A Handbook for Fighting Crime—But One That Works.
By Nicolás Vargas Varillas
Today, Latin America is suffering from a clear wave of criminal violence. The sources are diverse: drug trafficking, human trafficking, extortion, land trafficking, illegal mining and fishing, etc. Faced with this, there are two very obvious reactions: citizen fear and state action. Citizen fear is something we as public policymakers can never change. Citizen perceptions will always be diverse. But the other thing, the state's reaction, is something we can not only change, but it is always the state's obligation. In our region, unfortunately, there have been countless proposals to combat crime that have not worked.The kingpin strategy, the militarization of public space, excessive incarceration and states of emergency are all sides of the same coin: failure.
We could devote long paragraphs to proposing theories about why punitive and heavy-handed policies fail to work beyond infuriating certain sectors of public opinion, but that exercise will be for another occasion. Given the crisis of citizen security in the region, and in the current context where several countries are in pre-election races (Peru, Colombia, and Chile, for example), it is urgent to propose practical solutions that will allow us to quickly confront crime in a truly effective manner.
Perhaps the first major change we must make is to include in our institutions responsible for combating crime the technical opinions of experts who do not come from our police or military institutions. The contribution of our armed forces is crucial, as they not only have field experience but also a full awareness of their own capabilities and limitations. However, it is very important to invite social scientists specializing in crime or illicit activities to participate in decision-making processes. This is not enough with simple invitations to carry out external consulting services; it is important to comprehensively reform the institutions responsible for public security so that they can employ full-time civilians experienced in analyzing patterns of illicit behavior, as well as forensic science specialists to strengthen investigative efforts into crimes already committed. These changes involve simple institutional reforms, which will hardly represent a cost to the states and will certainly allow more specialists to be attracted to join the public service.
Another proposal that should be considered is strengthening intelligence institutions and promoting spaces where they can share information with their peers in the region. In addition to what we mentioned above, where we emphasize the importance of including sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and criminologists (to name a few disciplines) in the institutions responsible for combating crime, it is also important to invite them to work in our various intelligence institutions. It is therefore important that police, military personnel, and social science professionals work together in institutions dedicated to different types of intelligence (Signals Intelligence, Imagery Intelligence, Human Intelligence, among others). Consequently, it is imperative to expand the capabilities of intelligence institutions, providing them with resources so they can truly become highly specialized and elite institutions, thus protecting them from the unfortunate events where these institutions completely abandon their role and become intimidating agents for rivals of the political powers that be. To give an example of this, in the United States we often talk about the “Intelligence Community” which brings together not only the CIA, the most famous intelligence agency in the world, but also domestic, naval, military intelligence, and many other agencies that are responsible for very specific tasks but together they manage to collect and analyze enormous amounts of information that, later, serve not only to arrest specific criminals, but also to formulate better public policies in the long term.
To combat crime in the 21st century, we will never be able to cope with small units exclusively for the military and police. It is crucial that these institutions begin to share their tasks with trained civilians to contribute to the defeat of crime. At the same time, it is vital to establish diverse and interdisciplinary intelligence communities, so that the plurality of perspectives can help us truly understand the origins and actions of crime, and from there, confront it with common sense and intelligence, rather than blindness, demagoguery, and ignorance.
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