Critical communications and local needs

Mr Juan Carlos Peniche, Ex-Under-Secretary for Institutional Development – Police State Commission, Morelos Government

“In the future, we need more integration of social media messaging technologies into professional systems to ensure their success. This will deliver the best police communications solution for Mexico.”

What major changes in society are affecting policing in Mexico?

There is a lack of continuity in Mexico caused by changing political administrations. Every few years, our ways of doing things are re-invented. Local issues tend to dominate political thinking and there has been little opportunity for broader, national and long-term planning.

Another issue in Mexico, as it is worldwide, is the growing influence of social media and the increase in unreliable or politically motivated reports. It is important that governments strive to achieve much more objective communications of public matters and take control to avoid damaging their reputation.

What are the major challenges facing policing in Mexico today?

The police forces in Mexico are organised on three governance levels – federal, state and municipality. There are more than 1,600 police agencies, which makes coordination and strategic planning very difficult. It also leaves open the opportunity for criminal cartels to corrupt officers and even place their own people into the municipal forces to influence police work in their favour.

While we cannot unify all police agencies, they would be easier to manage if the municipal level of governance was removed to leave 33 bodies instead of 1,600.

And what possibilities are new technologies like secure mobile broadband creating for policing?

The typical police officer’s view of the radio as just a voice communications device needs to change. It is already more important than the police gun and its dependence will increase with the use of data transmission for police reaction, analysis, intelligence work and help deliver much better services.

Higher bandwidth communication also better supports officers who need to act in the moment, for example through instant vehicle licence plate recognition. It also enables real-time operational planning for more efficient deployment of police resources – situations can change very quickly.

In the future, we also need more integration of social media messaging technologies into professional systems to ensure their success. We have seen police officers using WhatsApp to send evidence and even to run dispatching through WhatsApp because it’s a tool they are used to. So we need to integrate professional versions of these kinds of tools into our secure, end-to-end system. This will deliver the best police communications solution for Mexico.

Emerging technologies are very important, but we need to implement new capabilities in a controlled way, one step at a time. This will avoid investment in expensive solutions, but which are hardly used because our people currently lack the training to use them.

What challenges are being created by the new generation of digital-native users entering the force?

A problem we face in Mexico is that the office buying the solutions does not always understand the capabilities of the people who must use them, so we don’t always get the results we expect. New users are familiar with smartphones and see possibilities for new apps to help them better perform their duties. They know how to use WhatsApp, but they don’t always know how to use professional technology. It’s a complex problem in which people need more training and even the public schools need to raise their educational standards.

New technology must be very easy to understand and be developed for local use. Advanced European technology cannot simply be transferred to Latin America. Technology must be based on local capabilities and practices. Only then can we start thinking about more advanced analytical and intelligence apps.

How can vendors like Airbus help police forces to meet their challenges?

Suppliers cannot afford to wait for the institution to ask for the new technology they need. They need to engage with the whole organisation from the top to the bottom to understand what is and what is not working with the technology that’s already been implemented. It’s essential that all personnel are using the solutions at all levels so that when a new political administration is voted in, it will be very difficult for them to make changes. Then we get continuity.

If vendors do this correctly, they will have the opportunity to do some very interesting things with new broadband security technologies and become a much stronger transformation partner for the agencies.

We can learn much from other countries. Here in Mexico we have a relationship with the National Police of Colombia which gives us insights into how a single national force is organized and operates. This has helped us to develop strategic plans and shown us new ways to use technology to improve dispatching.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Airbus.