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International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 12 Number 2

Fostering better policing through the use


of indicators to measure institutional
strengthening
Edgar Mohar
Ignacio Mariano de las Casas #47 int. 4, Col. Cimatario, Quertaro, Qro. Mxico 76030.
Tel: +52 (442) 167.3016; Email: emohar@gmail.com

Received 17 October 2009; accepted 17 November 2009


Keywords: police accountability, performance measurement, police
practice, police administration/management

International Journal of Police


Science and Management,
Vol. 12 No. 2, 2010, pp. 170182.
DOI: 10.1350/ijps.2010.12.2.183

Page 170

Edgar Mohar is an independent consultant for


public safety and public policy. He holds a
masters degree in Applied Public Administration
from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and
Higher Education, Mexico. He worked as Secretary of Citizen Security and Safety for the State
of Queretaro, Mexico. During his four years as
Secretary he developed a programme for evaluating municipal police services under a set of
standards based on democratic policing principles, and initiated a comprehensive reform to
improve the State Police accountability system.
Prior to that, he was Municipal Public Safety
Director in the City of Queretaro, where he
undertook police reform efforts to implement a
community-policing model within the municipal
police service. As a consultant, he has developed original indicators intended to improve the
evaluation of a number of public safety programmes supported by Mexican federal grants
for local police agencies. He has also worked for
the Institute for Safety and Democracy, a Mexican think tank, co-writing policy guidance and
standards to certify police agencies in the use of
force. More recently, he has worked as an international consultant with the World Bank in conducting an assessment on Mexico's policies to
prevent youth violence. He is currently an

honorary member of the International Centre for


the Prevention of Crime (Montreal, QC).

ABSTRACT

Despite the remarkable achievements in the


development of Mexicos democracy, there is a
lack of substantial progress in an essential matter:
justice and police reform. This has been aggravated in recent years, following a very violent
outbreak of organised crime, which has shown the
incapability of, and the extent of the corruption
within, these institutions. Although there have
been 15 years of increased investment in the
sector, it is easy to infer that lots of resources have
been wasted and little progress achieved because
of the lack of clear objectives and sound
evaluation.
The State of Queretaro, Mexico, developed a
programme to promote police reform within the
municipal police services, based on standards
designed to strengthen the institutional capabilities to measure and improve individual and
organisation performance. This paper relates the
experience of evaluating police agencies in Queretaro where, as in the rest of the country, police
institutions have been historically closed to public
scrutiny. It shows the expected and unexpected
outcomes, some positive and some negative, of a

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programme to reform police services through


evaluation, with a voluntary, transparent and
objective approach.

model from Queretaro, Mexico intended


for all municipal agencies in the State.
BACKGROUND

INTRODUCTION

During the last decade, Mexico has demonstrated remarkable achievements in the
development of its political system. Yet its
incipient democracy is at great risk due to
the lack of substantial progress in an essential matter: justice and police reform. Corruption, abuse of power, misuse of force,
human rights violations, are all still common practice within police agencies in the
country, as has been extensively documented by the media. All this has been
aggravated in recent years, after a very violent outbreak of organised crime mostly
drug trafficking related which has shown
the incapability of, and the extent of the
corruption within, these institutions.
Generally speaking, police agencies in
Mexico have deep structural and technical
deficiencies. Achieving high international
democratic police standards is a huge challenge when they still struggling with basic
management matters. There is an obvious
need for governments at all levels to
increase their investment in police and
crime prevention policy, but not everything
is about money. The last 10 years investment may have had some positive impact,
particularly on the largest agencies. Nevertheless, it is easy to infer that lots of
resources have been wasted and little progress achieved because of the lack of longterm policy, strategic objectives and sound
evaluation. This is unacceptable in a country with so many needs and budgetary
constrictions, and in a country that cannot
stand weak police institutions for too long
without putting its new democracy at risk.
Having enhanced police services requires
clear direction and means to measure progress. This is exactly what the evaluation

Mexico is a federation with over


100,000,000 inhabitants. It has 31 sovereign
States and a federal district. Each of these
States has its own constitution and its
executive, legislative and judicial branches.
Each State is divided into municipalities
headed by a municipal council and a
municipal president or mayor, who stays in
office for three years. There is no immediate
re-election for officials at any level of
government.
Queretaro, the focus of this paper, is a
State in central Mexico with a population
of just over 1,600,000 inhabitants. The State
has 18 municipalities, the largest Queretaro
with almost half of the State population,
and the smallest San Joaquin with a population of less than 10,000. The overall crime
rate1 places the State on the national mean,
but its violent crime rate is one of the
lowest in the country. The murder rate,
for example, is about 3.22 per 100,000
inhabitants.
Public safety institutional framework

The federal constitution states that government agencies at different jurisdictions and
levels of government must work together in
order to address public safety issues and
concerns effectively. That is the reason
behind the federal constitutions call to all
public safety and criminal justice agencies
to coordinate their work under a National
Public Safety System (SNSP).
The National Public Safety Council
(CNSP) is the steering body of the system.
It is composed of the 31 State governors,
the federal districts head of government,
and federal Ministers concerned with public safety. Every year, the CNSP approves
the formula for the distribution of the
public safety federal fund or grant (FASP),

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Fostering better policing through the use of indicators

as well as the strategic objectives for


the investment. This fund gives about
US$500,000,000 a year3 to the States. In
the final balance it has increased the overall
public expenditure on public safety, despite
the fact that some State governments significantly reduced their own resources
invested in the sector.
Almost all State governments give funding, either from FASP or from local
resources, to assist municipalities in their
struggle to meet basic levels of equipment
and training for their police services. This is
rarely done following a specific strategy
under a comprehensive plan, so no evaluations are performed to measure the overall
permanent improvement for an agency.
The funding for these shared strategic
objectives approved by the CNSP has permitted important progress for public safety
and the criminal system. Good examples are
the following: the development of several
national databases4 running on a secure
computer network used by all federal and
State agencies, as well as some of the largest
municipal ones; a state of the art encrypted
radio network that links all large police
services in the country; a continuous
growth of the emergency telephone service
0665 in terms of geographic area covered
and population served; a consensus on policy guidelines for recruitment, selection,
training, performance evaluation, promotion and dismissal of police officers; and a
standardised basic training curriculum for
new police officers attending all State and
municipal police academies. Nevertheless,
despite these achievements, crime remains
at the higher levels reached after the sharp
increase occurred during the past decade.
This situation has been made worse by a
recent outbreak of violent crime, mainly
linked to drug cartels activities.
Policing in Mexico and Queretaro

Among the federal governments several law


enforcement agencies, the two most

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important are the Federal Preventive Police


(PFP) and the Federal Investigations Agency
(AFI).6 Queretaro also has two different
State police agencies: the investigative
police (PIM) under the jurisdiction of the
Attorney-General and the State preventive
police (POES), under the Public Safety
Ministry. In 1998, POES delivered local
policing in the capital city and traffic
enforcement State-wide. Then, following
federal and State constitutional reforms, a
new municipal police service was created
for the capital city (Guardia Municipal) and
traffic enforcement was decentralised to all
municipal agencies. Currently, there are 2
federal, 2 State and 18 municipal police
services within the State boundaries.7 AFI
and PIM investigate federal and local crime
respectively. PFP is in charge of traffic safety
on the federal highway network. POES
does the same for the States roads, and it
also gives special-teams support for municipal services. Finally, the municipal governments have preventive police looking after
traffic enforcement, crime prevention, bylaws enforcement and emergency call
response. There are over 2,700 State and
municipal police officers and almost 500
PIM officers in agencies that range from 10
to 750 sworn officers.8
POES and other public safety related
institutions were under the jurisdiction of
the Ministry of the Interior until 2003. In
January 2004, the newly elected government created a new Ministry solely responsible for public safety, as a first step in
responding to the social demand for
increased levels of safety and security. It was
named the Ministry of Citizen Safety and
Security (SSC) to emphasise that the new
Ministry was intended to be citizenoriented, rather than serving political
interests.
There are big differences among the
police agencies in Queretaro, as there are in
the rest of the country. POES and Guardia
Municipal for instance, use technologies

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such as global-positioning systems, handheld computers, and in-car digital video


recorders. At the other end, small municipalities operate with old often obsolete
firearms, patrols and radios. As for
budget, the State Police have over
US$3,000,000 per year to use in strategic
investments, while most municipal police
services have only enough for the payroll
and basic operational expenses. In most
cases, they receive new equipment and uniforms every three years with every new
mayor, or whenever the State government
gives them some assistance.

QUERETAROS EVALUATION MODEL

Queretaro does not have a history of political or social demand for reforming police
services. Nonetheless, in order to comply
with its mandate, the new SSC came up
with a comprehensive agenda that included
developing a police service that is reliable,
respectful of human rights, public-oriented
and accountable. Although the main target
of the reform process was POES, directly
under State jurisdiction, the plan also
sought to extend the reform efforts to every
municipal agency, even though the State
did not have legal powers over them. The
rationale for focus on municipal police
agencies was simple: the majority of policecitizen contacts occur with municipal
police officers. They outnumber State
Police officers by almost three to one and
the nature of their work requires greater
interaction with the public.
Municipal police agencies are held
accountable by the mayor and the municipal council, but the State executive branch
has very limited powers over them. That
made the challenge considerable: how to
enhance the professionalism of 19 primitive
and autonomous municipal police agencies?
It is this process reform and professionalism of municipal police agencies in

Queretaro and how policing indicators promoted that process that forms the focus
of the remainder of this paper.
To reform municipal services, the SSC
set up a programme named Evaluation
Model (EM). The reason for using the word
model instead of programme was that the
latter term is usually associated with something that ends after each election. The
nomenclature reflected SSCs belief that
organisational change would be a lengthy
process.
The objectives

The long-term expected outcome of the


EM was a reliable, respectful of human
rights, public-oriented and accountable
police service. As a transitional step the EM
sought to strengthen the institutional capabilities of the municipal police services to
measure and improve individual and organisational performance. Therefore, the programmes evaluation tools were designed to
measure progress towards the development
of basic management and operational
capabilities.
To achieve its general objective, the EM
needed to: (a) establish minimum standards
that every agency should meet; (b) develop
a method to assess progress towards these
standards; (c) persuade municipalities to
participate continuously; and (d) create the
best conditions possible for its sustainability.
The core of the programme had to be a
consistent method for assessing capacity
building within each organisation. It had to
work uniformly for every agency, regardless
of its size or particular mandates. It also had
to be simple to understand because it would
involve people with no special knowledge
about policing or assessment processes. To
be congruent with the prevailing conditions
in most agencies, the assessment had to be
cost effective.
Realising that reform would be a lengthy
process, the SSC designed the EM to push
agencies toward small and achievable

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Fostering better policing through the use of indicators

changes in their way of conducting business


that could produce immediate results. This
ability to show short-term results would
help to maintain political and social support
for the programme. Still, this support might
not be enough unless civil society and private sector stakeholders of the EM played
an active role towards the programmes
permanence.
The programme aimed at State-wide
improvement, so every single agency would
participate on a regular basis. However,
there were two main obstacles: first, there
was an understandable distrust among
governments with distinct political party
backgrounds. To respond to this concern,
the EM had to agree that the evaluations
results would not be used for political purposes. Second, most directors of public
safety (DPS)9 and even some mayors
believed that change was neither necessary
nor possible; so all they sought were new
guns, new cars, SWAT training and streetwise commanders. Consequently, the EM
decided to include strong incentives to
overcome their reluctance and induce
participation.
Because of the precarious conditions and
the lack of qualified personnel in some
agencies, it was determined to be imperative that the EM provide technical support
for all participants. Through this service,
participants would be better prepared to
face challenges of organisational change, as
well as the programmes requirements.
The Evaluation Models components

The programme had six components: (a)


the standards; (b) the commission; (c) the
committee; (d) the grant; (e) the legal
agreement; and (f) the technical assistance
office.
(a) The standards

One mayoral finding during an initial


assessment about public safety and police in
Queretaro in 2004, was that out of all the

Page 174

municipal agencies, only the Guardia


Municipal had some reliable data about the
status of the agency and the operations (calls
for service, fleet age, personnel files data,
arrests by crime type and geographical
zones, etc). Most agencies did not even
know how many patrol cars were operating
or who was driving them. From this exercise and after conducting an international
benchmark, the SSCs Police Improvement
Department (PID) developed the first set of
minimum standards.
These standards were not international
best practices, but very basic requirements
that every police service should meet. Some
were even legal requisites that no one was
enforcing as a result of legal gaps in local
legislation. Furthermore, the first set of
standards did not even address all deficiencies identified since no police service was
expected to meet all the standards during
the first year.
In order to allow innovation among
police agencies, the standards emphasis was
on what should be accomplished rather
than how to accomplish it. It was also
important to ensure that every police
agency, regardless of its size or specific mandates, would be able to meet them.
In the first year a total of 59 standards
were established and evaluated. Each standard has one or more evaluation criteria,
which awarded a certain number of points
when met. A total of 132 criteria were used
to assess whether the 59 standards were met
or not. For each standard, the following
data were specified: the standard number;
the total possible points awarded; whether
the standard was obligatory for all agencies
or could be dismissed under certain circumstances; personnel to be involved in the
assessment; the criteria to measure compliance; and the evaluation method for each
criterion either by physical observation,
interviews with the members, written tests
or document review.
For example, standard 34 established that

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an agency must have a transparent and equal


opportunity process for promotion of its
members. The standard awards a total of
100 points and it was obligatory for all
participants. Each agencys EM programme
leader and police officers take part in the
assessment. The standard has four criteria:
the first one (34.1) is the existence of
written regulations about promotions,
which is evaluated through document
review and awards 20 of the 100 points.
Accordingly, criterion 34.1 requires that the
written regulations for promotions contain
some means to ensure that every member
will know about the process on time and
that promotions must be based mostly on
impartial criteria and grant equal opportunity for all members with the proper
qualifications. The second criterion (34.2)
assesses whether personnel are aware of
these regulations through written examination of a sample of officers10 and also awards
20 points. The third (34.3) determines if
recent promotions processes were properly
announced to all members, awarding 20
points. The last criterion (34.4) consists of
document review to find out if personnel
promoted complied with requirements
established in regulations, awarding a total
of 40 points.
The standards, listed in Annexe 1 to this
paper, were divided into three sections,
each section addressing different aspects of
police organisation or operations. The process was designed to allow the addition of
new standards, as the originals became normal practice for every agency.
The first section of standards addressed
legal, organisational, planning and management aspects designed to overcome important shortfalls such as:
lack of internal statutes required by
law;11
lack of a formal and approved organisational chart and job descriptions;
lack of strategic and tactical planning;

failure to set specific objectives for


deploying police assets;
lack of institutional capacity to gather,
process and analyse data to produce intelligence and reports on police activity.
The second section contains standards
related to police careers standards designed
to foster better human resources practices
within the agencies. They were intended to
assure the public that only qualified personnel are working in their local police
agencies and to assure officers that they
would be treated fairly and that their career
would depend upon merit and qualifications, not DPS subjective criteria or political interest. The gap between the standards
and prevailing conditions was huge. Professional recruitment and selection of new
candidates was done in no more than six
agencies and, even in these six, only
recently. Most agencies had either an
informal and short process, or no training at
all. Once someone became a police officer,
he would seldom have access to further
training. Police wages were among the
lowest within government salary ranges,12
either State or municipal. Laws did not
allow police unions, and working in daily,
alternating day-night shift patterns amounting to 56-60 hours per week was common.
Not a single police agency in the State had
a fair and thorough process for promotions.
Very often, top management decided promotions without performance evaluations
or profile assessments. The same was true of
disciplinary issues: some policemen were
fired without any fair process and clear
causes, while others were not even sanctioned for publicly known serious faults.
The final section, operational and training standards, sought to ensure that every
agency had written directives and proper
training for the most common situations
faced by policemen, especially those where
human rights violations were likely to
occur. It is rare to find written directives in

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Fostering better policing through the use of indicators

police agencies across the country, and this


was the case as well in Queretaro. Therefore, police officers had great uncertainty
about their jobs and had to perform them
with little training and no clear directives
on what should be done and how.
All standards and evaluation criteria were
integrated in a manual,13 which was distributed to every participating agency when
the legal agreement was signed. The manual
contained instructions for auto-evaluation,
in preparation for the external evaluation
process.
(b) The commission

The commission was designed to be the


highest authority for the evaluation process.
It had to approve the set of standards, establish policies, resolve any dispute or controversy and validate the results. Once
again, in order to gain the confidence of all
participants, the commission had a plural
composition: the States Ombudsman; the
president of the State agency in charge of
granting access to public information; the
SSCs Minister; three citizens appointed by
the president of the citizens council;14 and
one congressman from the public safety
commission.
Its mandate was to assure a transparent
and fair process for all participants and, by
doing so, gain the mayors political willingness to participate. It also served to
promote continuity, since most of its members would remain in their positions after
government changes in 2009, thus maintaining at least the experience gained.
(c) The committee

The committee is also essential to the goal


of continuity. It is the executive organ of
the commission and the one actually doing
the evaluation by reviewing all relevant
documentation, conducting the interviews
and applying the written examinations. It is
constituted of both permanent and rotating
members. The permanent members are

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technical personnel from the SSC and the


State police college, as well as representatives from the citizens council. The rotating
members are one municipal councillor and
the appointed evaluation leader from a
neighbouring15 municipality of the agency
being evaluated, as well as the municipal
councillor from the evaluated police service. The reason behind mixing officials and
evaluation leaders from different municipalities was to enable them to learn how the
other services achieve certain standards so
that they could try the same thing on the
next years evaluation.
By the end of the evaluation process in
each municipality, the committee submitted
a report containing the results to the commission, the SSC and the mayor of the
evaluated police agency.
(d) The grant

In order to attract all municipalities to


the programme, the SSC established a
grant of almost 6,000,000 pesos (almost
US$600,000) of State and federal funds, of
which 5,000,000 pesos were to be distributed equally among all police agencies
that met the programmes conditions set up
in the legal agreement. The remaining
1,000,000 pesos constituted a prize fund to
be divided by the three16 agencies that
achieved the greatest number of points
toward the standards.
(e) The legal agreement

A legal instrument was used to set all the


conditions for municipalities to participate
in the programme, as well as the mechanisms to ensure that all information would be
handled appropriately and that the process
would be transparent and fair.
In order to be entitled to receive funds,
every municipality was expected to invest as
much money as they would eventually
receive from the programme. This condition helped to promote municipalities own
resource investment in police services,

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regardless of the final result of the evaluation. Otherwise, they might delay their
investment and eventually substitute it with
the EM funds, or not invest at all in their
police service. The additional funds received
through the programme could then be used
for increased investment in strategic areas
for improvement, rather than to pay for
basic equipment or uniforms. Also, agencies
had to be up to date with all the legal
requirements,
especially
those
that
17
demanded cooperation with SSC. Additionally, they should have complied with all
standards classified as minimum for the first
year18 that would increase on a yearly basis.
Finally they had to observe all of the programmes deadlines and procedures.
Both the set of minimum standards for
the first year and the prize fund were
created to respond to the concerns about
the ability of police agencies to meet all
standards at once. There was a great risk of
losing municipalities interest in the programme if no agency would have met the
criteria for programme rewards. Instead,
having a smaller goal would make it easier
for the agencies to achieve results and maintain political support. This design also
helped compensate for the great differences
among agencies. The more developed ones
would be competing for the additional
resources, while the rest would be progressing regardless of their notable disadvantages,
while having access to the general grant.
The legal agreement also stipulated that
the commission and the SSC would only
make public those agencies that met the
minimum standards and those that did not,
as well as the three agencies obtaining the
most points. No specific amount of points
awarded to every single municipality would
be publicised.
(f) The technical assistance office

The programme contemplated a component of technical assistance to help offset


lack of technical ability at the municipal

level. It was decided that the PID of the


SSC would create model policy and procedures, and would clarify any doubt about
the evaluation criteria and process.
The programmes stages

The EM had four stages: the presentation,


the self-evaluation, the evaluation, and the
reviewing stages.
The first stage started when the programme was introduced to elected officials
and DPS in all municipalities. This action
aimed to help DPS to gain political support
from their mayors and city councillors by
clearly defining the measures used, assuring
political impartiality and stressing the possible political benefits from actually improving police services. This stage ended with
the signing of the legal agreements by the
mayors19 and the SSC officials.
Once an agency was officially participating in the programme, it received a copy of
the manual and the self-evaluation stage
began. Agencies were expected to develop
all written directives, conduct appropriate
training and adjust institutional practices as
addressed by the standards during this short
period of time. They would then assess if
they were ready enough in terms of the
standards requirements. They could approach the PID with any doubt regarding
the standards and the evaluation process, as
well as for reference or model material.
Everything done during this stage was to
help agencies be better prepared for the
official evaluation to follow.
The third stage began when the evaluated agency provided all documentation
required for the evaluation process. These
documents included: the actual documents
to accredit some standards (a policy statement for example); administrative papers
used to select officers randomly for interviews and written tests; and all proper arguments (such as a justification to dismiss any
standards not classified as obligatory). The
committees conducted all examinations,

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Fostering better policing through the use of indicators

written tests, personnel interviews and


document reviews during this stage.
During the final stage, the committees
prepared a report containing the total points
awarded to each municipality, as well as all
incidents and exceptional circumstances
presented during the evaluation process.
The commission reviewed the report and
declared the official results. The prize
(awarded as equipment) was then distributed, based on these results, during a public
ceremony involving the State governor to
assure maximum media exposure.
RESULTS AND LESSONS LEARNED

In 2006, during the first year of the programme, 13 of the 19 municipalities in


Queretaro signed the agreement to participate in it. The capital city agency (Guardia
Municipal) did not participate during the
first year due to lack of interest from its
DPS. During the four-month period for
self-evaluation, just a few of the agencies
sought some technical assistance from the
PID. Three out of the original 13 withdrew
from the programme during the process.
From the remaining 10 agencies, only two
met the minimum standards established for
that year. Two very small agencies almost
achieved the minimum, but the low academic levels of their personnel put them at
a serious disadvantage on the written tests.
One of the smallest agencies was really
enthusiastic about the possibility of having
one or two new patrol cars, but their
municipal councils did not even pass the
internal by-law and their municipal government did not invest any amount in the
police that year.
So, from the 5,000,000 pesos for police
equipment only 900,000 were distributed
equally to the municipalities of Ezequiel
Montes and Huimilpan. They could have
received 2,500,000 each, but they did not
invest that same amount as was required by
the legal agreement. The prize fund was

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distributed to Ezequiel Montes, Huimilpan


and San Juan del Rio.20
The total of 1,900,000 pesos were spent
on patrol cars, bullet-proof vests and motorcycles. Before entering the programme
Ezequiel Montes had had only three old
patrol cars on duty. By meeting the minimum standards and obtaining first place,
they received 7 new patrol cars, 2 motorcycles and 15 armoured vests. Huimilpan
received 5 new patrol cars, 2 motorcycles
and 10 armoured vests. Finally, San Juan del
Rio got two new patrol cars.
The improved equipment was important,
especially in medium-size agencies such as
Ezequiel Montes and Huimilpan. The new
Ezequiel Montes mayor who took office
just after the equipment was received,
declared to the media that they never had so
many patrol cars in that municipality and
would not need any patrol cars during their
three-year administration period, allowing
them to invest in other police needs. All
new mayors started looking at the programme right after this happened. So,
although better levels of equipment were
not the goal of the programme, it served to
promote the programme and get agencies
involved.
The commission members were concerned about only two agencies meeting
the minimum standards, but they decided to
wait until the next year to see the reaction
to the first years results. Commission members noted that some degree of achievement
was met in almost every participating
agency. For instance, at the start of the
programme, not a single participating
agency had internal by-laws or a use of
force policy, but eight had developed both
by the time the evaluation ended. All participating agencies are now reporting all
changes to the national police personnel
database. Six medium-size agencies now
have good control over firearms: only large
agencies had had such control previously.

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Four municipalities have begun registering


traffic accidents.
The media coverage of the programme
and the prize ceremony, along with some
actions taken by the municipal authorities,
made the public in Ezequiel Montes aware
that their police had received prizes. New
patrol cars also gave more visibility to the
police in this municipality. The pride
among officers in Ezequiel Montes became
notable. They started wearing uniform
shirts with the slogan, First place in state
evaluation of police agencies. The main
building facade was also inscribed with the
same slogan. The pride was confirmed by a
recent SSC survey21 in which 100 per cent
of officers reported that they were proud to
be part of the agency. Furthermore, 90 per
cent answered that the agency had
improved, compared with 50 per cent of
officers State-wide.
In 2007, as the second evaluation process
was approaching, it was evident that those
DPS that participated during the first year
were fully involved and working towards
better results. The response was impressive:
all municipalities signed the legal agreement
for the second evaluation programme.
Some DPS had been technically preparing
themselves for the new process, and there
was a competitive spirit among those who
had already participated in the programme.
All these factors helped to keep the programme working, while police agencies
improved their management practices.
An unexpected outcome was that the
programme proved to be an excellent
means of promoting a better understanding
of the police role and needs among civil
society leaders, elected officials and the
media. It also served as a training tool to
DPS and police officers. The citizens who
participated in the commission were so
enthusiastic that they had been working
with SSC. finding ways to give more independence to the commission.

The programme is not without problems. Arroyo Seco, a small municipality


located in the far north-east of the State,
worked hard to meet the minimum standards, but most of the policemen did not
have the qualifications for the job and most
failed the written tests. Furthermore, there
is an enormous rate of attrition of officers
principally because they emigrate, as do
most young males in that municipality, to
the United States. It is expected that this
municipality will continue to fail to meet
the minimum standards since there appears
to be no easy way to overcome this problem
in the short term. At least other three
municipalities face the same challenge.
It is too soon to reach a final conclusions,
but two factors appear to be necessary for
success in the programme. The first is the
need for political support from local
mayors. Without it, it seems very difficult
for agencies to meet the minimum standards. The second requirement is leadership.
Both Huimilpan and Ezequiel Montes had
strong police leaders. (This may also be a
factor in obtaining mayoral support.) Where
leadership was weak, agencies failed to meet
the minimum standards despite strong
mayoral support.
We realised that there was an obvious
conflict of interest that could compromise
participants trust and confidence: the PID
created the standards, gave technical assistance to participants and conducted the
evaluation in field. The PID continued to
participate on the committee in 2007, but
an alternative had to be found for 2008. As
for the standards, a larger group, including
municipal members, will be in charge of
reviewing and adding standards.
Unfortunately, no evaluation to confirm
that compliance with standards actually
affects quality of service and public trust in
police was specifically planned for the programme. Lack of reliable data among all
government agencies, including the human
rights commission and police agencies,

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Fostering better policing through the use of indicators

made it difficult to evaluate. Public surveys


did not seem useful either, since no
immediate changes were expected among
the general public which proportionally
speaking has very few contacts with the
police during any one year. But even if
changes in quality of service do not come
immediately, it would still be useful to have
a better assessment to compare improvements. There were two upcoming studies
that would indirectly deliver a better assessment of pervailing conditions at that time: a
victimisation survey and a police-citizen
contact survey. A new State-centralised system of all municipal emergency call centres
would also permit the measuring of some
aspects of police performance, such as
response times. A new standard, regarding a
well-maintained citizen complaints system,
would be part of the minimum standards
put in place in 2007, and would help to
produce data on this important issue.
Historically, police agencies in Mexico
have been closed to public scrutiny. They
are not used to evaluation of any kind. But
so far, this exercise has shown that they
might even be eager to be evaluated. For
most officers, the EM presents an opportunity to overcome unsafe, unfair, unrecognised, uncertain, unprofessional, underpaid
work. For police managers, it has been an
opportunity to get assistance to progress or
to be publicly recognised. Political actors
have found a source of political capital
where they only saw problems before. All
these demand a more thorough design
process for the standards and a fine tuning
of the programme, in order to sustain the
gains made.

ANNEXE 1: LIST OF STANDARDS


Section I

1. The agency has an institutional mission


statement.

Page 180

2. The agency has an internal statute


approved by the municipal council.
3. All official documents in the agency
follow some minimums requirements.
4. The agency has an authorised organisational chart.
5. There are different ranks in its hierarchic structure.
6. The chain of command is clearly
established
7. The force deployment is planned based
on service needs.
8. The DPS approved a police management course at the State Police
college.
9. There is good control over personnel
files.
10. All officers had been registered on the
national database of police personnel
11. Personnel files are updated on the
national database.
12. All officers carrying firearms are registered on the collective licence.
13. There is a clearly identified uniform for
all members.
14. There are written regulations for firearms control.
15. The agency has basic equipment in
good shape (radios, cuffs, etc).
16. The agency has patrol cars in good
operational condition.
17. The agency has control over all its
equipment.
18. There is a proper space for storing
firearms and ammunition.
19. The agency has dedicated personnel for
reception and follow-up of public
complaints.
20. The agency has a dedicated traffic
enforcement unit.
21. The agency has an emergency call
service.
22. The agency has a system to register data
on all ordinary and extraordinary
incidents.
23. The agency has a system to record and
control traffic citations.

Mohar

24. The agency records traffic accidents


data.
25. There is a system for patrol cars
dispatch.
26. The agency has a strategic plan and
annual operational programmes.
27. The agency has crime preventions
programmes together with the
community.
Section II

28. There is an oversight body for


human resources administration (police
career).
29. New officers are recruited through
public announcement.
30. All police officers comply with all legal
requirements.
31. There are established wages for each
position.
32. All officers have minimum benefits.
33. There
is
an
annual
training
programme.
34. Promotions process is transparent and
fair.
35. There are written obligations for members in order not to be dismissed from
the force.
36. The agency conducts an annual
performance evaluation for all its
members.
37. The agency has control over people
attending their shifts.
38. There are written regulations for
awards.
39. There is a disciplinary system for the
agency.
40. There are regulated processes for dismissing a member from the force.
Section III

41. The agency has a code of ethics.


42. The members are trained according to
basic curricula.
43. The traffic enforcement officers are
trained for their duties.

44. There is written policy regarding fallen


officers (Fatal Injuries).
45. There is written policy about dealing
with injured police officers.
46. There is written policy about dealing
with injured (civilian) people.
47. There is written policy about use of
force.
48. There is written policy about transporting people who have been
arrested.
49. Officers are well trained in the use of
firearms.
50. There is written policy about emergency driving.
51. There is written policy about change of
officer duties/service.
52. There is written policy about traffic
citations.
53. There is written policy for traffic
accidents.
54. There is written policy for K-9 units.
55. There is written policy for bomb threat
situations.
56. There is written policy for HAZMAT
incidents.
NOTES

(1) 1,350 crimes per every 100,000


inhabitants reported to the AttorneyGenerals office in 2006.
(2) From a total of 52 in 2006 reported by
the Attorney-Generals office.
(3) Over US$4,000,000,000 since 1997.
(4) Police personnel, inmates, private
security guards, stolen cars, fingerprints and warrants among others.
(5) The equivalent of North Americas
911.
(6) Recently, both agencies have been
operating under a unified command
answering to the Public Safety Ministry, although the legal changes to
bring them permanently together as
one agency have not yet been passed
by Congress.

Page 181

Fostering better policing through the use of indicators

(7) November 2007.


(8) Agencies/sworn officers: 2/+500;
3/100500; 6/50100; and 8/less than
50.
(9) The equivalent of chief of police in
most municipalities.
(10) The commission approved the formula
to determine the size of the sample for
both the interviews and the written
tests (90 per cent of confidence and an
error of no more than 7 per cent).
(11) Only the Guardia Municipal had such
a legal instrument by 2005.
(12) Although they are among the best paid
countrywide a new State Police
officer with no rank made about
US$10,000 in 2007.
(13) A copy of the most recent edition of
the manual can be downloaded from
the SSCs website at http://www.
seguridad.queretaro.gob.mx under the
publications section.
(14) The president is actually appointed by
the Ministry to this honourable position. The appointee has to be a citizen
without political party links and wellknown reputation.

Page 182

(15) The commission established four


regions, each acquiring neighbouring
municipalities.
(16) 500,000, 300,000 and 200,000 to
the first, second and third places
respectively.
(17) Firearms control, traffic citations
reports, police personnel database
updates, etc.
(18) A total of 20 out of 59 standards were
classified as minimum standards the
first year.
(19) Under State law, municipal councils
must give approval to the mayor for
signing instruments as the legal agreement proposed for the programme.
(20) San Juan del Rio is the second largest
municipal agency in the State. It was
entitled to the prize fund despite not
having achieved the minimum standards, because this condition for the
prize fund was not established in the
legal agreement during the first year.
(21) All municipalities were surveyed
between January and April 2007, with
1,853 questionnaires answered.

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