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74–912 PDF 

" ! COMMITTEE PRINT 

112TH CONGRESS

2d Session 

S. PRT. 

2012

112–36 

JUDICIAL AND POLICE 

REFORMS IN MEXICO: 

ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS 

FOR A LAWFUL SOCIETY 

A MAJORITY STAFF REPORT 

PREPARED FOR THE USE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 9, 2012 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations 

Available via World Wide Web: 

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman

BARBARA BOXER, California 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

WILLIAM C. DANVERS, Staff Director

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Republican Staff Director

(II)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Letter of Transmittal ............................................................................................... v 

Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 

Recommendations .................................................................................................... 3 

The Me ́rida Initiative .............................................................................................. 4 

Police Reforms .......................................................................................................... 6 

Judicial Reforms ...................................................................................................... 9 

The Future of Bilateral Security Cooperation ....................................................... 11 

(III)

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL 

UNITED STATES SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 

Washington, DC, July 9, 2012. 

DEAR COLLEAGUES: Mexico is one of the United States’ most important partners. Recently, bilateral security cooperation has deepened and matured as Mexico and the U.S. seek to address drug 

trafficking and the violence associated with it. 

In April of this year, I dispatched Senate Foreign Relations Committee majority staff to Mexico City and Monterrey where they conducted extensive interviews with Mexican and U.S. officials, top 

policy thinkers and human rights advocates, closely examining 

U.S.-Mexico bilateral security cooperation. Their findings are included in this report. I hope these findings and recommendations 

will inform policy discussions during the forthcoming periods of political transition in both countries. 

Sincerely, 

JOHN F. KERRY, Chairman. 

(V)

(1) 

JUDICIAL AND POLICE 

REFORMS IN MEXICO: 

ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS 

FOR A LAWFUL SOCIETY 

INTRODUCTION

2012 is a presidential election year for both Mexico and the 

United States. In December, Mexico’s new president, Enrique Pen ̃ a 

Nieto, will assume office and the following month the victor of the 

U.S. presidential elections will commence his term. New leadership 

brings change, and in the Mexico-U.S. context, a leadership change 

could alter the existing bilateral security cooperation dynamic. 

Amidst potential change, this committee report strongly recommends maintaining robust bilateral support for the Me ́rida Initiative, and calls upon the incoming Mexican and U.S. administrations to expand their support for Mexico’s reform of its judicial sector and police as the best means to reduce the high levels of violent 

crime in Mexico. 

For the past five and half years, the Caldero ́n administration has 

been the architect of Mexico’s campaign against organized crime, 

the primary focus of which has been taking down organized crime 

bosses (popularly referred to as ‘‘capos’’) and deploying large numbers of military personnel to high crime areas. The U.S. Government has joined Mexico in its effort to combat organized crime 

through the framework of the Me ́rida Initiative. To be clear, the 

strategy is Mexican-led, and U.S. assistance to Mexico is a small 

fraction of Mexico’s own expenditures. Officials in Mexico and the 

United States stress that Me ́rida has served as a catalyst for a 

more profound law enforcement partnership—an acknowledgment 

that, because the challenges are shared, the burden is best shared 

as well. 

Law enforcement cooperation between Mexico and the United 

States in the 20th century was hobbled by mutual suspicion; when 

cooperation did occur, it was generally because officials were willing to buck the prevailing distrust to solve specific, high priority 

cases. Despite these deeply rooted sensitivities, the Caldero ́n administration has progressively opened the door to greater bilateral 

law enforcement cooperation, all the while imposing the ground 

rules governing U.S. support. Eager to institutionalize a cooperative law enforcement relationship with Mexico similar to that enjoyed by the United States with Canada, the U.S. Government took 

a gradualist, long-term approach to building operational links with 

Mexican law enforcement and judicial sector officials. Initially, the 

Caldero ́n administration saw the Me ́rida Initiative as a way to receive sensitive U.S. law enforcement information to enable Mexican 

2 

authorities to more accurately target organized crime and to obtain 

big ticket counternarcotics equipment; Mexican officials were slower to express openness to receiving U.S. capacity and institutionbuilding training support for their law enforcement and judicial 

sector personnel. As greater trust developed between both sides, 

law enforcement cooperation under the Me ́rida Initiative progressively deepened and broadened. This highly positive momentum 

has helped facilitate progress on other important issues, including 

trade, environmental protection and energy. 

Despite the Caldero ́n administration’s progressively better record 

at taking down key organized crime bosses, this ‘‘capo’’-centric anticrime strategy has been widely criticized for deemphasizing the 

daily security needs of average Mexicans. Moreover, heavy reliance 

upon the military to quell lawlessness and directly confront the 

narcotics syndicates appears to have been largely ineffective—and 

in some instances to have exacerbated the violence suffered by civilians. 

Although President-elect Pen ̃ a Nieto, like the two other main 

presidential candidates, expressed support during his campaign for 

maintaining close bilateral law enforcement cooperation, he will 

undoubtedly confront immense public pressure to quickly and publicly address wide-spread concerns about violence and insecurity. 

Since December 2006, when President Caldero ́n launched his campaign against organized crime, Mexico has tallied over 55,000 drugrelated homicides. The horrific tactics utilized by the criminal organizations to intimidate both their rivals and the authorities have 

burned deeply into the Mexican public consciousness. All too frequently mass killings include women and minors. Bodies visibly 

mutilated are hung from bridges and severed heads are deposited 

in public places. In at least one instance, a pig’s head was sown 

onto a torso. Unsurprisingly, there is a widespread conviction 

among Mexicans that bilateral law enforcement cooperation should 

not just target organized crime, but must also help Mexico reduce 

its current unacceptably high levels of violence. 

The Caldero ́n administration’s campaign against organized crime 

has, for the most part, enjoyed the support of a majority of Mexicans, but large numbers of Mexicans also doubt whether their government will prevail. At the core of these doubts is the government’s inability to clamp down on the hyper-violence occurring in 

certain parts of Mexico. Simply put, most Mexicans mistrust the 

federal and state authorities’ main tools to fight crime, the police 

and judicial system, given their record of pervasive corruption and 

ineffectiveness. 

The Caldero ́n administration has focused its civilian institutional 

reform efforts on strengthening its federal law enforcement institutions’ capacity to combat organized crime, accompanied by a more 

modest effort to bolster the federal government’s prosecutorial capabilities. By comparison, support for reforming and strengthening 

the federal judiciary has been halting, and it was not until late in 

Caldero ́n’s tenure that he began addressing the need to reform the 

state-level police forces. 

Seconding the view of many Mexican analysts, this committee report emphasizes that it is vitally important for the incoming Mexican administration to modernize the justice sector and implement 

3 

profound reform of police forces, identify sufficient resources to do 

so effectively, and aggressively seek to secure public support for 

these reforms. U.S. policy should support Mexico’s efforts to this 

end, as this approach holds the best promise to more effectively 

combat organized criminal groups in Mexico and, equally importantly, to advance the long-term security and well-being of all 

Mexican citizens. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

• This committee report recommends that the U.S. Congress ensure adequate, sustained funding, ideally at $250 million a 

year for the next four years, for the Me ́rida Initiative to help 

Mexico, among other things, accelerate the establishment of an 

accusatorial judicial system at the federal and state levels and 

to assist, in close coordination with Mexican federal authorities, those Mexican states seeking to reform their state police 

forces. U.S. funding, though dwarfed by the resources that 

Mexicans themselves are investing, is nonetheless vitally important. Utilizing the ‘‘train-the-trainer’’ model, U.S. expertise 

is building Mexican capacity, which is important for both earlystage implementation and long-term sustainability of efforts. 

• U.S. officials should stress the importance of police and judicial 

reforms to the incoming Mexican administration, impressing 

upon them the high priority that the U.S. Government assigns 

to the reform efforts. These reforms are long-term, technically 

difficult, require political cooperation across party lines as well 

as cooperation between federal and state-level authorities, and 

therefore do not lend themselves to splashy public relations 

wins. U.S. encouragement can play an important role in ensuring continued reforms, perhaps at an accelerated pace, under 

a new Mexican administration. 

• The U.S. Government should increase efforts to strengthen the 

implementation within Mexico’s federal and state police forces 

of accountability mechanisms—such as effective vetting of personnel and the establishment of empowered, autonomous internal investigative units—to prevent corruption and human 

rights abuses. Accountability mechanisms will ensure that police personnel are held responsible for crimes and abuses they 

commit, and are essential elements for increasing Mexicans’ 

trust in their country’s law enforcement agencies. 

• Mexican federal-level police reforms are now generally betterresourced and more advanced than state-level efforts, despite 

the fact that the majority of crimes fall within state jurisdiction. U.S. support for police reforms should increasingly target 

state-level efforts. 

• Even if previously viewed as a necessary stop-gap given the 

weakness of the civilian police authorities, military deployments to combat organized crime have achieved limited success 

and, in some cases, have led to human rights violations. Increased civilian police capabilities will obviate the need to deploy military personnel for domestic security purposes. U.S. efforts to strengthen Mexican police capabilities should simultaVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:36 Jul 06, 2012 Jkt 072394 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\HEARING FILES\112TH CONGRESS, 2ND\TOPIC REPORTS\MAJORITY\MEXICO SECU
4 

neously encourage the reduction of the Mexican military’s role 

in the provision of domestic security. 

• The U.S. Government needs to continue strengthening the 

prosecutorial capabilities of the Attorney General’s Office and 

help build the prosecutorial capabilities of its state-level counterparts. Being respectful of the separation of powers, the U.S. 

Government should work together with the Mexican Government to promote judicial reform at both the federal and statelevels. 

• The U.S. Embassy should work with its Mexican counterparts 

and civil society to promote greater public awareness and understanding of judicial reform efforts. Public misperceptions, 

and a lack of understanding in some state legislatures, unnecessarily hobble reform efforts. Studies delineating the superior 

performance of the oral-based, accusatorial judicial system that 

is being implemented in some Mexican states should be made 

publicly available. 

• Through both the judicial and the police reform efforts, Mexico 

has the opportunity to increase human rights protections. All 

U.S. efforts should incorporate a human rights lens. U.S. officials should consult widely with Mexican civil society, and the 

Secretary of State should use the congressionally mandated reporting process as an avenue to encourage deeper and more 

rapid progress on the human rights conditions set forth in the 

FY 2012 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 112–74). 

THE ME ́ RIDA INITIATIVE

Named after a Mexican city on the Yucata ́n Peninsula that 

hosted Presidents Caldero ́n and Bush at the strategy’s conception 

in 2007, the Me ́rida Initiative has developed into a multifaceted cooperative security effort between the United States and Mexico. 

Since 2008, the U.S Congress has appropriated $1.9 billion for the 

Initiative. As of April 2012, the U.S. Government had provided approximately $1 billion worth of equipment, technical assistance and 

training; after a slow start, the delivery process hit its stride in 

2011 with an annual delivery of $500 million. Reflecting a deliberative bilateral consultative process, U.S. officials have channeled assistance to complement Mexico’s own efforts and provide expertise 

and equipment that both sides judge will add value. Mexican 

spending dwarfs U.S. contributions; Mexican Government officials 

estimate that, for every U.S. dollar spent, Mexico has contributed 

thirteen dollars toward the shared goals of the Me ́rida Initiative. 

In Me ́rida’s earliest phase, bilateral cooperation focused on sharing sensitive law enforcement information to disrupt organized 

crime as well as on the delivery of costly counternarcotics equipment to military and federal law enforcement agencies (including 

the provision of helicopters, maritime surveillance planes, major 

system-wide computer upgrades and non-intrusive scanners). As 

the cooperative process unfolded, the Mexican Government expressed willingness to receive U.S. institutional capacity building 

assistance training for its judicial sector and law enforcement personnel. 

5 

Under the Obama administration, the Me ́rida Initiative was formally organized around a four-pillared bilateral structure: disrupt 

capacity of organized crime to operate; institutionalize capacity to 

sustain rule of law; create a 21st century border; and build strong 

and resilient communities. Under this structure, the Obama administration significantly increased its funding for rule of law institutional capacity building and training; maintained robust U.S. 

support and intelligence sharing for Mexican efforts to disrupt organized crime; deemphasized purchasing big ticket equipment for 

the Mexican military and federal police; and initiated modest programs to support border cooperation as well as crime prevention 

programs in agreed upon urban areas in northern Mexico. Reflecting these developments, the largest allocation (perhaps by a factor 

of three) of the FY 2012 Me ́rida budget will be directed to rule of 

law capacity building programs, followed by progressively smaller 

amounts for disrupting organized crime, creating a 21st century 

border and building resilient communities. 

Proponents of the current Mexican security strategy argue that 

the Caldero ́n administration’s determination to prevail over the 

drug trafficking syndicates, buttressed by a dramatic increase in 

the government’s security budget (up 70 percent over 2006 levels), 

has begun to yield significant progress in combatting organized 

crime. Today, Mexico has considerably more capable federal law enforcement agencies and, for the first time in its history, scores of 

key criminal leaders have been arrested or killed and cartel operations have been disrupted. On an aggregated national basis, drug 

trafficking-related homicides are no longer skyrocketing and seem 

to have plateaued, albeit at an extremely high level. Moreover, 

multifaceted crime prevention programs and better policing have 

led to reductions of drug trafficking-related homicides in certain 

hyper-violent locations, notably the border city of Jua ́ rez. 

Critics argue that the Mexican Government’s preoccupation with 

capturing organized crime leaders has precipitated unacceptably 

high levels of drug trafficking-related homicides. They also fear 

that the fragmentation and resulting marginalization of certain 

previously dominant narcotics trafficking organizations has created 

a landscape with one or two more formidable national criminal syndicates and a plethora of smaller crime groups which still move 

large amounts of narcotics and perpetuate a significant percentage 

of the violence, along with extortion, kidnappings and robberies. 

The Mexican Government’s deployment of large numbers of military forces to reinforce the thinly stretched federal law enforcement 

agencies has engendered strong criticism, particularly from national and international human rights organizations, given the disturbing increase of allegations of grave human rights violations 

against civilians by military personnel. 

Mindful of U.S. security policy in Latin America in decades past, 

the U.S. Congress included human rights conditions on Me ́rida assistance, withholding 15 percent of certain funds to Mexican security forces until the Secretary of State reports that Mexico is taking 

action on specific human rights concerns such as eliminating the 

use of torture and ill-treatment to obtain evidence and prosecuting 

in the civilian justice system police and soldiers alleged to have 

6 

1The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime reports that drug consumption in the United 

States is steadily declining. Among the population aged 15–64, the consumption rate is down 

from 2.5 percent in 2006 to 1.9 percent in 2009. Approximately 617,000 people aged 12 or older 

used cocaine for the first time in the past 12 months in 2009, a decrease from 722,000 a year 

earlier. 2 As stated in a General Distribution Congressional Research Service Trip Report from Clare 

Seelke, Specialist in Latin American Affairs, distributed on May 9th, 2012. 

committed abuses against civilians. The Secretary’s next report will 

likely be submitted to Congress by the fall of 2012. 

There is widespread agreement that without a concerted, coordinated bilateral effort that seriously addresses U.S. demand for narcotics as well as U.S.-based firearm smuggling and money laundering, little can be done to effectively reduce drug trafficking in 

Mexico. The U.S. Government has devoted major resources to reduce domestic demand for narcotics; the Office of the National 

Drug Control Policy is funded at about $25 billion a year, at least 

a third of which targets domestic demand. While this effort has 

achieved significant successes,1 the reality is that this societal ill 

will bedevil the United States for the foreseeable future. The U.S. 

Government’s efforts to clamp down on arms smuggling into Mexico have been constrained by legal imperatives and undermined by 

political infighting. Although combating U.S.-based money laundering benefiting Mexican criminal organizations appears to be the 

easiest of the three challenges, U.S. Government agencies have 

been slow to devote the resources necessary to develop a robust capability to combat it. 

In the committee report’s assessment, the Mexican Government 

can best sustain strong popular support for an aggressive campaign 

against organized crime if it can demonstrate to the Mexican people that it is also successful at significantly reducing the violence 

inflicted by organized crime and its allies. The committee report believes that the best way to achieve these two objectives is through 

the continued promotion of police and judicial sector reform. 

POLICE REFORMS

The Mexican Government seeks to regain public trust in the police whose credibility remains badly tarnished by pervasive corruption and ineffectiveness. This will be no easy feat; in a 2010 public 

opinion poll, only 8 percent of Mexicans surveyed expressed strong 

confidence in the police.2

The Caldero ́n administration has made significant investments 

to strengthen its federal law enforcement institutions’ capacity to 

combat organized crime. The primary beneficiary has been the 

Mexican federal police which has increased five-fold, expanding 

from 6,500 to over thirty-six thousand, and which qualitatively improved its ranks by recruiting 7,000 university-educated entrants. 

By comparison, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office, which fields 

a much smaller federal-level police force specializing in investigations, has received less of the central government’s largess, and has 

taken more modest steps to enhance its institutional capabilities. 

Both organizations have implemented procedures to combat pervasive internal corruption by vetting their personnel through background investigations as well as regular toxicology, medical, psychological and polygraph examinations. 

7 

Some analysts argue that the larger and more effective federal 

entities have thrown organized crime groups on the defensive and 

that these syndicates do not represent a national security threat to 

the Mexican Government. They point out that the Mexican Government has killed or captured scores of key organized crime leaders 

(extraditing many to the United States), precipitating the near demise of some organized criminal networks and the fracturing of 

others. Nevertheless, it is clear that two formidable organized 

crime networks, Sinaloa and the Zetas, and their respective local 

criminal allies, are aggressively battling each other, as well as the 

federal government, to retain control over their now diversified illicit activities—which also include arms dealing, extortion, human 

trafficking and money laundering—in their fiefdoms. These criminal organizations wield intimidating influence over certain state 

and municipal governments, and inflict horrifically high levels of 

violence whenever their territorial primacy is challenged. 

Because of Mexico’s federal structure of government, the federal 

police and the Attorney General’s Office’s police force are, and will 

likely remain, too small to reduce the hyper-violence engulfing certain Mexican states. As a result, they look to the Mexican states 

to take on this responsibility more effectively. However, there is an 

ongoing jurisdictional debate between Mexican federal and state 

prosecutors over who should be investigating the lion’s share of the 

drug trafficking-related crimes, especially homicides. The federal 

police and the Attorney General’s Office’s claim that they lack the 

jurisdiction, under the country’s federal structure, to take enforcement action against many of the crimes perpetrated by the organized criminal syndicates and their affiliates; they point out that 

the vast majority of crimes committed in Mexico—92 percent by 

some estimates—including many crimes committed by organized 

criminal syndicates, fall under the legal jurisdiction of Mexico’s 

states and municipalities. On the other hand, many state prosecutors argue that homicides tied to organized crime should, according 

to federal law, be investigated by federal prosecutors. One possible 

mid-term solution to this jurisdictional conundrum would be for the 

Mexican Congress to federalize more crimes so that they would 

clearly fall into the jurisdiction of the presently more capable federal police and the Attorney General’s Office. However, given limitations on the ultimate size of the federal law enforcement agencies, this is a second best solution. 

Jurisdictional debates aside, this committee report champions 

the view of many Mexican experts that over the long run the Mexican federal government’s anti-organized crime campaign can only 

succeed if it can enlist the effective cooperation of state and municipal (at least from the larger of the municipalities) police forces. Reflecting the reality that there are over 350,000 poorly trained and 

inadequately resourced police distributed among the Federal District, 31 Mexican states and over 2,500 municipalities, this is an 

enormous challenge. The Caldero ́n administration attempted to address this challenge by merging all of the municipal police forces 

into the state-level police forces; this approach was rejected by the 

Mexican Congress as many legislators viewed it as a power grab 

by federal and state authorities. 

8 

3 U.S. support to Mexico’s strategy of enhancing state-level police professionalization is taking 

various forms. The United States is placing Senior Police Advisors/Mentors at the state police 

academies in Chihuahua, Nuevo Leo ́n, Sonora and Tamaulipas to help channel U.S. training 

assistance. The U.S. is also helping develop major crimes task forces, known in Mexico as ‘‘Accredited State Police Units,’’ that will be created in a minimum of 21 states and in the Federal 

District. The initial goal is to establish at least one of these task forces in each of the participating states, although Nuevo Leo ́n is committed to creating three separate units. These ‘‘Accredited State Police Units’’ will be composed of 422 specially vetted and trained personnel who 

will be the frontrunners of larger police reform efforts within their states, and in the meantime 

will become their states’ trusted partners to the federal law enforcement agencies. This effort 

is still in its early stages of implementation. Mexico has trained approximately 1,300 investigators, 450 analysts and 1,900 operations personnel. In addition, the United States and Mexico 

have collaborated to help the states root out corruption within their ranks. The United States 

has provided training, technical assistance and equipment to help endow priority states with 

the capabilities to vet their own police forces on a regular basis. The SNSP plays a key role 

in ensuring that the state-level vetting procedures conform to federal standards. A complementary U.S. initiative helps state police forces establish their own Internal Affairs Units to investigate corruption and other abuses. As required by U.S. law, U.S. officials implementing these 

programs must be vigilant in ensuring that the Mexican state-level police officials receiving U.S. 

funded training and equipment have been rigorously screened for human rights violations. 

The United States Government has been keenly interested in 

forging a cooperative law enforcement relationship with Mexican 

state-level, and certain municipal-level, authorities. Until very recently, however, highly sensitive sovereignty issues precluded such 

U.S. involvement with local officials. In 2010, both countries began 

holding discussions on how the United States could work with 

Mexican law enforcement authorities in Chihuahua State to 

counter the violence raging in Cuidad Jua ́ rez. These discussions 

evolved into an understanding that the United States would channel all assistance to Mexican state and municipal police forces 

through the central government’s Executive Secretariat for the National Public Security System (SNSP), an agency charged with coordinating federal public security funding and training to the 

states. Washington also agreed to follow the Mexican federal government’s lead as to which Mexican states would be prioritized to 

receive U.S. police professionalization assistance. In 2011, both governments identified three high violence states bordering the United 

States—Chihuahua, Nuevo Leo ́n and Tamaulipas—as priorities to 

receive Me ́rida Initiative assistance to professionalize the state police forces; in 2012, the Mexican Government proposed expanding 

the priority list to eight states. Reinforcing this effort, both countries agreed to support the establishment of a law enforcement 

academy to train state police from across Mexico; this facility 

opened in May 2012 in Puebla.3

There are credible reports that large police cleansing operations 

designed to publicly demonstrate anti-corruption gains have resulted in unlawful detentions and the extraction of confessions by 

torture—some of the very abuses they were meant to eliminate. 

Without accompanying accountability mechanisms, wholesale replacement of police personnel is unlikely to lead to a major reduction of police misconduct. Even when vetting mechanisms are in 

place, there are instances in which vetted members of newly established police have been charged for serious crimes. To effectively 

promote police reform at the federal and state levels, Mexican police officials must build and safeguard rigorously effective mechanisms to continuously vet police personnel and to conduct independent internal investigations into crimes and malfeasance committed by police personnel, prosecuting wrongdoers in criminal 

courts where appropriate. Inculcating a culture of lawfulness in 

9 

new police units will take time, and this challenge underscores the 

importance of not reproducing the flaws of Mexico’s old law enforcement institutions in the process of forming new ones. 

JUDICIAL REFORMS

Mexico’s slow and opaque inquisitorial justice system fosters impunity. This paper-based system is hobbled by high pretrial detention rates, prison overcrowding, trials conducted with little to no 

transparency and the use of tainted evidence; there is considerable 

evidence of the use of torture to obtain confessions for serious 

crimes. Mexico’s inquisitorial judicial system has proven inefficient 

and highly vulnerable to corruption. The cumulative result of the 

system’s many flaws is that Mexico has been plagued with an unacceptably high impunity rate—only two percent of reported crimes 

lead to a conviction. 

Recognizing that this system was inadequate to meet the demands of modern-day Mexico, the Mexican Congress launched in 

2008 an ambitious transformation of its judiciary. The resulting 

constitutional amendment requires that, by 2016, all state and federal judicial systems transition from the inquisitorial system to a 

more agile, transparent, oral-based accusatorial justice system. 

Federal and state-level reforms to implement the accusatorial 

system seek to improve the transparency, efficiency and quality of 

Mexico’s judicial system. Accusatorial trials feature oral arguments 

in an open court, guaranteed opportunities for witness participation, better protection of evidence, safeguards to prevent against 

confessions obtained by torture, the use of alternative dispute resolutions and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. 

Many observers fault the Caldero ́n administration for failing to 

assign to federal-level judicial reform the same urgency as to the 

take-downs of key criminal leaders. They argue that while the increased effectiveness of the federal police has led to a surge of arrests, a commensurate increase in prosecutions has not occurred, 

resulting in even more egregious prison overcrowding and the revolving door release of many criminals. Nevertheless, draft legislation to implement a new Federal Code for Criminal Procedures for 

an accusatorial system has slowly, but surely, gathered support 

within the Mexican Congress. Although most observers believe that 

the new code will ultimately be approved by the Mexican Congress, 

it is not expected to be considered until early 2013 given the electoral calendar and competing congressional priorities. The absence 

of reform at the federal level means that federal crimes, such as 

those related to organized crime, are still being prosecuted in the 

inquisitorial system, with all of its inherent weaknesses. At the 

same time, while many states have moved forward with reforms 

independently of the federal government, the failure to approve a 

new Federal Code for Criminal Procedures has reduced the pressure on states to make the necessary changes in a timely manner. 

Some of the laggards waited until after presidential elections this 

year to move forward on reforms, which will inevitably push them 

against the 2016 deadline. 

10 

4 In anticipation of the eventual implementation of the new criminal procedure code, the Mexican Government, with U.S. support, is preparing personnel for the impending reforms. The U.S. 

Agency for International Development (USAID) focuses on state-level assistance and the Department of Justice (DOJ) concentrates on federal-level reforms. Working with seven Mexican states 

to implement judicial reforms, USAID has trained prosecutors, engaged civil society, promoted 

alternative dispute resolutions and facilitated judicial exchanges at the state level. USAID plans 

to expand assistance and work in a limited capacity with 13 more states. DOJ focuses on teaching Mexican instructors for the federal police and prosecutors about new procedures and roles 

under an accusatory system. DOJ has trained personnel in the Attorney General’s Office on how 

to combat organized crime, human trafficking, kidnapping, money laundering, as well as refining skills regarding fugitive apprehension and forensic sciences. 

Reforms’ Early Results 

State-level implementation of judicial reforms varies widely 

among the 31 federal states and the Federal District. Only three 

states—Chihuahua, the State of Mexico, and Morelos—have fully 

transitioned into the accusatory model, although two others, 

Oaxaca and Zacatecas, have also made significant progress in 

implementing the new system. A comparison between the 27 

states that have yet to fully implement judicial reforms and the 

five states that have been implementing the new system for a 

minimum of one year illustrate the benefits of the accusatorial 

system. The five reform states generally demonstrate better victim participation, improved accountability for judges, greater use 

of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, more selective pretrial detention, fewer number of days required to resolve a case, 

increased efficiency and, notably, tougher sentences, over the 

non-reform states. That said, there is also a significant variation 

in performance even among the reform states. USAID commissioned the study and it will be released later this year. 

An inherently lengthy process, judicial reform will probably require a generation to institutionalize. Instructing lawyers in the 

new system will require new textbooks, revised law school curricula 

and training for law school professors. Many legal professionals accustomed to the inquisitorial system are reluctant to shift to the 

new accusatorial process. Enlisting federal judges, who are given to 

zealously protecting their independence from the Mexican executive 

branch, presents a particular challenge. Proponents of judicial reform also face an uphill battle against public opinion, given that 

many perceive the accusatorial system as overly lenient on the accused. In Chihuahua, where the accusatorial system is fully operational, a murder suspect in a highly publicized case was released 

because three judges argued that the state prosecutors had not 

built enough evidence, and the resulting public outcry led to legislative modifications that have undermined protections for the accused.4

Getting protection right—both physical and legal protections—for 

the various legal actors might prove difficult under the new code, 

but is nonetheless critical. Given that the accusatorial model promotes transparency through open trials, witnesses and judges may 

find themselves at elevated risk of attacks upon their person. The 

11 

new system must incorporate adequate protection mechanisms; intimidation of these actors would grievously undermine the success 

of the new code. The accused are afforded more protections in that 

the accusatorial system assumes innocence until proven guilty. 

However, the constitutional reform passed in 2008 allows for a 

practice known as ‘‘arraigo’’ where individuals can be detained up 

to 80 days without charges while they are being investigated. Technically, ‘‘arraigo’’ is only legal in situations where there is a suspicion of involvement in organized crime. Mexican and international human rights advocates decry these detentions as violations of due process guarantees, such as the presumption of innocence, and express concern that those detained under ‘‘arraigo’’ are 

at greater risk of human rights abuses; U.S. Government programs 

need to support efforts that eliminate the use of ‘‘arraigo.’’ 

FUTURE OF BILATERAL SECURITY COOPERATION

The United States should continue its strong support for Mexico’s 

efforts to reform and strengthen its federal and state-level police 

forces and judicial systems. The United States can effectively support Mexico through high-level policy engagement reinforcing developing cooperative anti-organized crime linkages, including partnerships between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Attorney 

General’s Office, U.S. law enforcement agencies and the Mexican 

federal police and others, and U.S. federal and state-level courts 

and their Mexican counterparts. Mexican civil society can make a 

vitally important contribution to the success of this bilateral cooperation, and the United States needs to continue to solicit its 

views. 

The United States Government must also do more to address 

U.S.-based crimes associated with violence in Mexico. It has a responsibility to its own citizens, and has made a commitment to the 

Mexican Government, to reduce U.S. demand for narcotics. U.S. 

law enforcement efforts should increasingly combat the smuggling 

of weapons into Mexico and the use of U.S. financial institutions 

to launder the illicit proceeds of the Mexican criminal organizations. 

The United States also has a vital stake in supporting good and 

effective governance in our immediate neighbor. Mexico’s ability to 

dismantle organized criminal groups and reduce the hyper-violence 

occurring in certain portions of its territory depends in large part 

on whether the federal police and judicial system, together with 

their state counterparts, can successfully arrest and prosecute dangerous criminals. To its credit, the Caldero ́n administration has 

launched this effort, but the primary responsibility to consolidate 

it will fall to its successor and the state governments. 

President-elect Pen ̃ a Nieto has expressed his intention to continue robust law enforcement cooperation with the United States. 

In all probability, Mexico’s new leader will reconfigure some elements of the current anti-organized crime strategy but will maintain most of the critically important elements of the bilateral 

Me ́rida Initiative security cooperation. 

12 

This committee report recommends sustained, robust funding 

and policy support for the essential building blocks of the Me ́rida 

Initiative, police and judicial reforms, to ensure the success of this 

vitally important cooperative effort. 

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