Mexico’s shocking new crime law

Actually prosecute criminals!

Under Mexican law, the government can prosecute any citizen who commits a crime on foreign soil, but the law is rarely applied. After the Phoenix summit, federal and state prosecutors in Mexico promised to go after Mexican criminals caught in the United States.

Now, the article does contain the new and popular saw of “US guns are fueling Mexican crime” which is utter crap, but the rest of it is actually pretty positive.  One of the biggest challenges in enforcing our laws along the border with Mexico has been the massive corruption and unwillingness of Mexican LE officials to actually do anything about the drug smugglers and human traffickers (coyotes) working along the border.

Under the new agreements formed at the Phoenix meeting, the Mexican government has agreed to actually go after these guys on Mexican soil; which is a step in the right direction.  Apparently, they’re also taking steps to modernize their police forces, forming internal affairs departments and training cops in modern police techniques.

I guess someone in Mexico City realized that their law enforcement was sort of stuck in this mid 1920’s era and hadn’t really moved forward; either that or they got tired of constantly being the butt-end of jokes about corruption.

5 Comments

  1. Tell you the truth, it sounds to me like a get-out-of-jail-free card for Mexican nationals busted on drug charges in the U.S.
    We’ll extradite ’em to Mexico, and a year later the press will do a follow-up story and they’ll find that the guy is serving time at a brand new prison in rural Mexico with lushly landscaped grounds, two swimming pools, a tennis court, and a ten-car garage. Oh, and his family lives with him. And did I mention that he’s the only “inmate” in this “prison”?

  2. I agree that I’ll believe it when I see it, but you have to understand that right now if we catch someone and toss ’em back over the border, there is like a 99% chance they’ll go right back to their old smugglin’ ways without so much as a slap on the wrist.

    The new law reduces that to like an 80% chance, which is progress. It’s a start. Honestly, if we could fix Mexico’s broken economy and justice system, we’d solve a lot of our own problems.

  3. The problem is that you cannot fix another country’s problems; a country can only solve its own problems. That is the main reason Africa is going down the tubes; everyone keeps trying to keep it propped up. The only thing that works with Third World countries is to let them fall apart and then put themselves back together. The type of national character that is required to run a country is only acquired during the process of building that country. Shortcuts that are artificially instituted usually just fail. Mexico is a country that has been built up by other countries (Spain, France, US) propping up the technology and such before the people there had evolved an attitude commensurate with running the modern country. The country is still run much the same way it was during Panch Villa’s time; a bunch of warlords running around grabbing power and exploiting the serfs.
    Just my opinion.

  4. No, I agree 100%. Mexico is really a country that doesn’t have much of a national identity; their issues are quite deeply rooted in their culture.

    Much like a poorly run company, I kind of think that Mexico needs to be allowed to go under, so that the good men that remain can put the joint back together.

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