How to Fix Public Security in Chile?

El Líbero, February 21, 2024

The government’s legislative agenda on public security will not necessarily solve the problems. They must first have an adequate diagnosis and design the strategy accordingly.

Along with the summons to the National Security Council (Cosena) , the Minister of the Interior and Public Security, Carolina Tohá, indicated that the government’s plan to address security issues primarily involves passing in Congress:

• Critical Infrastructure Law.
• Rules on the Use of Force (RUF) Law.
• Intelligence Law.
• Ministry of Public Security.
• Continuing to advance with the plan of 31 projects that were being developed with the Senate and Chamber of Deputies in 2023, of which approximately one-third remain pending.

For the current government, everything hinges on passing laws, as if that alone would immediately resolve the problem, which reminds me of the previous government that thought everything could be fixed by filing complaints, thereby shifting the problem to the Public Ministry.

To ensure we are all on the same page, the three basic security problems we have in Chile are, in order of importance:

• Organized crime, delinquency, and high levels of violence in major urban centers.
• Mapuche insurgency in the so-called Southern Macrozone, which is sometimes presented as terrorism, delinquency, or rural violence.
• Illegal immigration at the borders with Peru and Bolivia, which allows the entry of criminal labor that increases the capabilities of organized crime operating within national territory.

The aforementioned problems become more critical due to the absence of a national security strategy-architecture-system, an effective intelligence system, the lack of coordination among the powers and agencies of the State related to public security management, and primarily, the lack of political will to act and resolve the issues, which includes little or no support for the police and military units that must confront criminals, drug traffickers, insurgents, delinquents, and terrorists.

If one looks at the initiatives with which the government intends to resolve the problems, the critical infrastructure law does not reduce crime, insurgency, or the entry of criminals into Chile. Its purpose is to protect or safeguard critical infrastructure, something that even the Mapuche insurgents have not sought to affect, let alone organized crime. https://ellibero.cl/columnas-de-opinion/seguridad-nacional/embed/#?secret=Al9eKxL6Wq#?secret=jcoR65q2sF

The RUFs themselves do not resolve anything. They only become relevant if it is determined that the armed forces must be used with broad powers to restore public order, something for which they are neither prepared nor trained, or if they are asked to eliminate or neutralize insurgents in the Southern Macrozone, or something similar with criminals seeking to enter Chile through our northern or northeastern borders.

The Ministry of Public Security only adds bureaucracy and costs to the State. The issue of public security does not lie in adding new agencies to the State; it lies in making existing ones function and in the political will necessary to want to resolve the problems that afflict us.

A new intelligence law that corrects the flaws in Law 19974 does contribute to solving the problems . Thebill presented in 2018 by President Piñera , which after more than five years still has not seen the light of day, focuses on integrating existing systems, establishing appropriate corporate governance, and designing a strategy that addresses the current challenges in this area.The existence of an effective intelligence system does not guarantee success in the strategy against organized crime or other problems we face. If authorities receive timely and quality information but do not act on it or use it to resolve issues, we will have wasted time and resources, and perhaps end up worse off than before.

Advancing and approving the complete package of 31 legal projects aimed at public security issues is something that must be done, as some of them have proven to be very effective. We need

laws like Nain-Retamal , which help the police to be more effective, but, it should be noted, do not resolve the inefficiencies sometimes demonstrated by the Public Ministry or the courts in combating crime and delinquents.One of the conclusions in the

Cosena minutes is the need for a state strategy for public security; if applied a bit more, it could be transformed into a national security strategy that also includes threats arising from climate change, natural disasters, forest fires, and, obviously, the protection of territory, seas, airspace, and space, sovereignty, and national interest wherever it may be located. The keys to success in resolving problems, including those of public security, involve:

A correct diagnosis of the problem and its causes.

• Designing a strategy aimed at resolving the problem.
• Allocating the necessary resources for the execution of the strategy.
• Clarity in command and control of execution.
• Political will to resolve the problem.
• Learning from mistakes made and thereby improving plans and execution.
• If one observes the previous list

, the government’s legislative agenda on public security will not necessarily solve the problems. They must first have an adequate diagnosis and design the strategy accordingly.Placing solutions before having the strategy is like putting the cart before the horses. Richard Kouyoumdjian

Vice President of AthenaLab
Source:

El Líbero.