Once store owners become accustomed to paying the rent and then stop offering the customary cooperation, they become liable to being disturbed, says an officer in the study, and in the case of cantinas that resist cooperating, they render themselves liable to having the police rape the prostitutes. In a more visible form of privatization, the city s private security forces have swelled to about 100,000 guards. Revolver-waving bodyguards in unmarked cars speed through red lights. Armed men in bulletproof vests pace in pairs and strong-arm pedestrians. Guards with attack dogs and machine guns patrol shopping precincts.
Restaurants have their own security forces.
About 1,500 of the capital s 2,300 security firms flout Federal District law by operating without legal registration, according to the police official in charge of the registration. In many cases our citizens, instead of getting security, are getting more danger.