INTERINSTITUTIONAL LINKAGE FOR
CIVIL MONITORING OF THE POLICE

Behind citizen oversight of the police there is an intense effort of inter institutional linkage, crucial when defining public security and human rights projects. This allows knowing other experiences in academic, governmental and civil sectors in Mexico and abroad.

Fundar is part of the network of specialists in Security (sponsored by the Mc Arthur Foundation), and thus it participated in the International Conference on Democratic Police in Latin America at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE).

Fundar’s team visited the University of California at San Diego, the Northen Border College, the Public Security Council of Baja California, as well as police authorities from Los Angeles, all of which work in different aspects of the civil monitoring of the police forces.

The analysis and learning process in this arena continued in Great Britain and North Ireland, where the team contacted the Independent Police Complaints Commission, police authorities in London, the Civil Organization Crime Concerns, besides the North Ireland Police and the police ombudsman of that country.

Fundar also belongs to the Association for Security with Democracy and Human Rights. The security team gave the Human Rights’ Public Organisms course at the Career Civil Service of the Human Rights Commission of the Federal District (CDHDF).

The presentation titled “Border and immigration police accountability” was presented last May in an event organized by Sin Fronteras, and in that same month Fundar’s team met with the staff of the High Commissioner of the United Nations for Human Rights in Mexico, in order to discuss public security issues in our country.

Between February and March, and as a consequence of the positive relationship created between police authorities of the municipality of Naucalpan and the members of the citizen security team of Fundar, different linkage activities have been done between these two entities, such as interviews with operational directors of the preventive police, visits to zones with high crime rates and the participation in conferences and joint courses. This level of linkage with authorities of Naucalpan has allowed to propose and start developing more important projects between both institutions.

The possibility of developing and implementing a two week training course about citizen participation schemes and proximity police for medium and low posts of the preventive police of this zone has been suggested. The union and cooperation between Naucalpan and Fundar has resulted in a good example of spaces where the implementation and influence of results that are generated in Fundar, from the study and research of the variety of topics that involve citizen security, are allowed.

During April, Fundar was present in Buenos Aires, Argentina, so as to generate relations with organizations, institutions and governmental organisms that work on security issues in that country. During that trip the team had meetings and exchanged research studies as well as publications with Luciana Pol, from the Institutional Violence and Citizen Security Program of the Legal and Social Studies Center (CELS), Leah Tandeter from the Association for Civil Rights, Santiago Fernandez from the Latin American Institute of Security and Democracy, Ximena Hoffman and Mariano Ciafardini from the Criminal Politics Direction of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, and Deborah Dietl from the program for Victimization Survey of the University of Buenos Aires.

All these meetings, and specially the one held with Mariano Ciafardini were of great use for generating argumentative sources for the documents that are currently being made at Fundar, as well as for creating possibilities for international projects in alliance with these institutions.

 

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