Police states, do they guarantee public safety in Latin America?

The mayor Óscar Escobar of the city of Palmeira, in Colombia, the city that a few years ago held the unpleasant distinction of being the place with the highest percentage of homicides in the country, proudly points out that his town today is seen as exemplary by the significant reduction of crimes thanks to the intervention with violence prevention programs.

The intervention and rapprochement with the police has been key to “decongest” the uniformed officers, a point agreed upon by other Latin American officials invited to a dialogue to address the impact of pacification programs in cities, under the title ‘Lessons from mayors of Latin America’, organized by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

Escobar threw darts at public policies such as the led by the salvadoran president Nayib Bukele, “We must work with the police, and of course we must be firm so that justice prevails, but we cannot have a Bukele-style war with the gangs to put everyone in jail, because that will only create more resentment and bigger problems in the future,” he said.

Mayors and municipal officials enrolled in violence prevention programs in Colombia, Mexico, and Honduras agreed that investing in violence prevention is more profitable than putting people in jail.

“Sending young people to jail is more expensive and it is simply a university of crime,” said Escobar, who explained that some programs have been subsidized with donor funds, even with payments of half a salary so that young people involved in gangs can Stay on the show while you find a way out of your social situation.

regain lost trust

Bridging the gap in the face of lost trust in the police “is not easy,” explained Alejandro Cussi, director of government programs in Morelia, Mexico, who pointed out that police reforms have become crucial to confront insecurity.

“The issue of legitimacy and trust is the basis of a police reform; the policeman is subject to scrutiny, and we try to bet on trust, among the authorities”, especially when the police forces in Latin America and the United States face high levels of mistrust of the population, especially in socially vulnerable areas, he explained.

Cussi said that the battery of programs that the local government has resorted to to make the uniformed social participants instead of having them only as elements of reaction to violence, was unthinkable years ago.

“We have greatly improved our approach to communities to gain trust, such as putting police officers in paramedical services and emergency care doctors, and the results have been surprising,” explained the official, techniques that are emerging from a series of studies that raise other approaches to address violence from different actors in cities.

The gang combat case in Los Angeles, California, where MS-13 and Mara 18 were born that operate in Central America is a lesson learned when combat policies fail, with police focused only on a “punitive” role, said expert Guillermo Céspedes, who has worked in that town and other cities in the United States and Latin America to change the approach police approach.

“The biggest challenge is not to push the police to fail, to do things that they cannot do,” he opined, saying he sees the work of municipal chiefs who enjoy authority due to citizen support and may have incursion channels as crucial. in communities that face complex problems and bring the uniformed closer in more dynamic ways.

The officials recognized that the costs of investing in programs represent challenges, but in cases such as Palmeira in Colombia, donations were coming from the private sector, which sees the results and social gains that improve the social fabric as a whole.

Mayor Escobar said that at this moment he is breathing easy because the leftist management of President Gustavo Pedro sees this type of approach to the problem as positive, but that in other more right-wing circles there are heated discussions about whether to invest public resources in programs that even include subsidies for High risk areas are more productive.

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