Pending, more than 2.6 million inquiries in prosecutors

At the end of 2021, the total number of pending investigations registered in the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and the State Attorney General’s Offices (FGE) grew by 4.8% compared to 2020, reported the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi). ).

Through the National Census of State Law Enforcement and the National Census of Federal Law Enforcement (CNPJE-F) 2022, the institution indicated that last year the total amounted to 2 million 629,790 unfinished inquiries, while in 2020 the figure it was 2 million 508,243.

“The pending category refers to the status of the procedures in the preliminary investigations, investigations and investigation folders (both in the initial investigation stage and in the complementary investigation stage) pending conclusion. The information may correspond to those pending conclusion that were opened in 2021 or in previous years”, indicated the Inegi.

In recent years, the backlog in inquiries has been on the rise, according to the institution. For example, from 2018 to 2021, an increase of 58.8% was recorded since, for the first of these years, one million 655,813 pending investigations were registered.

By federal entities, the states with the highest number of pending investigations, until last year, were: Baja California with 324,144; Jalisco with 311,384 and Mexico City (CDMX) with 224,764.

The states with the least lag are Sonora with 489; Yucatan with 1,176 and Tlaxcala with 3,831.

budget and staff

The total of the budgets of the Attorney General of the Republic and the State Attorney General’s Offices has been increasing between 2017 and 2021; however, the personnel assigned to the dependencies, as well as the number of administrative units, was in decline, according to Inegi data.

The sum of the budget exercised by the FGR and the local prosecutors in 2021 was 66,215.5 million pesos (mdp), while in 2020 it was 61,477.1 mdp.

According to data from the Institute, the budget of the prosecutor’s offices has been on the rise since 2017, when 55,884.4 million pesos were allocated to them.

However, the number of administrative units went from 1,234 in 2020 to 1,166 in 2021. From 2017 to 2021, a decrease of 28.2% was recorded, in the penultimate year of the Peña Nieto government there were 1,626 assigned units.

The staff went from 116,322 in 2020 to 115,305 in 2021.

From 2010 to 2021, the year with the highest number of personnel assigned to law enforcement institutions has been 2018, when the Inegi registered a total of 119,672, the following year there was a decrease to 116,054 employees.

For 2021, the prosecutor’s offices with the largest number of personnel were, in the first place, the FGR (19,919); that of CDMX (15,705); the State of Mexico (7,059); Chihuahua (6,320); Guanajuato (5,063). (With editorial information)

diego.aguilar@eleconomista.mx