations, the amount was reduced from $5,000.00 (USD) to
$2,700.00. With this in hand, he went to the pick up point. The money
was paid and the two victims were released unharmed. But there were some
interesting things about that process. For one, the kidnappers were
clearly visible and did not hide their faces. Maybe they felt they had
total impunity? Even more interesting is that three police cars were
parked nearby observing the proceedings . . . but doing nothing.
The man's problems were not over. Although both victims were
released unharmed, he still had the police to reckon with. He reported a
crime. And he was required to pay the police for doing nothing. And you
wonder why so little crime gets officially reported?
The police also had a neat way to prevent any complaints about
their behavior in this matter. I cannot go into details, but there is no
way for the man to take this any further.
If this seems strange, it is the system. If you are involved in a
traffic accident, and it is reported, all involved have to pay a "fee".
It doesn't matter whose fault it is, you all pay.
What we are talking about here are real people, and how the
established legal and enforcement system in México treats them. In the
meantime, Fox has the temerity to complain about how Mexicans in the US
are treated. When someone suggested that the above kidnapping victim
should go to the National Human Rights Commission and report this, we
must realize that while the commission complains frequently about human
rights violations here, they have no real power and are routinely
ignored. In other words, they are just window dressing to brag about to
the rest of the world. But the Mexican people know better.
As Garrett pointed out, "A hopelessly inefficient judicial system
in one reason that crime reigns today."
While the present administration loudly proclaimed sweeping changes
before assuming office, they also proved to be totally inept at actually
doing something. It is also interesting to note that up to now, only one
potential presidential candidate has made any mention of law and
enforcement reform saying that criminality has taken hold of many police
forces. And he is not one of the leading candidates.
As pointed out last week about the Pew survey, one of the driving
forces behind Mexicans fleeing their country is ". . . quality of life
and law and order". Or in other words, the lack of.
I am wondering if Tony Garza, US ambassador to México, is going to
declare the entire country of México as a danger zone.
_____________________________________
Richard N. Baldwin T., a HispanicVista.com (http://www.hispanicvista.com/)
contributing columnist, lives in Tlalnepantla, Edo de México. E-mail at:
R1041643422@aol.com
By
Richard N. Baldwin T. /HispanicVista.com