We have criminal gangs in the US and the police here don't have to worry about that. It's mostly because of our justice system and the fact that you can't buy off any cop with some cash.
There are a lot of factors that have gone into this, including but not limited to:
1) "American sized" amounts of money being dumped into a "Mexico sized" economy.
2) (related to the above) The increased utility of any bribe to somebody living in Mexico. (we see this phenomenon in developing nations across the world^).
3) Comparative resources available to the police forces.
4) Pressure from the US to overextend the Mexican police force.
etc.
To boil this all down to "the police aren't doing their jobs" is a huge mistake.
EDIT: ^Apologies, it seems Mexico is now considered a "newly industrialized nation", as of 2011. I don't think this effects my point however.
You can buy off US cop's with cash or threats of violence etc. The solution in the US has been the state cops and the FBI, which rotates people around enough so bribing them is less useful. Now add in an internal affairs office with some real teeth. Which creates a structure where bribed local cops tend to only ignore a subset of crimes.
In other words have overlapping independent organizations all investigating each other and add in people that don't stay in an area long enough to be bribed safely.
The same way the US got to the level where it decided to abolish alcohol prohibition.
This story is not new, just now politicians have a harder time admitting they did something wrong, and the prison (workers) lobby and the DEA will do all they can to continue.
"2) (related to the above) The increased tility of any brbe to somebody living in Mexico. (we see this phenomenon in developing nations across the world)."
Which is what I said. The reason the US isn't third-world is because most cops don't accept bribes. This sort of behavior infects society as a whole.
"3) Comparative resources available to the police forces."
Why are they out of resources? We need to figure things out if we ever want to stop it.
"4) Pressure from the US to overextend the Mexican police force."
It's because the violence and crime is spilling over to the US side of things. If they were stopping these guys, I don't think we would need to overextend anything. Does the US over-extend Canada's police force?
"To boil this all down to "the police aren't doing their jobs" is a huge mistake."
The police aren't doing their job because of a systematic problem of corruption. So I suppose it's just a symptom of a greater problem, but it still doesn't change the fact that there is a huge corruption problem with the Mexican police.
"Which is what I said. The reason the US isn't third-world is because most cops don't accept bribes."
No. You said this: "The police aren't doing their job", which is what I particularly object to. They are doing it as well as anybody could reasonably be expected to.
And before you object to that 'reasonable' qualification, ponder the following: Somebody comes up to you and offers you enough money to pay off a good deal of your debt. But they don't stop there, they give you a choice! You can either accept this money, and go about your business, or you can decline this money, they will cut off your head, rape your wife, then cut off her's too.
Whatever you think you might do here, you cannot reasonably expect people to turn down the bribe.
"Why are they out of resources?"
Well that is really quite simple. Look up the amount of money the US spends on their "enforcement" and the answer should become clear.
"It's because the violence and crime is spilling over to the US side of things."
Look up the history of drug laws sometime. The laws predate the violence.
> There is a reason the police are the ones wearing ski masks down there:
And there's a different reason why SWAT-cops in the US wear masks. The last time I pointed that out, someone mentioned that UK cops also wear masks at times.
Is there any place where the cops never wear masks?
As I understand it, regular beat cops sometimes wear masks in Mexico, which doesn't happen in safer countries, not just special operations. In my brief visit to mexico (an afternoon in Nogales, pretty safe) I didn't notice any cops, but I did see trucks with soldiers in them, probably a third of whom had masks on.
I think the issue is more around the regularity with which authoroties have to conceal their identity.
I'm shocked at the number of closed-minded members of the HN community. If the answer to the violence in Mexico isn't: "let's legalize all drugs!", I get down voted.
I wasn't a troll and explained my points, yet nobody wants to listen. It's sad. It's becoming more and more difficult to fight this mentality.
I thought this was a community of intelligent people, yet I'm beginning to realize that this just isn't the case anymore.
Your third paragraph doesn't follow from the first two paragraphs. The first two paragraphs make the interesting conjecture that increased police corruption in Mexico lowers drug prices in the US. This is something potentially worth discussing.
The third paragraph asserts that legalizing drugs won't stop the violence, and that Mexican police aren't "doing their job." The first point contradicts the original article, and thus requires supporting evidence (e.g. quotations from the original article, followed by references to contradictory studies). The second point is simply unnecessarily accusatory, and is ignorant of the reality expressed by burgerbrain (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3228850).
Meta: you've commented (and I've responded) in this pattern before. You start with something that will be perceived as inflammatory by the typical HN crowd (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3172594), then follow up with a complaint about the votes you receive or the changing HN culture (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3172744). Maybe you're not trolling on purpose, but it sure looks like it.
As I said before (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3173159), you'd do a better job of conveying your message and be less likely to start a flame war if you restructured your arguments to be more appropriate to the audience -- present evidence, apply logical analysis, and draw a logical conclusion. State your assumptions (e.g. in this case if you believe that absolute societal order is more important than individual freedom, state up front that your argument depends on that). Most importantly, if you want others to change their minds, be willing to change yours if the argument goes the other way.
FWIW, I don't think you're right, but that your point presents a reasonable argument, and thus shouldn't be downvoted.
As to the police doing their jobs, you have to keep in mind that the drug organizations in Mexico columbia are heavily armed, more so than the local police. The Zetas for example, rose to power after being founded by Mexican special forces, a group analagous to our Green Berets. When you combine this strong knowledge of tactical warfare with a callous ruthlessness, they're not so easy to just shut down.
They are also very well financed. The drug gangs in the U.S are a joke compared to Mexico. They can't even be put in the same league. Drug gangs in the U.S. are like retail corner shops. Drug organizations in Mexico are like Walmarts, supplying these corner shops.
So in effect you have drug organizations which are more powerful than in the U.S. and a law enforcement system which is weaker than the U.S. Law enforcement couldn't easily stamp out these organizations (without HEAVY loss of life) even if corruption weren't an issue.
Troll or not, I think your post is being downvoted, at least in part, because of the gaping logical chasm you constructed. It may help if you explain exactly how falling cocaine prices would increase corruption in Mexico.
"If the Mexican police were actually doing their job, the criminals wouldn't be running the show."
This suggests a very simplistic understanding of the issues surrounding Mexican police. You're just mindlessly finger-pointing and didn't even hint at ways the Mexican police could counter some of the obstacles they face.
I hate the downmod system here as well - entirely anonymous and trivially easy to reduce someone else's comment - but I can see why your comment might have been downmodded.
There is a reason the police are the ones wearing ski masks down there: http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WO-AG531_MEXICO_G_...