Law Enforcement in Mexico

Law enforcement in Mexico is divided between federal, state, and municipal entities. There are two federal police forces, 31 state police forces (and two for the federal district) and one estimate suggests over 1,600 municipal police forces. There are 366 officers per 100,000 people, which equals approximately 500,000 in total, but systemic corruption is endemic and police forces are often poorly trained and underpaid. The average wage of a police officer is $350 per month, around that of a builder's labourer, which means that many police officers supplement their salaries with bribes. As of 2012, Mexico has a police force of over 544,000 elements, making it the country with the third largest police force in the world, just behind India and the United States.

The government has found it hard to provide police forces with sufficient pay and protection to make it worthwhile resisting the threats and blandishments of drug traffickers, though recent efforts to reform the federal police saw a tenth of the 30,000+ officers fired in the first eight months of 2010. There has been a tendency to increase the militarization of policing. In 2006, 45,000 troops of the Mexican Army were deployed to fight drugs cartels, with the number rising to 50,000 by October 2010. In Monterrey, police, soldiers and prosecutors have conducted joint patrols, which have seen violence reduced.

At all levels, policing in Mexico tends to maintain separate forces for patrol/response (preventive) policing on the one hand and investigative (judicial) policing on the other.