Latin America’s Moment

In 2010, the homicide rate in Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez rose to over 250 per 100,000 inhabitants making it the most dangerous city in the world. Other crimes—extortions, kidnappings, and carjackings—also increased dramatically. By 2014, these rates had plummeted. The 424 reported murders still outpaced 2006 figures, but were just 14 percent of the 3,084 murders four years earlier. Last month, CFR hosted Javier Ciurlizza, program director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Crisis Group (ICG), Jorge Contreras, founder and coordinator of the Fideicomiso para la Competitividad y Seguridad Ciudadana, and Alejandra de la Vega, coordinator of the Mesa de Seguridad y Justicia de Ciudad Juarez, to discuss Ciudad Juarez’s recovery and potential future. According to a February 2015 ICG report, violence escalated due to three factors. First, drug cartels militarized as the value of and competition for plazas increased, and law enforcement efforts quickly followed suit. U.S. policy changes—the elimination of the ban on assault rifles, greater deportations of ex-convicts, increased border patrol—as well as a spike in cocaine prices, also played a role. Lastly, the 2008 financial crisis led to a loss of some 90,000 maquiladora jobs, providing the cartels and their gangs with easy recruits. In response, many Ciudad Juarez residents and civil society groups rallied together. They created hotlines to report kidnappings, tracked crime to share with and prod the police into action, and reached out to officials at all levels of government, finding and working with reformers while demanding the removal of the corrupted. In the wake of the 2010 Villas de Salvarcar massacre of fifteen people, the federal government turned its attention and resources to Ciudad Juarez. The federal Todos Somos Juarez initiative brought some $400 million to the city, mostly for health, education, and economic development programs. On security, the national government worked closely with state and local counterparts, as well as with citizens and civic groups through a Mesa de Seguridad y Justicia, developing strategies to cut crime. The business community also endorsed a surcharge of 5 percent of their payroll taxes to fund citizen led safety efforts, including collecting independent crime data. Combined with an economic recovery and what many analysts depict as the Sinaloa cartel triumph over its rivals, violence declined dramatically. The discussion ended focusing on whether Ciudad Juarez provides lessons for other cities struggling with insecurity. Some aspects—the long history of civic engagement, the huge influx of federal resources—are hard to replicate. But others, including Mesas bringing together the government, private sector, and civil society leaders, could perhaps gain traction. And International Crisis Group comparisons also show that there isn’t just one path—Medellin, Colombia’s recovery came from top-down state led interventions and investment in transportation, infrastructure, and public spaces. As Mexico struggles to reduce violence in Acapulco, Morelia, Reynosa, and other cities, the federal government would do well to try to understand and then emulate the lessons of Ciudad Juarez.

Corruption allegations and revelations cover Mexico’s front pages. Public officials’ penchant for expensive watches, use of government helicopters for personal errands, and a string of expensive houses facilitated by preferred private contractors have incensed not only Mexico’s chattering classes but also the broader public. 2014 opinion polls conducted by the Pew Research Center show corruption ranks second only to crime in citizen concerns. The challenge of corruption goes beyond just a few bad seeds. A 2013 survey found that one third of Mexicans paid a bribe for a public service. Think tank Mexico ¿cómo vamos? estimates corruption reduces gross domestic product by 2 percent. Due to rampant corruption among judges and police (as well as weak investigation and adjudication systems), the World Justice Project’s international rule of law index ranks Mexico seventy-ninth out of ninety-nine countries, comparable to Egypt and Russia. Things may be poised to finally begin changing. After dragging its feet for nearly three years (anti-corruption promises were part of the original Pact for Mexico signed in December 2012), Congress recently passed constitutional reforms that will provide stronger tools to prevent, investigate, and sanction government corruption. The new National Anti-Corruption System targets the political system, requiring more public officials to report their assets and any potential conflicts of interest, strengthening the hand of federal auditors, expanding asset forfeiture laws, and creating a new independent anti-corruption prosecutor. Transparency International’s Mexico chapter has welcomed the reform, and others, including local think tank Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad, see it as a step in the right direction. Shifts are already underway at the local level, led by Mexico City. Current mayor Miguel Angel Mancera announced an anti-corruption plan in early 2013 with five main aims: (1) professionalize public servants through training and evaluation; (2) strengthen internal controls; (3) simplify administrative processes; (4) engage citizens; and (5) create an anti-corruption website. Since then, the capital has appointed hundreds of new auditors and nearly doubled the number of investigations. It has suspended over 900 public officials and recovered roughly $9 million in illicit funds. The 21 million person megalopolis now has a citizen advisory council to supervise anti-corruption efforts, made up of business and non-profit executives, academics, and lawyers. And it “names and shames” sanctioned officials and disqualified suppliers through publicly available lists. In New York last week, Mancera signed on with the NGO Open Contracting Partnership (OCP) to become their first city partner to create an online portal opening up the capital city’s public contracts to citizen scrutiny. In their infancy, these reforms have yet to prove themselves, and if they can change the status quo. Mexico City’s nascent trial shows some promise. If Mancera can show visible anti-graft results in the capital city, it could prove a savvy political platform for the 2018 presidential election.