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Vargas, E L P 2015 Foreword for Citizen Security Dialogues: Dispatchesfrom Mexico. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development,4(1): 4, pp. 1-2, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.eu

EDITORIAL

Foreword for Citizen Security Dialogues:Dispatches from Mexico

Ernesto Lpez Portillo Vargas*

stability

For decades, a select few regions haveachieved successes in interventions geared

toward building and fostering safer, non-vio-lent communities. This is the case, for exam-ple, of Central Europe, the United States,and Canada, where a constant productionof policy inputs and outputs determineswhat works and tends to correct what doesnot in lessons learned from the virtuouscycles of the public policy process. In otherregions and continents, such as Africa, LatinAmerica, and the Caribbean, it is exceedingly

difficult to cultivate sustained iterations oflearning and positive change, increasingthe chance of success for meaningful socialand institutional change. Numerous factorsaccount for this asymmetry, but one aspectstands out: the huge disparity of availableresources when it comes to structuring andformalizing the learning process. At the veryleast, in the case of Mexico the investmentcan be qualified as paltry, though this isalso the case in much of Latin America, theCaribbean, and Africa. The old maxim applieshere: those who do not learn from their mis-takes are doomed to failure.

Our initiative, the Citizen Security Dia-logues, seeks to counteract this structuralliability by means of informed discussion,a systematization of processes and the dis-semination of specially designed studiesin settings where insecurity and violence

have been the most extreme. The challengeis to identify innovative and creative areas

of opportunity, as well as successes, in themidst of the most complex of institutionaland social challenges.

Mexico is providing two inputs to theSecurity Dialogues: first, a report outliningthe findings, reflections, and recommen-dations derived from our November 6-7,2014 meeting, which brought together fiftyexperts in Mexico City; and second, the seriesof four articles included here, which classify

the efforts for institutional and social reforminto low and high-conflict environments.Two of these contributions discuss exam-

ples of democratic police reform, still in earlystages of maturity. Fontecilla and Surezaddress the topic of collaborative interven-tions among civil society, municipal govern-ments, and police institutions, providingpolicy recommendations which encouragetransformations from reactive police forcesto instruments of community service and cit-izen-police cooperation. Guzmn and Espriudiscuss the context, history, and implementa-tion of the first effort at Mexican institutionalreform involving external oversight of thepolice and based on the international prin-cipal of police accountability. Aguilar focuseson the important area of communicationchannels, as well as the linkages between citi-zen security and penal reform. She provides asuccinct and clear analysis of pre-trial services

in Mexico and in the region specifically,technical instruments which measure risk and

* Executive Director of the Institute for Securityand Democracy, Mexico

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Vargas: Foreword for Citizen Security DialoguesArt. 4, page 2 of 2

substitute policies of pre-trial detention withprofessionally-managed pre-trial supervisionand monitoring. Aguilar presents irrefuta-ble evidence of success, demonstrating highcompliance in these types of interventions,

with adequate controls imposed and withoutresorting to detention. Less incarceration,in turn, yields multiple positive outcomes,strengthening the rule of law and improvingaccess to justice and security.

Monrrez writes with poignancy on thethemes of tragedy and hope. She takes a pen-etrating look at the irreparable and ongoingdamage in terms of the loss of human life,life work, cultural heritage and the local and

international displacements of thousands ofcitizens, in Juarez City within the context ofthe war on drugs. She then weaves a tap-estry of hope using the transformational

personal experiences of civil society organi-zations, whose interventions to combat childpoverty, rape and sexual violence againstwomen, and disappeared populations, helprecover the right to ones body, the right to

public space and the right to be a politicalsubject.

These articles provide a snapshot of anunknown number of official and independ-ent initiatives growing in number through-out the country and having an impact inareas profoundly affected by insecurity andviolence. Unfortunately, few have yet to beincorporated as inputs in a formal learn-ing process geared toward producing pub-

lic policies informed by the citizen securityparadigm. We hope that these examples mayserve to be a small, yet significant, contribu-tion in this effort.

How to cite this article: Vargas, E L P 2015 Foreword for Citizen Security Dialogues: Dispatchesfrom Mexico. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 4(1): 4, pp. 1-2, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.eu

Published:30 January 2015

Copyright: 2015 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of theCreative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use,distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

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