The gap that we can no longer tolerate
In the United States, the Homeland Security Task Force functions as an orchestrator of intelligence, investigation and joint operations.
There is no luxury of isolated agencies making decisions without data.
The Mexican SESNSP has exactly what the Security Cabinet lacks: disaggregated strategic information, measurements of crime incidence, analysis of criminal trends and knowledge of criminal dynamics at the territorial level. However, this information is dusted in monthly reports while critical decisions are made in offices without that support.
The fragmentation is evident.
The Cabinet carries out operations without clarity on the state of the threat; The SESNSP reports results without being able to influence the strategy. There is not even certainty about who coordinates the federal, state and municipal forces, nor how resources are allocated according to the available operational intelligence. This vacuum is what explains why different administrations repeat failures: there is no institutional learning because there is no institution that learns.
An urgent change of roles
The Security Cabinet must move from being a decision maker to an executor of them. Its correct function is to implement criminal policy defined with technical and scientific criteria, not to improvise strategy on the fly. A Secretary of the Interior or a Secretary of Security does not need to be a security strategist; You need to be an efficient operator.
Their decisions must respond to guidelines that emanate from rigorous analysis, not from political intuitions.
The SESNSP, on the other hand, must become the governing body.
With its academic, scientific, budgetary and operational capabilities, it is equipped to define evidence-based policies. This does not mean taking power away from the President of the Republic; It means channeling it effectively. The President would continue to define general political objectives, but how to achieve them would be determined by institutions with expertise.
The strengths of a new structure
Positioning the SESNSP as the creator and director of policy has concrete advantages.
Firstinstitutionalizes intelligence analysis as the basis for all strategic decisions.
Secondallows continuity: public policies would not die with administrative changes, but would evolve according to measurable results.
Thirdfacilitates inter-institutional coordination because there would be a visible entity responsible for aligning federal, state and municipal entities.
Roomprovides the system with organizational memory; SESNSP accumulates knowledge about what works and what doesn’t.
A strengthened SESNSP would avoid the current fragmentation where each force pulls on its own, National Guard, Armed Forces, prosecutors’ offices, State and Municipal Police: all would respond to guidelines emanating from joint analysis, not from isolated political nuts.
The institutional path
The reconversion of the SESNSP into a functional equivalent of the Homeland Security Task Force requires three specific steps:
Firstlegally reform its powers to make it a decision-making body in national criminal policy, not merely advisory.
Secondprovide it with an independent budget and its own operational capabilities in critical areas: intelligence, inter-institutional coordination and evaluation.
Thirdestablish by law that all security operations must report to the SESNSP with information that feeds continuous strategic analysis.
Political proposals
Specifically: create within the SESNSP a Strategic Analysis Directorate that synthesizes intelligence from all agencies.
Establish that the Security Cabinet cannot carry out operations without approval of SESNSP directives. Implement an integrated information system where police, soldiers and prosecutors upload data in real time. Link budget allocation to performance on goals defined by the SESNSP, not to political occurrences.
