Challenges to US and Mexican Police and Tourism Stability examines the impacts that historical, political, and social campaigns targeting police practices have had on law enforcement in general and on the tourism industry in particular, specifically focusing on recent developments in both the USA and Mexico.

Challenges to US and Mexican Police and Tourism Stability examines the impacts that historical, political, and social campaigns targeting police practices have had on law enforcement in general and on the tourism industry in particular, specifically focusing on recent developments in both the USA and Mexico.

Issues of public security - crime, violence, corruption, and defective law enforcement - all play important roles in the Mexico-U.S. bilateral relationship. The contributors to this volume shed new light on the determinants of transnational crime and its consequences for domestic politics in Mexico as well as for U.S.-Mexico relations.

The security situation in Mexico has deteriorated in recent years. To help inform debate on the future of U.S.-Mexico relations, this study examined a set of U.S. policy options and potential policy priorities that hold promise for Mexico?s security.

The urgent need to professionalize Mexican police has been recognized since the early 1990s, but despite even the most well-intentioned promises from elected officials and police chiefs, few gains have been made in improving police integrity. Why have reform efforts in Mexico been largely unsuccessful? This book seeks to answer the question by focusing on Mexico's municipal police, which make up the largest percentage of the country's police forces. Indeed, organized crime presents a major obstacle to institutional change, with criminal groups killing hundreds of local police in recent years. Nonetheless, Daniel Sabet argues that the problems of Mexican policing are really problems of governance. He finds that reform has suffered from a number of policy design and implementation challenges. More importantly, the informal rules of Mexican politics have prevented the continuity of reform efforts across administrations, allowed patronage appointments to persist, and undermined anti-corruption efforts. Although many advances have been made in Mexican policing, weak horizontal and vertical accountability mechanisms have failed to create sufficient incentives for institutional change. Citizens may represent the best hope for counterbalancing the toxic effects of organized crime and poor governance, but the ambivalent relationship between citizens and their police must be overcome to break the vicious cycle of corruption and ineffectiveness.

The security and stability of America's southern neighbor has been a condition taken for granted by many U.S. policymakers. While the U.S. defense establishment, in particular, has been focused on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential for spillover violence from Mexico cannot be dismissed. Over 30,000 Mexicans have been killed since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a campaign to destroy drug cartels and gangs, which have perpetrated heinous acts of violence like dismemberments and decapitations. Small towns in Mexico near the U.S. border have been abandoned out of fear of criminal violence. Businesses have reconsidered their investments and their operations in Mexico. Such large-scale violence in other countries has led many people to seek safety by crossing an international border. This is beginning to happen with Mexicans seeking asylum in the United States. Dr. Kan examines the growing movement of Mexicans who are coming to the United States out of fear of cartel violence. Unlike illegal immigration, these Mexicans are leaving unwillingly. The effects of such a movement, if it increases steadily or suddenly, will force U.S. policymakers to rethink much of the strategic environment in the hemisphere and place pressure on them to reconsider national security priorities. The effects will also be felt in U.S. domestic political debates over immigration, public safety, and border security. Strategic Studies Institute.