The Crisis of Public Security in Chile

El Mostrador, July 17, 2024

The truth is, I do not know which component of the system failed this weekend. I only know that the public security system failed, and therefore, those responsible for its management and operation failed as well. Something needs to change; we must shift from a reactive mode to a proactive one.

The long weekend that just ended was not a good one for Chile. The government tells us that we are better off than our neighbors, which is technically correct, but it forgot to mention that we are much worse off than a couple of years ago. The reality that Chileans see is local, not foreign.

It is not normal for four teenagers to be shot dead in Quilicura and five people at a party in Lampa. It is not normal for this to happen in Chile, and we cannot accept it as such. We have good police forces. If that is true, how is it possible that massacres and such violent murders occur? Did something fail, or are we simply overwhelmed by crime and organized crime? Did the police fail, or did the public security system fail?

We trust our police forces; just look at the results of the latest Plaza Pública survey by Cadem, which measured institutional approval at the end of June 2024. The PDI ranks second and Carabineros fifth, out of a total of 30 institutions surveyed. These positions, despite some issues they have faced, are quite stable over time.

The constitutional role of the police is clearly indicated in Article 101 of the Constitution of the Republic, which states: “The Forces of Order and Public Security are composed solely of Carabineros and Investigations. They constitute the public force and exist to enforce the law, guarantee public order, and ensure internal public security, in the manner determined by their respective organic laws. They depend on the Ministry responsible for Public Security.”

Carabineros has a Constitutional Organic Law from 1990, which has been updated several times. The essence of their work is captured in their first article, which states: “Carabineros de Chile is a technical and military police institution that integrates the public force and exists to enforce the law; its purpose is to guarantee and maintain public order and internal public security throughout the territory of the Republic and to fulfill other functions assigned to it by the Constitution and the law. It will depend directly on the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security and will be administratively linked to it through the Undersecretariat of the Interior.”

On the other hand, the Police of Investigations is regulated by a decree law (DL) from 1979, with its latest update recorded in 2023, in Article 1 bis, which refines its purpose and focuses, among other things, on organized crime. The updated organic DL states regarding its purpose: “The Police of Investigations of Chile, as part of the State Administration, is at the service of the community, and its actions will be directed towards the specialized investigation of all crimes, especially those that are complex and related to organized crime, contributing to preventing the perpetration of criminal acts and acts that threaten the stability of State agencies. Additionally, it must control the entry and exit of people to the national territory, oversee the stay of foreigners therein, and carry out other functions assigned to it by law.”

If what is on paper were fulfilled, we should be able to manage the ills that currently afflict us. Even more so if we have the support of the Armed Forces for the protection of the borders with Peru and Bolivia; or in the provinces of the southern macrozone, where insurgent groups dispute control of the territory with the State of Chile. But we know that this is not the case.

Evidently, the police are not alone. There are other institutions that also play a role in combating crime and organized crime, such as Gendarmería, the ANI, the SII, the UAF, the Legal Medical Service, and Customs. All of them deserve a separate chapter and a specific column to evaluate what they do, especially Gendarmería, given that prisons have shifted from being centers of confinement to being command and control centers for organized crime.

The failure or collapse of the system, demonstrated this long weekend in Quilicura, Lampa, and other points in the country, leads us to question whether that failure is systemic as a whole or specific to the police, the Public Ministry that conducts investigations, the Courts of Justice that may not be effective, or, indeed, the management and political responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security, or possibly Congress, if the failure originates from the non-approval of necessary laws to resolve our problems.

The main problem is that public security is not viewed as a system; it is looked at and addressed in parts, which may even be functioning correctly according to their design. It is not considered part of a larger system, which is National Security. This is a direct and exclusive presidential responsibility, but in Chile, it is delegated to an already overburdened Minister Tohá and Undersecretary Monsalve, who have not been able to successfully operate the public security system for which they are responsible. I am not accusing them of an attitude problem, simply that they have not been effective in producing results.

The truth is, I do not know which component of the system failed this weekend. I only know that the public security system failed, and therefore, those responsible for its management and operation failed as well. Something needs to change; we must shift from a reactive mode to a proactive one.

We may need to spend more resources on the system as a whole and on each of its components, which is a given for me, but as long as we do not incorporate process engineering and technology, we will continue to suffer cases like the Quilicura massacre, the recently reported murder of five people in Lampa, the murder of the police officers in Cañete, and many others.

What we are facing requires a systemic vision, which is manifested, in this case, in a national public security system, operated and coordinated by the respective ministry, which manages information and resources; makes decisions and determines actions; and corrects or improves the whole or its parts, as long as it does not yield the expected results.

Given its complexity, it should be operated by engineers rather than by lawyers, doctors, and political scientists, who clearly should advise on their respective areas of expertise, but above all, a systemic vision is required, understanding of processes, complex systems, information technologies, including artificial intelligence, all things that organized crime, as indicated in his book by Pablo Zeballos, already applies in its business model.

More of the same will not work.

Richard Kouyoumdjian
Vice President of AthenaLab

Source: El Mostrador