The armed forces have often been accused of violating human rights. However Mexico’s underpaid, antiquated police forces can’t deal with the nation’s well-armed drug cartels alone.
Some civilian police forces complain that the armed forces, and the largely militarized Nationwide Guard, aren’t skilled in correct arrest procedures and filling out standardized crime studies.
A broader criticism is that the armed forces and Nationwide Guard do little investigation, and thus can’t construct robust circumstances besides after they catch suspects within the act of committing a criminal offense.
Final 12 months, the court docket upheld a constitutional change that permits the army to proceed in regulation enforcement duties till 2028, ruling towards appeals that argued regulation enforcement must be left to civilian police forces.
Critics warned President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is militarizing the nation and ignoring the separation of powers.
Placing troopers and marines on the streets to struggle crime was lengthy considered as a stopgap measure to struggle the nation’s well-armed drug cartels. In 2019, legislators voted that civilian police ought to take over these duties by 2024.
However López Obrador helps counting on the army indefinitely as a result of he views the armed forces as extra trustworthy. The president has given the army extra tasks than any Mexican chief in current reminiscence.