The Center for Citizen Security Studies (CESC) of the Faculty of Government of the University of Chile released the progress of the 1st Annual Report on Criminal Policy and Public Security in Chile. The document that gives an account of the last two decades in this matter, revealing a series of institutional challenges in the face of the transformations in the criminal scenario that affect the country.
According to the report, a series of long-standing institutional and extra-institutional critical issues are observed: difficulty in measuring crime and gathering more information from the State; need for greater articulation between agencies of the penal system; more and better measurement of criminal policies.
The document also reported pressure for criminal populism (or irrationality when legislating); lack of criminological foundation; underestimation of economic crimes and lack of police reform, among others.
The activity was attended by the Minister of Justice, Marcela Riosthe national prosecutor(s) Juan Agustin Melendez and the national defender, Carlos Mora Janowho commented on the presentation of these advances and the challenges that institutions must face.
The director of CESC, claudio gonzalezindicated that one of the main challenges facing the State in the face of the new criminal scenario is to have consolidated information, as well as the measurement and evaluation of both crime and public policies.
“We need to characterize the issue of homicides very well. We know that there is more use of weapons, that they are distributed unequally with concentration in urban areas and in the northern zone, we know that organized crime has increased, but we do not have enough information on these issues. The great challenge is to be able to measure the crimes and to be able to measure the impact of criminal policies in addressing these crimes,” he said.
For her part, the Minister of Justice maintained that “we have to continue working on the data, but indeed in society, in the public debate, in Congress and in the media, the diagnosis is that crime has increased, violence has increased and the forms of crime are increasing, the challenge is how we converse with that debate and how we manage to put more science, more data and more rationality on the security debate”.
Meanwhile, the national prosecutor commented: “there is talk that there would be greater incidences of participation of foreigners in homicides, according to the records we have, 90% and more of the homicides are by nationals. The problem we do have is the identification of foreigners entering Chile. It is very difficult for us to know who they are. The difficulty at the international level is very high”.
Finally, the national defender stated that there is a challenge regarding the institutional articulation. “We have to be able to improve communication between actors such as the Public Ministry, the Defense, the Police,” he said.
