Police reform and the peace process in Guatemala: The fifth promotion of the National Civilian Police (original) (raw)
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Possibilities of Advancing Police Reform in Guatemala through Community -Oriented Policing
Journal of Human Security, 2020
The paper describes the process of security sector reform in Guatemala with reference to the efforts to implement community-based policing practices. The results point to the difficulties of shaking-off public understandings of security honed during the armed conflict and underscore the efforts of a still young police institution to position itself in a democratic context. The study posits that community-oriented policing strategies open opportunities to forward police reform in the high-violence, low-trust, weak-institutions, and post-conflict context of Guatemala. The argument is supported by field data gathered in indigenous territories in the Western Highlands, where traditional forms of social organization persist, and in metropolitan Villa Canales municipality, an urban, high-violence site of research.
Violence in peace: forms and causes of postwar violence in Guatemala
2006
The poor performance of civil society in the security sphere 5. Conclusion 93 At the beginning of 2006 there were 21,000 posts for police officers, but holidays, shift duties and sick leave mean that only 14,000 officers are on duty at any one time. 94 Just over 50% of these officers are stationed in Guatemala City. The presence of the police across the country is therefore unsatisfactory. However, Leonardo Martínez, Director of FORPOL, points out that more policemen do not necessarily mean less crime. It is more important that the police should actually be present in the places where they are needed. It is still the case, Martínez explains, that police officers go for a walk rather than patrolling, and that their presence is a matter of aimless "wandering about". 95 But a light police presence does not necessarily lead to high levels of violence, as can be seen from the fact that, with the exception of Jutiapas, the regions of Guatemala where violence is at its most intense have a relatively heavy police presence. 96 In addition, there are complaints about the Interior Ministry takes over again because it is responsible for the penal system. In between, the other three institutions of the security sector are responsible. 91 There is no ministry of justice in Guatemala. The (deputy) minister of justice is subordinated to the minister of the interior, which is a problem for the independence of the judicial system.
Community PoliCing in guatemala: Continuity in Self-DefenCe
In Latin America, community policing programmes have increased during the last twenty years. The programmes were expected to reduce crime and strengthen collaborative relations between police and population, among others. However, an excessive focus on technical aspects has neglected counterproductive effects on democracy and the rule of law. Based on a historical institutionalism approach, this paper critically analyses the concept of community policing and argues that wider socio-political contexts and institutional patterns of self-defence policing determine the outcomes of community policing programmes. By examining the case of Guatemala, this paper concludes that community policing has contributed to reinforce antidemocratic patterns through the reproduction of self-defence mechanisms created during the years of internal conflict. RESUMEN Los programas de participación comunitaria en seguridad (community policing programmes) aumentaron durante los últimos veinte años en América Latina. Las expectativas de estos modelos fueron, entre otras, la reducción de la criminalidad y el fortalecimiento de relaciones colaborativas entre la población y la policía. Sin embargo, la excesiva atención a aspectos técnicos ha descuidado los efectos contraproducentes de dichos modelos en la democracia y el Estado de Derecho. Basado en el institucionalismo histórico, el artículo analiza críticamente el concepto de participación comunitaria en seguridad y argumenta que contextos sociopolíticos más amplios y trayectorias institucionales de autodefensa civil son determinantes en los resultados de dichos programas. Basado en caso de Guatemala, el artículo concluye que la participación comunitaria en seguridad ha contribuido a reforzar patrones antidemocráticos mediante la reproducción de mecanismos de autodefensa creados durante el conflicto armado.
In Latin America, community policing programmes have increased during the last twenty years. The programmes were expected to reduce crime and strengthen collaborative relations between police and population, among others. However, an excessive focus on technical aspects has neglected counterproductive effects on democracy and the rule of law. Based on a historical institutionalism approach, this paper critically analyses the concept of community policing and argues that wider socio-political contexts and institutional patterns of self-defence policing determine the outcomes of community policing programmes. By examining the case of Guatemala, this paper concludes that community policing has contributed to reinforce antidemocratic patterns through the reproduction of self-defence mechanisms created during the years of internal conflict. RESUMEN Los programas de participación comunitaria en seguridad (community policing programmes) aumentaron durante los últimos veinte años en América Latina. Las expectativas de estos modelos fueron, entre otras, la reducción de la criminalidad y el fortalecimiento de relaciones colaborativas entre la población y la policía. Sin embargo, la excesiva atención a aspectos técnicos ha descuidado los efectos contraproducentes de dichos modelos en la democracia y el Estado de Derecho. Basado en el institucionalismo histórico, el artículo analiza críticamente el concepto de participación comunitaria en seguridad y argumenta que contextos sociopolíticos más amplios y trayectorias institucionales de autodefensa civil son determinantes en los resultados de dichos programas. Basado en caso de Guatemala, el artículo concluye que la participación comunitaria en seguridad ha contribuido a reforzar patrones antidemocráticos mediante la reproducción de mecanismos de autodefensa creados durante el conflicto armado.
Civil Miltary Relations in Post Conflict Guatemala
Analysis of the implementation of the Part-Agreement on Strengthening of Civilian Power and Role of the Military in a Democratic Society in Guatemala, ten years fater the signature of the Peace Accords
This book chapter highlights a number of lessons suggested by various efforts to reform the police in Latin America over the period 1995-2010 . It focuses on two clusters of countries in Latin America. One is Brazil and the Southern Cone countries (Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay), which made the transition to democracy from prolonged military authoritarian rule in the mid- to late 1980s. The other is Central America and the Andean region (principally El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, and Colombia), which emerged/have been emerging from armed conflict since the mid- 1990s. The chapter examines first the long history of international involvement in police and security sector reform in order to identify long-run tropes and path dependencies. It then focuses on a number of recurring themes: cycles of de- and re-militarization of the policing function; the “security gap” and “democratization dilemmas” involved in structural reforms; the opportunities offered by decentralization for more community-oriented police; and police capacity to resist reform and undermine accountability mechanisms.
Challenges of police reform in Latin America
Routledge Handbook of Law and Society in Latin America, 2019
Police forces in Latin America have experienced multiple processes of limited reforms over recent decades. In most cases there is a general consensus that police institutions are not well prepared, equipped or trained to deal with the increasing complexities of the criminal world and the illicit markets that are rapidly developing. This chapter emphasizes the structural limitations of police organizations and the double edge process of militarization and privatization of public security. In a context of high concerns over increasing levels of violence and crime, reforming the police ha become a political issue more than a technocratic one, and the way political debate develops signals the boundaries of policy implementation. The chapter defines future directions for policy implementation as well as research on police reform initiatives that would be key to strengthen rule of law in Latin America.
Private Security in Guatemala: Patway to Its Proliferation
It has become commonplace to explain the proliferation of private security services as causally determined by crime rates and institutional weakness. By contrast, this paper argues that another explanatory factor needs to be emphasized, especially for post-war societies: continuity and change of social control mechanisms. The paper first presents the current situation with commercial and noncommercial private security services in Guatemala (private security companies, as well as neighborhood security committees). Against this background, it reconstructs mechanisms and critical junctures by which the Guatemalan state sourced out policing functions to the private sector during the war, and traces the reinforcement of these mechanisms in the post-war society. It argues that the proliferation of private security services is an outcome of the overlapping of different political processes and sequences. The continuity of social control mechanisms thereby emerges as a stronger explanatory factor for this proliferation, rather than the common justification of high crime rates.