Brazil & Southern Cone - July 2026

Chile’s minister for public security, Martín Arrau, presented a plan in early June that contained dozens of proposed measures and bills aimed at preventing crime and combatting criminal organisations. The lack of a concrete security plan triggered the departure in May of Arrau’s predecessor, Trinidad Steinert, so now the government led by President José Antonio Kast is ramping up its efforts to signal that it is taking the issue of security seriously.

When the Kast administration took office in March this year, Arrau served as the minister for public works, but on 19 May Steinert stepped down and Arrau was chosen to replace her [SSR-26-06]. She had come under increasing pressure after her public admission that she had not been prepared to face such high levels of scrutiny and had not anticipated that lawmakers would expect her to have drafted a concrete security plan.

During a congress session on 2 June, Arrau delivered on what his predecessor had failed to provide, presenting a document containing the Kast administration’s security policy roadmap for 2026-2030. In the plan, the government declared seven broad priorities: controlling streets and neighbourhoods; ending recruitment by criminal gangs; protecting critical routes and borders; combatting organised crime; controlling prisons; consolidating the institutionality of the security ministry; and restoring police legitimacy. According to a government press release, these objectives will be addressed through 65 proposed measures covered in the plan.

The plan also outlines 26 priority bills, although a senate press release on 2 June stated that many of the bills detailed in the plan are not new, rather they are bills already under review in congress. Among the bills mentioned in the plan are proposed reforms to extend the timeframe for detaining a suspect caught in the act of committing a crime, from 12 to 24 hours; a bill seeking to modify the deportation system for foreign nationals who commit crimes by allowing them to be detained for a longer period than currently permitted; a bill to punish membership of a criminal group; and changes to the investigative police (PDI) to create a specialised rank of officers to investigate financial and technological crimes.

Approval ratings

President Kast gave his first state of the nation address on 1 June, in which he reiterated the key pledges made during his election campaign last year, of which fighting crime was among the top priorities. On 2 June national pollster Cadem released figures showing that Kast’s approval stood at 41% while his disapproval rating was 55%. Cadem carried out another survey on 7 June which showed Kast’s approval had risen to 43% and his disapproval had dropped to 50%. In mid-May, around the time of the increased pressure on Steinert and in the days leading up to her eventual resignation, Cadem put Kast’s approval at 36%, which was the lowest point since he took office in March.

Steinert had served as a prosecutor before entering government and had worked on cases involving organised crime, so there had been some expectation that she would have the technical expertise for the security minister role. Despite no previous experience in the realm of security, Arrau is a more seasoned politician and communicator than Steinert and is expected to continue publicising the security plan. On 25 June he chaired the first ‘national council for public security and crime prevention’ to discuss the plan with other government officials.

School violence bill

Chile’s congress approved a bill on 2 June to implement the Kast government’s ‘Escuelas Protegidas’ security programme, which aims to prevent school violence [SSR-26-05]. Measures include bag checks in schools as well as a ban on face coverings. However, the bill faced fierce opposition and protests in June, and left-wing politicians have criticised the police for the crackdown on protests organised by students, who have expressed outrage not only over Escuelas Protegidas but also the Kast administration’s cuts to education spending. On 24 June Chile’s constitutional court (TC) declared that some articles of the Escuelas Protegidas bill were unconstitutional.