MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The police of this crime- and corruption-addled capital will follow every one of 146 recommendations for tackling crime offered by the consulting firm of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard said Thursday.
Private businessmen in Mexico City paid more than $4.3 million for Giuliani´s advice on fighting crime in this metropolis of 8 million where kidnappings, murders, rapes and robberies are common, as is police corruption.
"Our goal is not to replicate what New York did, but to increase our overall security," said Ebrard, who added that the city wants to decrease the number of serious crimes by 10 percent each year during the next three years.
Taking cues from New York´s crime-fighting playbook, Mexico City law enforcement officials will invest in a modern police communications system, lobby to give local officers greater powers and improve cooperation between police and residents, Ebrard said.
An early fact-finding report by Giuliani´s consulting group, Giuliani Partners, also had suggested combining disparate police units; the city has more than a dozen uniformed agencies under at least three different command structures.
But the firm´s final recommendations, unveiled Thursday, focused instead on sharing information, decentralizing decision making and creating new units to focus on specific crimes including police corruption, youth delinquency, and bank robberies.
The report also suggested treating minor crimes seriously.
In a nod to the so-called "broken-windows" philosophy that inspired the Giuliani administration during the 1990s, the capital police force will create anti-graffiti and anti-noise units and implement "neighborhood policing" that responds to local demand.
Residents of Mexico City can play a key role as well, the Giuliani team recommended.
"They should respect and comply with the law, which includes simple actions like obeying traffic signals and not offering bribes to police officers," the report said.
One of Ebrard´s new priorities is to empower police so that they can initiate investigations, interrogate suspects, work undercover and gain access to criminal histories.
Ebrard said the city´s current police force is hamstrung by outdated technology and laws.
"It´s a police that doesn´t have access to information about the people it arrests," he said. "You can´t take digital fingerprints. You can´t ask what happened to the individual."
The city plans to start paying for police uniforms and increase salaries of all officers to at least 12,000 pesos ($1,100) a month, Ebrard said. Currently, officers earn about 8,000 pesos ($750) monthly.
Ebrard said his department will request a budget increase for 2004 of between 10 percent and 12 percent.
One crime expert raised concerns Thursday about the high costs of carrying out the recommendations.
"I don´t know where the money is going to come from because the government of the capital does not have resources for reforms of this magnitude," said Ernesto Lopez Portillo, president of the Institute for Security and Democracy, a private group that researchs crime-related issues.
New York City operates on a "different economic level," Ebrard acknowledged. But he said Mexico City will create a program to improve the quality of life of its officers that includes better job training.
In line with the Giuliani team´s recommendations, officials also will expand existing internal police investigations and intensify police supervision, while instituting lie-detector tests to screen applicants.
The report also recommends registering public transportation drivers and eliminating unauthorized taxis -- a measure that could cut down on the city´s numerous "express" kidnappings, in which a**ailants force their victims to withdraw money from automatic teller machines.
...etc,... (from cnn)
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how is business-against-crime doing in south africa?
