How Many Police Do We Need?

We awoke yesterday morning to both the municipal police and Tránsitos on a well-justified strike. They are protesting the lack of training, inadequate equipment and poor leadership they receive in return for placing their lives on the line every day. There are many factors to this issue, but it seems an appropriate time to look at where San Miguel de Allende fits in with international policing standards. 

Organizations like the UN and the IRC have a range of recommendations but, ideally, the police to civilian ratio in any city with a population of over 100,000 should be approximately 180 to 225 police officers for every 100,000 people. 

The population of the municipality of San Miguel de Allende is estimated at 180,000 which means that we should have between 324 and 405 officers. 

The government will not release exact numbers, but our sources within the Presidencia tell us that we have roughly 100 to 120 officers. It should be noted that these numbers do not account for the tragic and unnecessary loss of the two officers on Tuesday and the subsequent resignation of several officers on Friday. 

At any given time, 25% of those officers are working on administrative tasks which leaves only 75% – or 75 to 90 police officers – on active duty for the entire municipality, including the urban area and over 500 rural communities. 

So, we are confronting the greatest security crises in over 400 years of history with a quarter to a third of the recommended number of police officers. Every city is unique but for comparison, Pamplona, Spain, an extremely popular tourist destination with a similar population size, has approximately 408 active-duty officers. It goes without saying, they also have a much lower crime rate.

At a Town Hall meeting in April, the mayor acknowledged that our police department is sorely understaffed but put the blame on the citizenry. He claimed that no one wanted to join. 

All of us are tired of living in fear; not just of crime but of the total impunity. We at the Observatorio Ciudadano. would like to take this opportunity to thank those officers who have acted honestly and heroically to protect the rest of us. 

We call upon this administration to show a true commitment to resolving this situation by immediately recruiting an adequate number of officers with appropriate training and equipment.