The state of Jalisco, identified as one of six Mexican hot spots for violence, will announce a new security strategy on January 1, the governor said yesterday.
Enrique Alfaro Ramírez, who took office last week, told a press conference that agreements that had created the regional and metropolitan single-command police forces have expired, meaning that the state police are back on the beat.
He said on Sunday that a new security strategy would be announced this week, but the timetable has now changed.
” . . . We cannot implement a [new] security strategy in Jalisco until all elements are put on the table.”
But he did say that state police would be deployed to municipalities outside the Guadalajara metropolitan area, while a metropolitan police force will maintain security in Guadalajara and neighboring areas.
Alfaro also said salaries of police officers around the state are being reviewed.
The governor was to meet with federal Security and Citizen Protection Secretary Alfonso Durazo yesterday to discuss proposals by President López Obrador, the new National Guard being one of them
“. . . as long as the subject of the National Guard is not resolved, how are we going to coordinate [security tasks]?” Alfaro asked.
Jalisco’s single-command police force began operating in Guadalajara in 2014 and elsewhere in the state in late 2013.
Security expert Lucía Alamarz of the University of the Valley of Atemajac in Zapopan described Alfaro’s decision to discontinue single-command was appropriate.
“If we look at the results . . . the truth is it had no impact in reducing crime rates,” she said.
Source: El Occidental (sp), Informador (sp)
