Quintana Roo to Spend 11 Million Pesos on Police Body Cameras

Quintana Roo — The Executive Secretariat of the State Public Security System (Sesescqroo) is preparing to buy 500 additional body cameras for police departments in all 11 of Quintana Roo’s municipalities, an investment of 11 million pesos. The state currently has 1,358 of the devices in operation.

The money will not cover cameras alone. It also pays for charging stations and an automated system to manage and store the video recorded by the equipment.

A key feature of the new units is that officers cannot switch them off manually without triggering an automatic, real-time alert to monitoring centers — a measure intended to tighten control over how the cameras are used.

Coverage Varies by Municipality

Use of the cameras differs sharply from one municipality to another:

• Benito Juárez, which includes Cancún, already runs 838 active cameras, roughly half its police force.
• Othón P. Blanco, whose capital is Chetumal, reports 30 percent coverage and aims to reach 100 percent before the end of the year.
• Playa del Carmen has nearly 200 cameras in service and will add 124 more to equip about 40 percent of its officers.
• Smaller departments across the state currently range between 60 and 100 percent coverage.

Officials revised this year’s purchasing plan. Instead of the 700 cameras originally envisioned, the secretariat opted for 500 units with more advanced technical specifications.

Adrián Martínez Ortega, who heads Sesescqroo, said the goal is for eight out of every ten operational officers in the state — a force of about 4,000 police — to carry a body camera before the current state administration leaves office.

The purchase is part of a broader technology equipment program aimed at strengthening transparency and accountability in Quintana Roo’s police departments through devices capable of real-time monitoring.