Mexico’s President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, published a decree on Monday authorizing the Mexican military to participate in civilian law enforcement for four more years, until March 2024. The policy was first implemented as the Mexican government was struggling to curb the violence that plagues the country.

Obrador ordered the armed forces to participate “in an extraordinary, regulated and complementary manner with the National Guard” in public security tasks. “The participation of the armed forces in public safety should be under extraordinary conditions and should be regulated, reviewed, subordinated, and complementary” to civilian authorities, according to his proclamation.

President Obrador, who has been in office since December 2018, has often criticized former President Felipe Calderon for the use of soldiers and sailors for public security and in the fight against drug violence. He had also initially criticized the policy he now decreed extended.

Obrador was elected in large part due to his plan of adopting a more conciliatory security strategy, whereby he planned on removing the root causes of crime by reducing poverty and corruption. But, thus far, his plan has been a failure. The violence has continued at an unprecedented pace with a record 34,582 murders in 2019. There were nearly 3,100 murders in March, the second-bloodiest month ever.