Hallazgos 2022: Follow-up and evaluation of criminal justice in Mexico

On June 18 2008, Mexico’s Official Bulletin of the Federation (Diario Oficial de la Federación, DOF) published the constitutional reform of the criminal justice and security systems that established the accusatory system nationwide; thus, initiating an eight-year transition process that uprooted Mexico’s long standing inquisitorial system of criminal justice.

Five years after the publication of that reform, in 2013, México Evalúa –then the Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo, A.C., CIDAC– presented the “Report of Findings for the Follow-up and Evaluation of the Implementation and Operation of the new Criminal Justice System in Mexico” (Reporte de Hallazgos para el Seguimiento y la Evaluación de la Implementación y Operación del Nuevo Sistema de Justicia Criminal en México). That event marked the birth of the Hallazgos series, which celebrates 10 years of existence this year.

The objective of that first publication was to analyze the ‘implementation’ of the reform –that is, the degree of advance achieved in transforming the criminal justice system– and making the results of that analysis available to the public. Above all, we sought to generate information that would serve as inputs for the operating institutions of the justice system during these transformation processes, and serve civil society through strategies of citizen influence and participation.