The Undersecretary of Crime Prevention, Eduardo Vergara, referred to the request made by mayors of the Association of Municipalities of Chile (Amuch) so that, through legislation, greater powers be given to municipal security personnel.
“When we talk about leveling the playing field upwards, to reach this preventive common minimum, we recognize that there is a large work space. But that space has a limit and it has to do with the fact that the role of the municipalities is crime prevention. We have to be very clear that we will not advance in substituting the role of our police, the police with their tasks, the municipalities with their tasks”, he pointed out.
In a security conclave with municipalities in the central and northern areas of the capital, Undersecretary Vergara stated that “as a government we are very willing to move forward in evaluating all kinds of measures and even powers that accompany the preventive role, that empower the role of the municipalities in being a co-helper and a co-producer of security, but not to blur the role that our mayors and mayors have and, above all, the role of preventive patrolling that our municipal officials exercise every day throughout all of Chile” .
“I also want to be very emphatic, our concern is to level the playing field upwards, so that resources are where they are most needed, so that our police are where they are most needed under the process of transparent and fair distribution of police resources, as well as the distribution of resources so that never again in Chile does a municipality have to compete with another municipality for preventive resources,” he said.
Amuch released a survey conducted among its neighbors, in which 79.4% of those consulted are in favor of municipal guards having protection with helmets, lumas, pepper spray and handcuffs.
