A "narco-blockade" in Monterrey (image source).

• “Save Monterrey” reads the lead editorial in Wednesday’s edition of the Mexican daily El Universal. Mexico’s wealthiest city, less than 100 miles from the U.S. border, has rapidly plunged from relative tranquility to narco-related violence. In the past week, cartels shut down the city by blockading main roads, exploded a device outside the Televisa TV affiliate, and murdered the mayor of the nearby town of Santiago.

• Mexican authorities say they have seized 180,000 weapons in the past 3 ½ years, and that 191 members of the military (not police) were killed by narcotraffickers in the same period. In all, AFP reports, 694 members of Mexico’s armed forces have been killed on anti-drug operations since 1976, when they first took on the counternarcotics role.

• According to The Economist, Venezuela’s Interior Ministry reported 12,257 homicides during the first 11 months of 2009. A study carried out by the country’s National Statistics Institute at the request of the Vice President’s Office found 19,133 murders in 2009. This is an extremely high figure for a country of 28 million people; Colombia, with 45 million people, reported 15,817 or 17,717 homicides in 2009, depending on the source.

• In Bogotá, meanwhile, the coroner’s office recorded 938 murders during the first seven months of 2010, up from 905 during the same period in 2009. Due to population growth, however, the city’s overall murder rate declined by 0.9 percent.

• A few weeks ago, polls for Brazil’s October 3 presidential elections were showing a dead heat between Dilma Rousseff of the ruling Workers’ Party and José Serra of the opposition Social Democracy Party. Now, with a month and a half to go, Rousseff has opened up a 43% to 32% lead.

• Brazil was the destination of a visit from Ecuador’s foreign minister this week, seeking to patch things up after Ecuador’s 2008 expulsion of a Brazilian construction company. Brazil, at the beginning of September, will also be the locale of Juan Manuel Santos’s first foreign trip as president of Colombia.

• Colombia’s new foreign minister, María Ángela Holguín, hinted that the U.S.-Colombia defense cooperation agreement might be revised to take neighboring countries’ concerns into account. (Colombia’s Constitutional Court struck down the October 2009 agreement on Tuesday, ruling that Colombia’s Congress must first ratify it.) “Not only Venezuela, but UNASUR in general, has asked that some paragraphs be introduced to assure them that absolutely nothing would happen with the Colombia bases,” Holguín said. “We’re certainly going to look at that in our study of the agreement.”

• “The United States should now consider the benefits of supporting a peace process to try to end a conflict that has raged for more than four decades,” writes Milburn Line of the University of San Diego’s Joan Kroc Institute, in a strong piece about Colombia published in the International Herald Tribune.

• Claudia López, the Colombian researcher who played a key role in breaking the “para-politics” scandal, has released a new book about “how mafiosi and politicians reconfigured the Colombian state. “There is no proof so far linking him [former president Álvaro Uribe] directly with illegal structures. But it is clear that all illegal actors on the right wing inserted themselves into his political program and he did nothing to avoid it. Eight of every ten para-politicians were from his coalition,” López tells “La Silla Vacía” in a wide-ranging interview.

• In a piece published Thursday to the OpenDemocracy.net website, I point out that Juan Manuel Santos – if he continues to follow some of the policies that have marked his few days in office – may find himself on a nasty but necessary collision course with the mafiosi and para-politicians in the coalition he inherited from Uribe.

• The WOLA/TNI “Drug Law Reform in Latin America” project unearths a 1998 letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan signed by, among others, Juan Manuel Santos. It calls for “a frank and honest evaluation of global drug control efforts” because “we believe that the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself.”

• El Tiempo interviews a former FARC guerrilla, a recent deserter, who was present at the site where hostages were being kept when the Colombian military rescued them in July 2008. He says that he and many others were at first accused of being traitors to the guerrilla group: “They chained my hands and feet, they took me someplace over there [where FARC leader alias “Mono Jojoy” was headquartered] and I spent a month and thirteen days detained with security all around.”

• Chile’s defense minister traveled to Lima to meet with his Peruvian counterpart, where they agreed to do more to coordinate their defense expenditures. Meanwhile the head of Bolivia’s army traveled to Santiago to meet with his Chilean counterpart.

• 85 percent of Latin Americans oppose going the Costa Rica/Panama/Haiti route and abolishing their armed forces. However, at least 1 in 5 Guatemalans, Paraguayans and Uruguayans would be in favor of it. This is one of many interesting findings in a new FLACSO region-wide poll about governance and democracy, whose entire contents are viewable here.

• The Obama administration appears to be close to restoring Clinton-era “people-to-people” contacts with Cuba, the Washington Post revealed Wednesday. This would mean licensing several currently prohibited types of U.S. citizen travel to the island.

• Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernández named a new armed-forces chief and a new police chief this week. Both said that fighting crime and narcotrafficking would be their main priority.

As organized crime and drug trafficking groups extend their reach across Latin America, some in Washington suggest that militaries should play a bigger role in the fight against these threats. Their argument, however, is based on five false assumptions and conceptual misunderstandings. These assumptions must be corrected and clarified to paint an accurate picture of the region’s biggest security threat.

Assumption 1: Drug trafficking and organized crime exist evenly across Latin America and have the same effect in every country in the region.

Quite to the contrary, drug trafficking and all other types of illicit transport have vastly varied presence and impact across Latin America. In 2008, the International Crisis Group (ICG) published a report describing each country’s role in drug production and trafficking. It found sharp differences between different sub-regions of the hemisphere.

The ICG characterized the region’s heterogeneous narcotrafficking patterns as follows:

Largely in response to massive U.S. demand, Mexico is the site of not only drug production but also traffickers moving illicit drugs northward. Mexico has three main trafficking groups and has also organized groups of hitmen. They operate across Mexico, and are responsible for moving drugs into the United States.

Because of their geographical position in transit zones, Central American and Caribbean gangs are generally more involved in facilitating the trans-shipment of illicit goods, and less with production.

To the contrary, the Andean countries are known to be mostly producers of drugs, but also participate in trafficking. The most notorious case is Colombia. While for decades Colombian cartels dominated drug markets (particularly cocaine), their role has diminished due to U.S.-supported anti-cartel efforts, an ongoing armed conflict, and Mexican cartels’ increased domination of trafficking. Today, Colombia is still the number-one cocaine producer, but there have been reductions and drug trafficking is decentralized among smaller trafficking groups.

Pressure on drug production in Colombia is leading to a rise in coca production elsewhere, particularly in Peru. According to ICG: “Peru remains the second largest coca-cultivating country, with 33 per cent of global leaf production”, and is also involved in cocaine production. Bolivia also produces coca leaf and cocaine.

As is the case in several countries across the region, however, the roles played by gangs in Peru and Bolivia have shifted over time and now include transport. Peru’s trafficking organizations have operated in “tightly organized, next-of kin groups,” but they have not reached the same level of organization as Mexican and Colombian gangs. ICG also describes how “Peruvian clans are the leading organizations in the export, transportation and distribution of cocaine and ‘paco’ in the booming drug markets of the Southern Cone.” Mexican illegal groups operate in Peru as well, where they are the ones carrying out drug exportations out of Peru. Colombian traffickers are also present in the Peruvian drug industry. Unlike Peru, “no large trafficking organizations are based in Bolivia, where small, compact, difficult-to-infiltrate family clans are the norm.” These operate mainly in La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz.

Unlike its neighbours, Ecuador is mainly a transit country, used as well for storage of Colombian and Peruvian drugs. The main drug being trafficked through Ecuador is thus cocaine. Groups involved in the illicit transportation of drugs are loosely aligned groups of Ecuadorians, Colombians and Peruvians. Last week, Ecuadorian police working with the DEA’s assistance, discovered a “narco-submarine” close to the border with Colombia, meant for cocaine transportation.

Venezuela is an important transit country because of its long and porous border with Colombia. There are no known local kingpins taking part in the transshipment of drugs, but according to the ICG, there is presumed participation of police and military forces.

In the last few years, Brazil has become the biggest cocaine and marihuana consumer market in South America. It is also “an important trans-shipment hub for cocaine to Europe and North America,” according to the ICG report. Colombian led groups that employ Brazilians to run the operations, are the ones in charge of trafficking drugs destined to Europe and North America. Brazilian criminals in turn are responsible for distribution and retailing. The most well known and larger in organization and structure involved in the drug business are Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), Comando Vermelho, Terceiro Comando, and Terceiro Comando Puro. Worth mentioning is the fact that the ICG mentions no presence of Mexican illegal groups in Brazil.

Lastly, the Southern Cone is primarily a transit zone, but neither drug trafficking groups nor transnational organized crime networks have a strong presence in the sub-region. In Argentina, Peruvian organizations dominate most cocaine and “paco” distribution. Chile is also a transit zone for the US and according to ICG, “a trans-shipment point for larger cocaine shipments coming mostly from Colombia through Ecuador and Peru.”

The exception to this is Paraguay, the biggest marihuana producer in South America. It has always been used as the “region’s smuggling centre,” and is thus a key transit zone for Bolivian, Peruvian and Colombian cocaine en route to Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Europe. Family clans operate the illegal drug businesses. Paraguay is where most Brazilian traffickers hideout from police persecution.

Ultimately, drug production, illicit trafficking, and organized crime take diverse and dynamic shapes across the region, and there is certainly no monolithic or uniform “drug problem” awaiting a forceful solution.

Assumption 2: All police forces in Latin America are corrupt and inefficient in their attempts to maintain law and order and fighting drug trafficking.

This argument is frequently used to justify militaries’ participation in anti-drug missions. Although drug traffickers and organized crime agents have penetrated many countries’ police forces, in addition to being plagued by endemic corruption, other nations have strong professional law enforcement bodies capable of confronting internal threats.

Among them, Chile’s Carabineros police force is known to be one of the best law enforcement agencies in the region. Nicaragua’s community police forces are an exemplary success story. While many Latin American countries do not enjoy strong, transparent, or effective policing, we should view those that do as role models and not exceptions to an inescapable downward regional trend.

Assumption 3: Military forces are immune to corruption, and will be effective in combating drug trafficking and transnational organized crime.

Militaries do not have some fundamental characteristic that makes them innately better equipped against internal threats than are the region’s police forces. The ineffectiveness of police forces does not necessarily mean that the armed forces will be better able to confront illegal armed groups. In fact, it often means the opposite.

Many militaries in Latin America are small, and lack the capabilities and training to be effective against drug traffickers and organized crime groups. In some countries, they may be constitutionally prohibited from engaging in law enforcement-related activities.

Quite contrary to what we might hope, militaries are highly susceptible to corruption in certain contexts. Hector Saint Pierre has warned of the power that gangs still have over the armed forces, penetrating them through bribery and intimidation. When employed as police forces, military structures are even more vulnerable to corruption given low salaries and bad working conditions. The Brazilian daily O Globo, for example, has reported on military personnel selling weapons to traffickers. Similarly, the ICG’s report explains that pervasive corruption in Venezuela’s armed forces makes it difficult to stop trafficking of drugs through Venezuela. While it would be a mistake to assume that all Latin American police forces are free of corruption and inefficiency, it would be an even bigger error to assume that all militaries are immune from those ailments.

Assumption 4: Latin America is homogenous, and generalized security policies can be applied regionally.

Advocating the use of the military in counternarcotics across the region implies the assumption that all Latin American countries have relatively analogous defense and security systems. Said another way, to implement a one-size-fits-all militarized anti-drug strategy would require a certain level of systemic uniformity across countries. However, there are not one but many defense-system models in Latin America.

The Latin American Security and Defense Network (Red de Seguridad y Defensa de America Latina) has published “A Comparative Atlas of Defense in Latin America” which examines the defense system of each country in the region. Using the atlas as a principal source, we can see four main sub-regional tendencies regarding defense systems in Latin America.

The Southern Cone can be distinguished from the rest of the region for having the strongest, most professional defense systems. This is the case principally because Chile, Argentina and Uruguay all have constitutional legislation separating defense and police roles. Institutionally, these countries also have ministries, commanded by civilian leaders, for each force.

In Brazil’s case, the armed forces are primarily tasked with the external defense of the nation, but are not expressly prohibited by law from engaging in internal functions. This lack of legal precision has allowed for the use of the military within favelas to fight drug trafficking groups. The military has carried out other subsidiary functions in development like combating hoof-and-mouth disease in the southern region, distributing water in the semi-arid “nordestito”, and facilitating medical and dental attention to the riverbank population of the Amazon region.

While countries in the Andean sub-region (from Bolivia to Venezuela) have varying security and defense systems, they share an important commonality: their militaries are all-encompassing, multipurpose forces whose functions range from traditional national defense missions to law enforcement, development, and even business. For example, Bolivia’s armed forces take part in humanitarian programs focused on social inclusion, development, and national sovereignty. In addition to their traditional defense roles, they also guard borders and engage in counternarcotics missions. More extreme still, the most distinguishing characteristic of the Ecuadorian armed forces is their ownership of several businesses used to gain additional military financing. These include industrial corporations that produce ammunition, clothes, and shoes for military use; companies that develop car parts; an airline; a banana and shrimp export company; and supermarkets and banks, among others.

After the end of the conflicts that spanned the 1980s, the initial aims of Central America’s militaries were peacekeeping missions and support to civilian authorities in case of natural disasters. However, rising crime rates and pervasive violence in these countries has led to heavy military involvement in the fight against crime, gangs, and drug trafficking. In fact, unlike southern cone countries, the constitutions of El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala allow for the possibility of expanding military tasks to unconventional roles.

Finally, Mexico’s armed forces have always characterized themselves as one of the most professional forces in the region, proud to have never carried out a coup against a civilian government. However, as in Central America, the rise in violence caused by increasingly well-armed drug traffickers and organized crime groups has pushed the Mexican government to involve the military in counternarcotics. In addition, the armed forces are called to support citizens in cases of public need; carry out civic and social works aimed at the country’s progress; maintain public order; and offer assistance to people and their assets as well as with the reconstruction of areas affected by natural disasters.

Assumption 5: Fighting drug trafficking and organized crime can be equated with “citizen security.”

More than an assumption, this is a conceptual misunderstanding that confuses related but not equivalent phenomena. More and more we hear the term “citizen security” or “citizen safety” used in defense and military circles in Washington. It is crucial that we distinguish the broad notion of what undermines citizen security from the particular threats represented by drug trafficking and organized crime.

Illicit trafficking and transnational organized crime are described as intermestic threats because they are transnational in nature, but their effects are felt at a local level among populations and in the streets. In other words, they do hinder domestic citizen security. But a population’s safety is also affected by a wide range of uniquely domestic factors that surface in muggings, robberies, assaults, and even kidnappings.

It is thus dangerous to conceptually mix counternarcotics with citizen security. Because the borderline between counternarcotics and law enforcement is so thin, it is crucial to highlight that the armed forces cannot be involved in citizen security because the risks are too great. Soldiers are not trained to act in communities and with citizens. They are not trained either to arrest criminals or collect evidence for use in trials. Quite simply, they are trained to eliminate an adversary with overwhelming force -- and this is an extremely dangerous capability to have in the streets.

Adam talks with WOLA's Adriana Beltrán about the resignation of Carlos Castresana, head of the UN commission against impunity in Guatemala, and the international community's effort to help Guatemala rid itself of the influence of violent organized crime.

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Yesterday, Honduras' El Heraldo published an article about 25 Honduran police officers who are currently in the United States for training on prison management. According to the article, the training will help keep "improvisation, flexibility, incompetence and corruption" out of Honduras' new maximum-security prison. The seven-week long training includes topics such as the proper handling of inmates, acceptable police conduct, and measures to be taken with prisoners to avoid danger.

Below is a translation of the article, thanks to CIP Intern Cristina Salas.

Police officers will be trained to guard maximum-security prison

The policemen that traveled to the United States will be entrusted of training other correctional officers.

Improvisation, flexibility, incompetence and corruption do not seem to be a part of the new maximum-security prison to be inaugurated in the upcoming days in the Marco Aurelio Soto National Penitentiary.

The Department of Security (Secretaría de Seguridad) and the National Authority of Preventive Special Services (Dirección Nacional de Servicios Especiales Preventivos, DNSEP) choose the staff and resources to be used in the jail that will host dangerous criminals.

A first contingent of 25 police officers, men and women, travelled to the United States yesterday to attend a special training session on handling inmates, proper police officer-conduct, and measures to be taken with prisoners to avoid danger, among others.

…

The group will remain in training for seven weeks and will come back to the country to rejoin the police force in the main penitentiary, given that the security module will be inaugurated in the beginning of July, where inmates selected by experts in the field will be hosted.

They will serve time

Minister [of Security Óscar] Álvarez stated that the police officers trained in prison management would help so that “those imprisoned serve their time as it should be.”

“It is the first time in history,” he added, “that we have sent a contingent of this size to be trained on inmate management in the United States.”

He continued saying the course will last seven weeks, which will “help us transition our prison system management from the 20th to the 21st century.”

He declared that, in order to guarantee efficiency of the new prison, the selection process of police officers is very rigorous, they are subjected to polygraph tests and background checks to assure quality.

What we want, he said, is that whoever does the job has a clean criminal record and no connections with organized crime or criminal gangs.

…

The chief of DNSEP, Danilo Orellana, confirmed that the building could hold up to 220 inmates selected by technical teams approved by Minister Álvarez.

In the following days, Álvarez will announce rehabilitation measurements for the general penitentiary population, including those in this unit, who will be people involved to organized crime such as drug-traffickers, kidnappers and car thieves, among others.

The TransBorder Project, a sponsored-program of the Center for International Policy, released a new International Policy Report this week: "Fallacies of High-Tech Fixes for Border Security." In the report, Tom Barry, director of the TransBorder Project, examines the impact and promises of two remote surveillance initiatives employed by the Department of Homeland Security to monitor and secure the U.S. border: the SBInet program (commonly known as the "virtual fence") and the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) program.

Below is the press release for the new report, which can be downloaded as a PDF here.

The Center for International Policy announces the release of its new report, Fallacies of High-Tech Fixes for Border Security (PDF), which examines the promises and impact of remote surveillance technologies in the drive by the Department of Homeland Security to secure the border.

Lately, public calls for more "border security" are rising as drug-related killings intensify in Mexico's northern borderlands and fears escalate on the U.S. side of the border that this violence will spill over. Observers of immigration policy say that a secure border is fundamental to passing comprehensive immigration reform.

This report is a cautionary note about the high costs and dubious results of two high-tech fixes for border security: the attempts to construct a "virtual fence" through the Secure Border Initiative and the new enthusiasm for unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the border.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) professes a commitment to protecting the homeland against the entry of "dangerous people and goods." Yet it lacks a strategy that prioritizes actual threats, and its high-tech initiatives are shockingly unfocused and nonstrategic. Despite the vast sums being spent, DHS, through its Secure Border Initiative, points to illegal border crossers and pounds of marijuana captured as its main indicators of success in protecting the homeland.

With little or no in-house technological expertise and with seemingly unlimited funds, DHS has recklessly pursued border security strategies that are not tied to threat assessments and cost-benefit evaluations.

Fallacies of High-Tech Fixes for Border Security was written by Tom Barry, director of the TransBorder Project of the Center for International Policy.

Adam discusses the Obama administration's new security aid program for 15 Caribbean countries. Here is a link to the 2011 Congressional Budget Justification document referred to in the podcast.

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Many factors contribute to Mexico's ongoing violent drug war. While stopping the flow of drugs and weapons is of critical importance, many internal realities play a significant role in the Calderón government's inability to quell the violence by merely deploying additional troops and police officers to the high-conflict areas.

Recent articles on Mexico indicate that corruption, rule of law, poverty and a lack of trust in the police have combined to create an environment in Mexico where it is faster to take justice into one's own hands, more profitable to be involved in the illicit economy, and exceedingly difficult to reform the broken municipal and local police forces.

Corrupt police force
The Los Angeles Times published an article on the difficulty Mexico faces to "reverse a legacy of police corruption that has tainted whole departments, shattered people's faith in law enforcement and compromised one of society's most basic institutions." Despite the government's attempts to reform the corrupt police force into a new model stressing "technical sophistication and trustworthiness," the country has a tendency to trade in "one corrupt police agency for another." The article argues that this habit must be overcome if real change is to emerge with the new police model.

Vigilante groups
Vigilante groups are becoming more prominent in the violence-ridden areas of Mexico due to the lack of trust in the police force, as reported by both the Los Angeles Times and the Houston Chronicle.

Just last Wednesday, police had to rescue four suspected kidnappers from a mob of angry residents who wanted to punish them themselves. And two weeks ago, the mayor of one northern Mexico city, San Pedro Garza Garcia, announced that he had created a special group, which might act outside of the law in some ways, in order to clean up criminal elements in his city. This group was made public after the new mayor announced that a group of kidnappers who had terrorized his city were dead four hours before the police had found the bodies. When questioned about how he knew before the police, the mayor admitted it was thanks to the new special group.

We're tired of sitting around on our hands and waiting for daddy or mommy Calderón to come to fix our fights. We in San Pedro took the decision to grab the bull by the horns.... Even acting outside the limits of my role as mayor, I will end the kidnappings, extortions and drug trafficking. We are going to do this by whatever means, fair or foul.

Poverty and politics
The BBC also published an article yesterday on the difficulties the Mexican government is facing in defeating the drug cartels that have such a firm grasp on some cities. In addition to corruption and a lack of trust in the police, the article cites poverty and the current elitist political model as important underlying factors. According to the article, an "unsustainable economy" in cities such as Ciudad Juárez has driven "many into the arms of drug cartels," with the drug trade offering 30 times more money than one could earn as a teacher.

In their own way, each of these articles points to a similar conclusion - the Mexican government's current strategy of sending in more troops and firing local police is not sufficient. More attention is needed on tackling corruption, improving the rule of law, and strengthening the judiciary. While most importantly, reliable security and alternative economic opportunities for the local population are necessary to deter even more citizens from entering the illicit and dangerous economy of drugs and murder.

In the past month, reports of worsening violence throughout Latin America have almost become a daily occurrence. Last week, we wrote about the increasing violence in El Salvador and we have have reported on the increasing drug-related violence in Mexico various times. However, countries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Panama and Colombia are also reporting a worrisome increase in violent crime in 2009.

Below are summaries of recent reports of increasing violence throughout the region.

This was originally posted on the Latin America Working Group's website

Challenges and Opportunities to Strengthen Law Enforcement at the State and Local Level in Mexico

On September 17, 2009 the Latin America Working Group Education Fund and the Washington Office on Latin America joined with the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center to host a discussion regarding police reform in Mexico. Researchers and public officials who have spent years exploring these issues participated in this discussion: Edgar Mohar, former Secretary of Citizen Security of the state of Querétaro; Juan Salgado, Associate Professor at the Center for Economic Research and Education (CIDE) in Mexico City; and Daniel Sabet, Visiting Professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh of Foreign Service.

The Calderón administration has relied heavily upon the Mexican military to combat drug cartel related violence with the rationale that local police units are too corrupt and ineffective to fulfill this role. Efforts to reform and professionalize the police have been focusing on the federal police, despite the fact that local state and municipal police forces compose 72% of Mexico’s collective law enforcement.

As noted by the speakers, the principal strategy currently used to combat drug-related violence—widespread deployment of the military—has been inappropriate and is far too blunt of an instrument for the task. Firstly, military soldiers are not trained to handle civilian policing processes. Secondly, the military is not trained to engage in domestic law enforcement, leaving it highly prone to abusing human rights. History has shown us that the military is not a substitute for effective and transparent civilian police institutions, so focusing reform efforts on these entities is essential.

According to the panel, a lack of accountability is one of the most significant challenges facing efforts to reform civilian law enforcement in Mexico. Many state and municipal police mechanisms designed to enhance accountability are challenged by a lack of continuity. When new officials get elected and local governments turn over from one party to another, political priorities and agendas change, having major impacts on the durability of reforms and local police administration.

However, it is important to note that encouraging advancements have been made. An important trend emerging in Mexican police recruiting procedures has been the requirements on increasing education. For example, just a few years ago one could be recruited into a police force in Querétaro with only an elementary-level education. Now, high school completion with one full year of basic police academy training is required for recruitment and a University degree is required for top-rank promotions.

The municipality of Chihuahua has also undergone multiple reform initiatives, including implementation of internal affairs mechanisms and public citizen committees, to achieve Mexico’s first CALEA (Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies) accreditation. By being CALEA-accredited, the municipal police force of Chihuahua has met a long list of standards that ensure more effective training and operations for cops.

Click here to read a story in the Christian Science Monitor that further covers this topic.

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