That interior minister José Miguel Insulza should have turned up in person to present the latest crime statistics in Chile at the end of June was intended as a signal that the government was well aware of the widespread and growing sense of insecurity among the public. This came only a couple of days after his deputy, Jorge Correa Sutil, had tried to downplay a private study which suggested that increased spending had not checked the rise in serious crimes.
In the first quarter of this year the number of reported armed robberies was 36.2% higher than in the same period of last year (and virtually unchanged from the last quarter of 2002). In the Metropolitan Region (Santiago and its environs), where the largest number of armed robberies take place, the increase was 25%.
This category of crime has grown faster than others: the broader category of 'crimes of greater social connotation' (which also includes homicide, assault, rape, domestic violence and burglary) registered an increase of 11.02% over January-March 2002.
Correa suggested that the virtual nil change over the indicators of late 2002 could be attributed to the success of two policing programmes: the Plan Cuadrante of the Carabineros (paramilitary police) and the Plan Comuna Segura at municipal level.
On the other hand, the statistics revealed an apparent paradox: that the crime rate had increased more in those regions where new penal procedures had been introduced. These procedures were designed to speed up criminal trials -- but had an unwanted side-effect: they doubled the time involved in making an arrest and quadrupled that demanded by forensic examinations.
According to Insulza, this increased the burden on the police at the same time as the introduction of the reform raised public expectations, and this led to an increase in the reporting of crimes.
With the new procedures due to be introduced to the Metropolitan Region next year, Insulza has announced that an extra 500 Carabineros will be deployed in the area to cope with the extra work.
A study conducted by the Instituto Libertad y Desarrollo (ILD), a private thinktank, says that since 1997 the number of crimes 'of greater social connotation' in Chile have increased by 65% (with holdups rising by 232.6%). A parallel calculation shows per capita spending on security rising by 67.7% over the past eight years, which suggests that the outlays have been ineffective.
The study says that private spending on security has increased faster than that of the public sector, which would make it the most ineffective. Undersecretary Correa has disputed this conclusion, by pointing out that the study failed to compute some public-sector projects like the Plan Comuna Segura, which would raise the relative weight of government spending.
Also questionable is the methodology used by the ILD to calculate the 'cost' of crime, which includes such things as the time spent locking up homes and cars, and the cost to criminals of sending time in jail.
This said, the general drift of the findings seems to hold, and there is little difference between the picture painted by Insulza and the ILD's observation that holdup rates in Chile
'have reached alarming levels, similar to those in New York in 1994, before the implementation of the Zero Tolerance plan.'
End of preview - This article contains approximately 576 words.
Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article
Not a Subscriber?
Choose from one of the following options
