In every country in Latin America, the rate of crime has been rising for more than a decade along with the level of violence associated with crime. At the same time, the distinction between local crime and international, organized crime has become blurred or even eliminated as gangs in the slums of San Salvador follow orders issued in Los Angeles and drug pushers in the favelas of Sao Paulo use cell phones to coordinate their activities with the cartels in Colombia. In cases as disparate as tiny Anglophone islands in the Caribbean or small countries in Central America or the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the firepower of the criminal gangs is greater than that of the local police and the government feels compelled to call out the armed forces to cope with the threat.

This violence and the personal insecurity it generates affects social confidence in the democratic system, a key element in the social compact that makes democracy possible. Citizen insecurity also undermines sustainable development by wasting resources and by corroding the confidence necessary to engage in economic activity. The effects of crime and violence are magnified by media sensationalism, exacerbating the sense of insecurity among the people and leaving them open to solutions that appear simple or easy.

In these circumstances, «zero tolerance» or «mano dura» approaches to fighting crime become very appealing. Populist promises to end crime by getting tougher on criminals, throwing more people in jail without due process or using the armed forces to deal with crime appeal to citizens who feel threatened and have had limited experience with democratic governance and have little appreciation of how damaging such get tough policies are. Such approaches only serve to further undermine the democratic system, especially in countries where democracy is relatively new and far from consolidated. To further complicate the task, citizens in such societies have little or no experience in how to participate in the policy process – how to formulate and propose policy alternatives.¹

The key to reducing the sense of insecurity and reducing the rate of crime is to find ways for people to act as citizens and to learn how to reduce the distance between the police and them, especially at the local level. Of course, this requires police, again at the local level, to reach out to the citizens whose protection is their mission, to establish channels of communication with the local populace, and to work with the populace to create mutually acceptable and mutually enforceable modes of accountability. This is a question of civic education and empowerment which has shown impressive results in countries where governments have actually tried to encourage citizens to participate in the process.

¹The Woodrow Wilson Center, together with The Johns Hopkins University Press has published a new book, Toward a Society Under Law: Citizens and Their Police in Latin America, which evaluates efforts at police reform in Latin America and proposes several ways to reduce the sense of insecurity among citizens while at the same time buttressing democratic governance. The volume is part of an ongoing project by a team of researchers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Peru. The team began its effort with a review of the situation in the region [Crime and Violence in Latin America (2003)] and in this new book makes very specific policy proposals.

*Senior Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.