Mexicans don’t trust law enforcement agencies, which creates a toxic environment for combating cartel violence, according to research released on Thursday. Roughly 90 percent of Mexicans have little or no confidence in municipal police. 

Anti-drugs police in the Dominican Republic have revealed how a micro-trafficking network paid local cops over $100,000 in bribes each month, showing how the domestic drug market is spawning ever wealthier and powerful local organized crime groups.

The arrest of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, on Saturday was an event of enormous importance in the Mexican government’s fight against organized crime. Mexican public opinion had long ago decided that this government, and the previous one, were not serious about hunting for Guzmán, preferring the relative stability and lower-violence approach of the Sinaloa cartel to the more militaristic style of other cartels, such as the Zetas.

Roman Catholic prelates in Michoacan state at last have drawn a line against local gangsters, and the officials nurturing them, further entangling what already was one of Mexico's more intractable knots of violence. But most of the Church hierarchy still seems reluctant to take a strong stand. The bishops have jumped in as the homegrown Knights Templar gang squares off against civilian militias, rival gangsters and thousands of federal troops across the Pacific Coast state.

The Medellin mafia, fragmented through bitter infighting, has called a truce and made an agreement with their rivals the Urabeños, seeking to rebuild the criminal hegemony once enjoyed by the legendary underworld figure known as "Don Berna." However, creating a Berna replica, which relied on strong connections with the country's elite, may prove difficult.

Colombia's police are already strategizing for the end of the country's conflict with Marxist rebels, even as the task of combating the guerrillas is increasingly falling to the police instead of the military. With talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) now almost a year old, General Jose Roberto Leon Riaño, who was director of the Colombian National Police until earlier this month, declared "the new model of service [for the police] is anticipating a post-conflict scenario, a scenario of peace."

Walk down calle Coahuila, and in the distance, you can see the landmark avenida Revolucion clock under a monumental arch. But really, perhaps Tijuana is even more famous for hedonism signaled by the posters and signs lining Coahuila. It seems every other door leads to a "hotel" with a smattering of bars and gentleman's clubs, and even, for the romantic at heart, a flower shop. Inside, many of the women, teens and girls who work in the sex trade are slaves to international criminal organizations.

After years of neglect, the Canadian government seems to be ratcheting up international cooperation with its Latin American counterparts. The increase in diplomatic overtures is motivated by the promise of forging new trade relationships and enhancing existing ties, but also by the apparent continent-wide consequences of organized crime and drug trafficking. While an “Americas Strategy” was launched in 2007, the government only recently started matching its rhetorical commitments with action.