Justice
The Many Police Forces of Mexico City
A glimpse into the often maligned and rarely appreciated police forces that manage the megacity.
In Mexico’s capital region, a jurisdictional fault line separates the police force of Mexico City from the police force of the rest of the State of Mexico.
The police force of Mexico City counts 84,000 uniformed officers, the State of Mexico counts 73,000—most of which are posted in the periphery of the megacity. In 2011, the last year for which a statistic can be found, 374,044 crimes were committed in the Greater Mexico City Area. In the last year, the homicide rate in Mexico City proper was 13.4 per 100,000 while in the State of Mexico it was around 18 per 100,000.