How public is public security in Mexico?

Abstract

Although public security was a matter of state in the twentieth century, since the 1990s, it’s been noted the growing intervention of private agents in this service, which suggests privatization. However, there is also a significant increase in the government budget in this field. Do these facts allow to talk about a co-production of public security? Not necessarily. Through ethnographic observations in the Valley of Mexico, this text reveals the contradictions, conflicts and tensions created, not only between public and private issues, but also between formality and informality, legality and illegality.