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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ MEXICO’S PRIVATE SECURITY PARADOX: UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MEXICAN STATE AND THE PRIVATE SECURITY INDUSTRY A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in POLITICS by Logan Puck December 2017 The Dissertation of Logan Puck is approved: _____________________________________ Professor Kent Eaton, chair _____________________________________ Professor Benjamin Read _____________________________________ Professor Eleonora Pasotti _____________________________________ Professor Jonathan Fox _____________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Logan Puck 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures iv List of Tables v Abstract vi Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1. A Brief History of Private Security and Policing in Mexico 29 Chapter 2. Incorporation 52 Chapter 3. Regulation 85 Chapter 4. Coordination and Collaboration 127 Concluding Remarks 166 References 175 iii LIST OF FIGURES 4.1 Empresa líder en Seguridad Privada a nivel Nacional Solicita por apertura. 153 4.2 “Grupo Tamame, solicita”. 154 4.3 “Guardias Elite.” 157 4.4 “Por expansión tenemos vacantes en.” 158 iv LIST OF TABLES 2.1 Measuring Levels of Auxiliary Police Incorporation 71 3.1 Width of Regulations 94 3.2 Depth of Regulations 95 3.3 Five Models of Regulation 96 3.4 Responsibility for Regulation 97 3.5 Private Security Licensing Fees (Mexican pesos) 101 v ABSTRACT Mexico’s Private Security Paradox: Understanding the Relationship between the Mexican State and the Private Security Industry Logan Puck The massive growth of private security raises serious questions about how we conceptualize state power, capacity, legitimacy, and policing in a world where security provision is being rapidly commodified. We can better understand these issues by investigating how states have navigated and negotiated private security expansion. How have states reacted to the rise of private security and are there ways in which they can manage the industry to benefit themselves and society? This dissertation analyzes the relationship between the state and the private security sector in Mexico. Mexican governments have attempted to direct and exert control over this massive group of non-state security actors who have the potential to enhance the state’s capacity to impose order and reduce crime and violence. The three primary strategies used by the state to manage the industry include incorporation, regulation, and fostering coordination and collaboration. Nevertheless, these policies have backfired leading to a situation wherein the state and private security providers have a distant and sometimes competitive relationship. First, attempts to incorporate private watchmen into state police forces led to the creation of corrupt and exploited public security units that have damaged state legitimacy, and in some cases, unfairly competed with private security firms. Second, strict regulations combined with corrupt and poor enforcement has encouraged firms vi to avoid registration and operate informally. Finally, the poor quality and reputation of Mexico’s police forces has caused private security firms to distance themselves from the institution, which has limited coordination and collaboration with the state. As a result, the state is weaker in its ability to effectively manage, control, and coordinate with an industry that can challenge or enhance the state’s legitimacy and its ability to maintain law and order. Ultimately, the Mexican case exhibits how states play an essential role in shaping the form of the private security sector and the actions of individual firms. More specifically, the quality and conduct of state institutions, particularly security institutions, seriously affects the relationship between the private security sector and the state and the results of the state’s efforts to control and direct the private security sector. vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks to my advisor and dissertation chair, Kent Eaton who guided me throughout this entire process beginning with our first meeting at UC-Berkeley where Kent was a visiting professor and I was pursuing my M.A. Kent’s upbeat positivity combined with his incisive comments and sharp eye for detail shaped the dissertation into what it is today and helped me maintain my confidence throughout. I am also very thankful for all the support, advice, and critiques provided to me by my committee members, Benjamin Read, Eleonora Pasotti, and Jonathan Fox. Moreover, I would not have been able to research and complete this project without the generous funding provided by the Fulbright-García Robles grant, the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States, the UC-Santa Cruz Politics Department, and the Chicano Latino Research Center at UC-Santa Cruz. I am also indebted to the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) and the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) for serving as my academic affiliates in Mexico. Special thanks to CIDE’s Division de Estudíos Juridicos for providing me with a working space and access to the university’s resources. I am also grateful to Juan Salgado and Elena Azaola for acting as my advisors at CIDE and CIESAS, sharing their knowledge and expertise with me, and opening doors into Mexico’s academic and security communities. On that note, people working in security in Mexico tend to be wary of outsiders, especially gringos poking around with sensitive questions. I am, therefore, viii extremely thankful to Alfredo Ibarra, Jorge Gamez, Patricio Rodrigo Estévez Soto, Vianney Iñiguez Gonzalez, and everyone else who helped connect me to individuals within the country’s public and private security sectors. Overall, I am enormously grateful to everyone in Mexico who offered me their time and insights Many thanks to the scholars Marcos Pablo Moloeznik, Rodrigo Meneses, Gustavo Fondevila, John Bailey, Mark Ungar, Diane Davis, Brian Palmer-Rubin, Lucía Dammert, María Eugenia Suárez de Garay, Laura Nelly Medellín Mendoza, and Arturo Alvarado who let me pick their brains and provided me with excellent advice on my project. Additional thanks to Mark Ruhl for sparking my original interest in Latin American politics way back in the early 2000s. I am greatly appreciative of my graduate student colleagues who served as an important support network helping me to work through my thoughts and formulate new ideas. Special thanks to Aaron Augsburger for all his support at the end. I would also like to acknowledge the politics department’s administrative staff who kept me on track and assisted me in navigating the university’s bureaucracy. Very special thanks to my mom and dad for instilling in me a curiosity about the world, love of reading, and so many other things. Most importantly, thank you to my family for always having faith in me. Finally, this is for my wife, Diana, who supported me through all the ups and downs of this process and pushed me through to the end. If it was not for you there is no way I could have gotten through this long journey. You’re the best. ix INTRODUCTION1 On September 18, 2013, Mexico City’s Secretaría de Seguridad Pública (SSPDF) held an informational session for the city’s private security providers. The session was designed to improve connections between the private security industry and the SSPDF. Representatives from the SSPDF’s Dirección General de Seguridad Privada took turns explaining the rules and regulations pertaining to private security provision in the city. Midway through the session, Alberto Hernandez, a manager for the city’s preventative police department, stood up to present the city’s LOCATEL program. As Hernandez explained, LOCATEL was a program for citizens in need of information and assistance. Citizens could call the LOCATEL number and it would connect them directly to the police field commander within their area. If the commander did not pick up the phone, the call would be directly transferred to the city’s emergency services (similar to 911 in the U.S.). Hernandez advertised the program to the private security representatives at the session as an ideal method for their guards and other employees to contact the local police department for assistance and information. After his explanation, Hernandez announced that he would do a live demonstration to show how the program worked. He asked the audience to call out 1 Portions of the introduction were previously published in Logan Puck, “Uneasy Partners Against Crime: The Ambivalent Relationship Between the Police and the Private Security Industry in Mexico,” Latin American Politics and Society 59:1 (Spring 2017): 74-95. Copyright © 2017 by John Wiley Sons, Inc. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1 the name of a neighborhood. Someone in the crowd called out a neighborhood in the borough of Coyoacán. The manager looked up the LOCATEL number for the neighborhood and dialed it on his cell phone. He held the phone up to the microphone so everyone in the audience could hear it. The phone rang multiple times until a recording came on stating that the call would be transferred. Then the call went dead. Hernandez and Raul Rojas Mendoza, the Executive Director of the Dirección General de Seguridad Privada, looked at each other and started discussing whether they called the right number. Hernandez then tried to make the call again but to no avail. Mendoza Rojas then stepped in and made the call on his own phone. At this point, people in the audience started to fidget in their chairs. Some mumbling could also be heard within the crowd. Trying to salvage the situation, Hernandez asked the crowd to call out a new neighborhood. Someone yelled out “Unidad Modelo en Itzapala.” After finding the phone number online, Mendoza Rojas called it, but instead of connecting, the phone started beeping incessantly. People in the audience became visibly impatient and a few called out that they had the same problems with LOCATEL. “You call it and it never connects!” one man shouted in Spanish.