Restoring Trust in Mexico’s Police: Do Officer Gender and Work Experience Matter?

How can public confidence in the police be restored in high-crime environments? What type of police officers would citizens in violent democracies see as trusted? This paper examines how the gender and the occupational background of police officers affect citizens’ perceptions of effectiveness and misconduct of the local police. The focus is on Mexico, a country where military officers have taken over policing functions. Using an online survey experiment, we find that female officers improve perceptions of police effectiveness and reduce perceptions of police misconduct. The effects of female officers on both police effectiveness and misconduct are moreover independent of the occupational (military) background of officers and are stronger for those to whom the state has failed – those who have experienced crime, are fearful thereof or have been exposed to police corruption and abuse. Recruiting more female officers can do more than militarisation for building a trusted security force in Mexico.