Working for Both Sides: How Organized Crime Networks Influence Mexican Police Culture

• In Event: Comparative Studies of Anomie

Abstract

Evidence from Mexico indicates that organized crime and police networks have become increasingly interconnected throughout the twenty-first century. In other words, numerous members of Mexico’s law enforcement institutions participate in the webs of ties that connect individuals involved in the country’s criminal enterprises. During my field research in Mexico, all the law-enforcement officers I interviewed pointed out that criminal networks operate within the country’s police agencies and that police officers often play critical roles within these networks.

By analyzing the narratives of thirty-one former members of Mexico’s Federal Police, I contend that officers’ perceptions of the intermixture of police and organized crime networks significantly influence the culture of law-enforcement groups tasked with combating organized crime. This influence appears to manifest itself through a unique “working personality” shared by officers within these groups, that is, through the distinctive frame of reference through which these officers perceive and approach their surroundings and people within them. More specifically, I examine how officers’ narratives on the presence of criminal networks within law-enforcement agencies seem to inform their viewpoints on the following themes: 1) sense of mission, 2) suspicion, 3) isolation, and 4) solidarity.

Author

• Valentin Pereda, University of Montreal