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Tijuana Police Now Accept Plastic in Push to Curb Customary Bribes

By Amy Isackson / Border Reporter,  KPBS Public Broadcasting
Published May 31, 2007 at 1:14 PM PDT
This story was published more than 17 years ago.

Traffic police in Tijuana now take credit cards. That's part of a new program, launched today, that aims to eliminate the customary bribe. KPBS reporter Amy Isackson has the story.

Tijuana Police Now Accept Plastic in Push to Curb Customary Bribes

Traffic police in Tijuana now take credit cards. That's part of a new program, launched today, that aims to eliminate the customary bribe. KPBS reporter Amy Isackson has the story.

Paying off Tijuana cops is as emblematic of the city as the zebra striped donkeys that line Avenida Revolucion.

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Tijuana's Secretary of Public Security hopes outfitting traffic police with new handheld computers will help officers change their stripes.

Drivers who get pulled over can now swipe their credit or debit cards through the new devices to pay fines on the spot.

Drivers who do so get a 60 percent discount. In addition, the officer gets a 5 percent cut.

When asked if the new system was not just institutionalizing the bribe, Public Security Secretary Javier Algorri said no. He says giving officers a percentage is an incentive for doing things the right way.

Algorri says the penalty for bribing an officer is two to three years in jail.  He says officers who accept bribes could get triple that time.

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Amy Isackson, KPBS News.

Amy Isackson
Amy Isackson was the border reporter at KPBS from 2004 to 2011. She covered breaking news and feature stories on California-Mexico border issues and immigration, for local and national broadcast. Amy got her start in public radio by pitching a series of stories about rural New Zealand - horse dentistry and sheep sheering - to Radio New Zealand's "Country Life" program. She then worked with Peabody Award-winning radio producers Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, to help create the Sonic Memorial, a series of stories on the World Trade Center before, during and after 9/11. Amy's work has been recognized with awards from the Associated Press Television-Radio Association of California and Nevada, the California Chicano News Media Association, and the San Diego Press Club. She won the Sol Price Prize for Responsible Journalism in 2009 from the Society of Professional Journalists for her story about high school students smuggling people and drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. Prior to venturing into the wonderful world of public radio, Amy worked for Yahoo! Inc. for nearly five years as an editorial surfer, associate producer and broadcast communications manager. She majored in Latin American History at Williams College. She grew up in San Diego and made frequent trips south of the border.
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