Abstract
In Mexico, there has been some analysis of the involvement of the military in law enforcement, its impact on violent crime, and patterns of human rights violations. But no authors have yet studied whether there are differences between the use of guns in daily operations by police and the military. Nor has there been an analysis of whether the militarization of the police increases the use of firearms. Based on data on the use of guns during arrests by the police and armed forces, drawn from the National Survey of the Population Deprived of Liberty (ENPOL, 2016), in this chapter we address both questions. Through binomial logistical models we show that the use of firearms is more frequent by members of the Army and Marines than by local police, although with some significant nuances. Furthermore, several investigations have pointed to the incorporation of high-ranking military officers into the upper ranks of police organizations as an indicator of their militarization. The results of binomial logistical models show that police who are led by military officers are more inclined to use guns during arrests than those led by civilians.
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Notes
- 1.
Between 1965 and 1980 the Mexican Government engaged in low-intensity warfare against those who were considered subversive: the political repression period is known as “Guerra sucia.” In 1968 and 1971 the Army, with the collaboration of other federal authorities, disappeared and killed hundreds of students and supporters of the student movements which advocated for the creation of a democratic government.
- 2.
According to Atuesta (2018) the armed forces were deployed during the period 2007–2012 through a strategy called “operativos conjuntos” in the following states: Michoacán, Baja California, Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa, Quintana Roo, Aguascalientes, and Veracruz y San Luis Potosí. Since 2012 the armed forces continue their deployment across the Mexican Republic in various states. In 2006, the beginning of the presidential rule of Felipe Calderón, there were 41,355 members of the armed forces deployed in domestic territories. In 2018, at the end of the Peña Nieto administration, the deployment had increased to 70,577. In 2020, the second year of the López Obrador administration, 102,639 members of the armed forces were deployed across the Mexican territory (López Portilo & Storr, 2022).
- 3.
The National Survey of the Population Deprived of Liberty (ENPOL) (INEGI, 2016) was conducted by the National Institute for Statistics and Geography (INEGI) among people 18 years and older who were being processed or have been sentenced for common or federal crimes, in municipal, Mexico City, and Federal penitentiaries. The information was compiled between October 31 and December 9, 2016. The original sample comprised 64,150 prisoners, but was reduced to 47,984 to exclude cases prior to 2007 for analytical reasons.
- 4.
The four dependent variables correspond to the following survey questions: 3.8.3: When arrested, did the police or authority threaten you with a gun? 3.8.7: When they arrested you, did the police or authority use a gun to subdue you? 3.8.8. When they arrested you, did the police or authority fire a weapon like a pistol or rifle? And 3.13: From the time of your arrest until you were brought before the Public Ministry, did the police or authority inflict or permit someone else to inflict the following physical attacks on your person: gunshot wounds?
- 5.
Question 3.9.1: When you were arrested, did you try to defend yourself? 3.9.2. When you were arrested, did you try to escape so that they would not arrest you?
- 6.
It is important to explain here that the categories corresponding to the municipal and state level encompass various police institutions with different purviews and responsibilities. The municipal police category includes more than 2000 police officers, most of them lower-ranking officers who deal with minor crimes and misdemeanors and work more closely with citizens. The state level includes both state and ministerial police, categories which encompass 32 police institutions each, although with different responsibilities. The ministerial police are responsible for investigating crime, arresting people for whom a warrant has been issued, so they are the ones with the most arrests recorded in the ENPOL 2016. State police perform tasks similar to the municipal police, but many of them recognize a focus on high-impact crimes, meaning homicides, kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking, and weapons offenses.
- 7.
The “subdued by firearm” category is more ambiguous and difficult to interpret and can range from being pointed at with the gun to being struck with the gun at the time of arrest.
- 8.
One limitation of this study is the truncation of the database available on all the arrests made by the authorities. The data refers only to arrests that ended in the detainee’s imprisonment in a Mexican prison. We did not have access to information on the arrests of persons who were indicted but not sentenced to prison time, nor arrests by police or military authorities without indictment. This truncation may bias the variables of interest, since arrests that end in the indictment of the detainee require the authorities to record and justify their actions. In cases where they expect not to bring the detainee in for indictment, they may be less restrained in the various levels of firearm use.
- 9.
“The mere fact of a person evading detention or escaping custody does not justify the use of a firearm, unless that person constitutes a grave, ongoing threat to the life of another person which is likely to materialize at any time” (AI, 2015, p. 53).
- 10.
According to Morales and Pérez (2014), the federal police were created through the integration of the federal highway police and a military brigade of the Mexican Army. In 2002, some 5000 members of the third brigade of military police were incorporated. In turn, the first administrators of the federal police were high-ranking Marines and military personnel.
- 11.
For some states, the information regarding the background of the police force commanders is considered classified. The four states for which we could not obtain information were Chihuahua, Mexico State, Hidalgo, and Tabasco. Therefore, these states were not included in the “military command” variable.
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Oñate, S.P., Forné, C.S. (2023). Direct and Indirect Militarization of Public Security in Mexico and Gun Use During Arrests. In: Farmer, C., Evans, R. (eds) Policing & Firearms. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13013-7_7
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