Police reform in Mexico : informal politics and the challenge of institutional change / Daniel M. Sabet.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sabet, Daniel M., 1976- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Police administration--Mexico.

Police administration.

Police--Mexico.

Police.

Police professionalization.

Mexico.

Police professionalization--Mexico.

Physical Description:

xvi, 278 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford Politics and Policy, an imprint of Stanford University Press, 2012.

Summary:

Despite numerous policies and pledges to end the illegality and lack of professionalism that plague Mexican police departments, these efforts have, for the most part, failed. Why have the results of reforms in Mexico been largely unsuccessful? Daniel M. Sabet brings a political scientist's training and a consultant's experience to answer the question.

Not surprisingly, organized crime presents a major obstacle to institutional change, but Sabet argues that the problems of Mexican policing are really problems of governance. He finds that reform has suffered from a number of policy design and implementation challenges. More importantly, the informal rules of Mexican politics have prevented the continuity of reform efforts across administrations, allowed patronage appointments to persist, and undermined anti-corruption efforts.

Sabet's research illustrates that although many advances have been made in Mexican policing, policymakers have failed to create incentives for meaningful institutional change. Citizens represent perhaps the best hope for counterbalancing the deleterious effects of organized crime and poor governance, but the ambivalent relationship between citizens and their police must be overcome to break the vicious cycle of corruption and ineffectiveness. Book jacket.

Contents:

Realities

Troubled reforms

A problem of municipal governance

Organized crime, the police, and accountability

Citizens and their police : vicious cycles

Society and the police : stopping the vicious cycle

The federal government and local reform

Looking forward.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780804778657

0804778655

OCLC:

760176456