Public Security: Shared problems, shared solutions

High crime rates and increasing levels of violence challenge public institutions the world over. In Latin America, where homicide is the leading cause of death in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador and Mexico, many countries are currently restructuring their security and justice systems.

While police repression is necessary to combat violence, it alone will not strike at the root causes of insecurity. Public security is a larger issue that extrapolates the confines of police action.

Violence and crime are complex and dynamic phenomena. As such they demand public policy that is multisectoral, calling on society as a whole for efficient and sustainable solutions. Initiatives restricted to the police force or the criminal justice system are typically short lived and of limited scope.

Violence and crime extracts its daily toll on citizens and communities, both through concrete statistics and by generating a “feeling of insecurity.” Preventive policy must therefore include local actors and foster community participation, vital for the consolidation of effective public policy.

Public security policies will achieve lasting results only by incorporating primary prevention strategies that address environmental degradation, unemployment, sanitation, public lighting and leisure.

City management is also gaining important ground in public security debates. Municipalities, the governmental interface closest to the issues that concern citizen security, are crucial for implementing community specific solutions. Local government can thus come to aid of police forces.

The role of the police has always been associated with keeping order, preserving the State and protecting authorities. Once the concept of human security is adopted, the focus moves back to citizenship, to guaranteeing individual and collective rights, and shared responsibilities with civil society.

In Latin America the expanding field of academic research allied to a growing number of non governmental organizations has been contributing toward the development of public security system.

Actors from civil society and governmental entities need to gather strength in order to influence the human security agenda. They also need to develop mechanisms to improve relations and ease the interaction with members of the police force interested in modernizing their own institutions.

There are many young police officers with new and creative ideas interested in change, but who lack the political and institutional support to conceive and test innovations. These new voices should be fostered.

We invite you to consider these issues, to join in, open debates, to contribute with your own proposals and criticism. We believe that by coming together we may progress; both in the realm of theory and through action, toward building secure communities.