Mexico's crisis of security is unrelenting. Why is it so hard to establish the rule of law, and why does the country's justice system continue to struggle to deliver both security and adherence to democratic values and human rights? To answer these questions, Mexico Unrule of Law: Implementing Human Rights in Police and Judicial Reform under Democratization looks at recent Mexican criminal justice reforms, placing this Mexico City case study of the social and institutional realities of the evolving police and justice system within the county's long-term transition from authoritarian to democratic governance. In spite of the democratization on the electoral front, profound distrust has continued to characterize not only the relationship between citizens and state institutions but also social, inter-state, and intra-state relations. Against this background, the book analyses extensive and penetrating police surveys and interviews to offer innovative ideas on how to simultaneously achieve greater community security, democratic policing, and adherence to human rights.

"Niels Uildriks, known for his doctorate on norms and control of police violence, has researched the considerable efforts made at reforming the Mexican police force into an effective organization based on the rule of law. The result is a sound study, with a solid empirical body of work firmly rooted in the scientific literature, on Latin America and the police." - Crimelink

"In this book, Dutch scholar Uildriks (Institute for Safety and Security and Crisis Management, Netherlands) analyzes the various overwhelmingly unsuccessful attempts to reform the police and criminal justice systems and thus improve human rights in Mexico since its democratization in 2000. The specific focus is on policing in Mexico City, and the main contribution of the book is a survey of and interviews with police there. One key change since democratization is that the population is less fearful of the police. However, the broad policing problems of human rights abuses, pervasive and hierarchical corruption, and lack of horizontal oversight by other government agencies remain. More broadly, Mexico lacks a truly democratic political culture in which laws and state actors are seen as legitimate and deserving of being followed. Uildriks proposes further reforms in the areas of internal police structures (e.g., appointments, training, promotion, and discipline) and decentralization, including community policing. The key goal is to increase police accountability and public trust. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduates, and above." - CHOICE

"Mexico’s Unrule of Law, a book that seeks to “probe the impact of different police reforms in terms of reduction of human rights abuses” in the country, is certainly good news for scholars, practitioners, and anyone interested in understanding the deep problem of insecurity that has engulfed Mexico in recent years (xiii)." - H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online