According to the 2010 National Survey of Insecurity (Encuesta Nacional de Inseguridad), the vast majority -77.8 percent- of Mexicans have little or no confidence in federal public security officials.
The survey is part of an annual telephone questionnaire by the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Information (INEGI). In the survey, researchers asked a number of questions on crime and public perceptions of security to more than 73,000 households in all 31 of Mexico’s states and its federal district.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the poll’s findings reflected a perceived increase in total crime rates across the country, with 61.7% believing that the level of crime has increased over the last year, 25% believe it has stayed constant, and only 11.2% saying that it has decreased. Despite the perceived surge in violence, 81.5% of respondents are still in favor of the federal government’s operations against organized crime in the country.
The most alarming result of the poll is the high level of distrust that Mexicans have towards the federal government’s public security institutions
-89.5% of adults expressed “little confidence” (67.4%) or “no confidence” (22.1%) in the Municipal Police
-77.8% of adults have “little confidence” (61%) or “no confidence” (13.9%) in the Federal Police
-46.8% have “little confidence” (40.1%) or “no confidence” (6.7%) in the Army
-42.9% have “little confidence” (38.3%) or “no confidence” (4.6%) in the Marines
-Only 25.3% of those believe that the federal government is “very concerned” with improving public security, 71.8% believe it is only “somewhat concerned” or not concerned at all.
Respondents were asked to grade the performance of public security officials on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest grade possible. Below are their averages:
-Transit Police: 5.6
-Municipal Police: 5.9
-State Preventative Police: 6.3
-Federal Police: 6.8
-Military: 8.1
-Marines: 8.3
To view more of the survey's results (in Spanish), click here.
Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (INEGI). Encuesta Nacional de Inseguridad. Aguascalientes, Mexico. 2010. Retrieved online,15 Dec 2010.
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