Country
Justice and public safety in Mexico
Mexico is a federation in which all four justice functions are duplicated — federal courts, prosecution, police and prisons alongside those of each of 32 states — but harmonised by a single national code of criminal procedure and an accusatory oral process. Its federal prosecution is constitutionally autonomous, the prosecutor directs investigations, and a 2024 constitutional reform introduced the election of judges by popular vote, a change this site records only by attribution to dated official and intergovernmental sources.
Institutional facts on these pages were checked against their sources on . Where a cited provision carries a scheduled change, the page states the date.
Mexico (the United Mexican States) is a federation with a civil-law tradition, governed by the Constitution of 1917. Article 40 makes it "a representative, democratic, secular and federal Republic composed of free and sovereign States … and Mexico City", and Article 124 reserves residual powers to the states. Federal and local laws must guarantee the independence of the courts (Article 17).
Jurisdictions modelled
A territory can exist administratively without being a separate legal jurisdiction. This table records, for each modelled tier and territory, whether it has its own arrangement for a function, whether the function is organised nationally, or whether we have simply not researched it.
| Jurisdiction | Level | Courts | Prosecution | Policing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Mexican States | federal | shared | shared | shared |
| Jalisco | state | own | own | own |
| Nuevo León | state | own | own | own |
unknown means not researched. It is never a synonym for none: an unresearched territory does not inherit the metropolitan arrangement.
What has not been researched
These areas have no page. That is a statement about our research, not about Mexico: each of these institutions exists, and we have simply not established enough from primary sources to write about it responsibly.
- Forensic systemNot researched
- The organisation of forensic science in Mexico (the federal and state forensic services, and the identification of the disappeared) has not been read to the standard required, and forensics is a safety-sensitive section where an under-sourced description is specifically forbidden.
- Border and customsNot researched
- Border and customs in Mexico involve the National Migration Institute, the customs agency and the Guardia Nacional, and could not be researched to the standard required here without risking an inaccurate description of a security-sensitive function.
- Institutional historyNot researched
- Mexico's institutional history — the 1917 Constitution, the 2008–2016 transition to an accusatory oral criminal process, the 2018 creation of the autonomous Fiscalía General, and the 2024 judicial reform — cannot be written responsibly from general knowledge and requires scholarly and archival sources not consulted here, and the recent reform is an area where neutrality demands especially careful sourcing.
- Institutional timelineNot researched
- A timeline requires each milestone to carry its own verified source and date. The dated facts established in this pilot — the 1917 Constitution, the 2016 completion of the accusatory-oral transition, the 2024 judicial reform and the 2025 judicial elections — are a start, but a responsible and neutral timeline needs primary sources for each milestone, which were not assembled here.
Sources
Sources
Political Constitution of the United Mexican States (1917, current text)
Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación / official constitutional text · Legislation · 1917-02-05 · link verified 2026-07-27
The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States (1917), confirmed against the Supreme Court's per-article texts and a current-text mirror in two independent passes (the consolidated official PDF at diputados.gob.mx was unreachable). Supports Art. 17 (federal and local laws shall guarantee the independence of the courts); Art. 40 (a representative, democratic, secular and federal Republic of free and sovereign States and Mexico City); Art. 124 (residual powers reserved to the States or Mexico City); Art. 73-XXI (Congress legislates federal crimes and organized crime, and enacts a single national code of criminal procedure, sentence execution and juvenile justice governing both the federal and the common order); Art. 94 (the Supreme Court of nine Ministers, plus a judicial-administration body and a Judicial Discipline Tribunal); Art. 102-A (the Public Prosecution of the Federation is organised as an autonomous public body, the Fiscalía General de la República); Art. 21 (public security is a shared function of the Federation, the states and the municipalities; the investigation of crimes corresponds to the Public Prosecutor with the police under its conduct and command); Art. 18 (the penitentiary system, organised for social reinsertion); Art. 96 and Art. 116-III (judges elected by direct citizen vote — see the 2024 reform); and Art. 102-B (the human-rights commissions and their non-binding recommendations).
Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR), Birkbeck, University of London · Academic · link verified 2026-07-27
The World Prison Brief country page for Mexico (compiled by ICPR from the national prison administration), read directly and re-confirmed by hand on the day of authoring — its figures had updated since the research pass, so the current values are used. Supports a total prison population of 268,245 including pre-trial detainees at 31 May 2026 (source: the national prison administration); a rate of 197 per 100,000 (UN population estimate); an official capacity of 227,658 at the same date; and an occupancy level of 117.8% at 31 May 2026 — above capacity, population and capacity carrying the same date. The page names the administering body as the Órgano Administrativo Desconcentrado de Prevención y Readaptación Social; its "ministry responsible" label ("Comisión Nacional de Seguridad") is out of date (that body was dissolved in 2018).