Guatemala adds a few thousand police

President Otto Perez Molina has said that he wants to deploy 35,000 police throughout the country before his four-year term is over. Guatemala currently counts with 30,000 police. That will bring them up to 193 police per 100,000, still short of the internationally recommended number of 222 per 100,000 but better. It would also be higher than the 33,500 number that I was working with given his campaign pledge to increase the force by 10,000.

Adding 5K to an already undertrained and weak #Guatemala #police might be doing more harm than good. @CentAmPolMike http://t.co/AREnr0A66j
— Christopher Bielecki (@Chris_Bielecki) December 22, 2013

However, we all know that it is not just about adding police. Guatemala needs to continue to remove corrupt police officers which it is doing but it doesn't appear that it is doing it at nearly the same rate as the previous administration (fewer corrupt police to remove?). They are still poorly paid and susceptible to corruption. They still like to ask foreigners for a mordita.

Of the 7,000 police added by Perez Molina, 4,000 still do not have weapons. They are a very young force. Given the 7,000 police added under Perez Molina and the 6,000 or so under Alvaro Colom, over 40 percent of the police has no more than six years in the job.

Adding police is necessary but the challenge is more than adding warm bodies.