Guadalajara metropolitan area mayors agreed this week to press ahead with a plan to create an “intermunicipal” police force to maintain law and order in the Jalisco capital across municipal boundaries, even without the blessing of the state governor.
The new agency – to be called the La Agencia Metropolitana de Seguridad – is expected to begin operations on January 1, 2017, it was revealed during a press conference hosted by six metro-area mayors from the Citizens’ Movement (CM) party on Monday.
The problem for the CM mayors is that Jalisco Governor Arisoteles Sandoval of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Attorney General Eduardo Almaguer have grave doubts about the viability of the plan. The PRI mayors of Tonala, El Salto and Ixtlahuacan have also said they will not participate in the agreement.
Among the benefits of the unified force will be greater cooperation and strategic planning under a single command, deployment of shared resources to cover under-policed areas of the metropolitan area and the homogenization of salaries and training of officers in the different municipalities. The new policing model is also expected to reduce the temptation for officers to engage in corrupt practices. The municipal forces, however, will still operate within their own jurisdictions.
Sandoval and Almaguer both argue the plan is badly thought out and has no provision for how federal funds will be allocated. According to Alfaro, neither of the two has any say on whether the plan can or cannot go ahead, since under the Jalisco constitution municipalities are legally responsible for their own public security.
Alfaro criticized the governor for trying to undermine a proposal that has been on the table for over a year and wondered if there was a political motive behind his opposition to the project, suggesting that the PRI stands to gain by blocking moves by CM mayors to improve public security.
Zapopan’s CM Mayor Pablo Lemus also underscored the urgent need for new models of policing in Guadalajara.
“Who hasn’t seen what is happening in the streets?” he said. “Who can’t see the levels of insecurity that exist? So, we are going to carry on exactly the same, without coordination and without a new model? As serious politicians we are obliged to introduce new strategies to fight insecurity.”
The council chambers of municipalities involved are expected to vote on whether to ratify the agreement on Monday, October 17.