Contested Battlefields: Policing in Caracas and La Paz
Ungar, Mark
The police in Latin America are not simply the instrument used to control the unrest afflicting much of the region. Amid record crime, political instability and social disintegration, they have...
...Reflecting their societies, these police forces are severely divided by social class...
...These forces operate at several levels...
...5-15...
...Such reaction has even occurred in barrios with better physical conditions and community coherence, but where meetings of "self defense" groups attract large attendance...
...On one side of the political divide, the opposition complains of the repression by state and non-state forces loyal to Chivez-above all the armed pro-Chdvez neighborhood groups called Bolivarian Circles.8 On the other side, a pro-Chivez congressman accuses the Metropolitan Police (PM), loyal to the opposition mayor of Caracas, Alfredo Pefia, of being "criminal and repressive," and responsible for the majority of the killings during the three days the President was out of power in April 2002...
...Contested Battlefields 1. Controlaria General de la Repiblica, Direcci6n General de Control de estados y municipalidades, Evaluaci6n Integral de las Policlas Uniformadas, Caracas, 1989, p. 40...
...Most police officials complain of inad- makes all of t equate government support...
...Thirty-five percent of respondents in a national poll saw no solution in sight to the problem of Lynchings have become more open and brazen, with bodies often left in the middle of the street...
...Low pay also forces many officers to moonlight for private security firms and makes all of them susceptible to corruption...
...Police training, for example, is highly technical, centered on the use of arms and control of social groups...
...1 7 Many of these groups have police and use police uniforms, cre destine detention centers...
...Most inquiries into such abuses lack teeth: Investigations into 25 of the police's 77 senior commanders have not been concluded, and a police officer conducting an internal corruption inquiry was reportedly beaten unconscious by two other policemen in a police cell...
...Some community forums also clash with the police, especially when local leaders elected to the forums are engaged in criminally sanctioned activities such as drug trafficking...
...The military received $US 240 million in 1995, compared with the police's $US 140 million the same year...
...But most residents either fear the Tupamaros or Vol XXXVII, No 2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2003 33CRIME, DISORDER AND POLICING tacitly support them...
...Lynchings have become more open and brazen, with bodies often left in the middle of the street.20 Lynching victims include suspected criminals as well as individuals seen as responsible for some disrespect or dishonor, or who are generally regarded as "dangerous...
...Ineffective policing by an internally divided force flourishes without coherent criminal policy, institutional state capacity or judicial or legislative control...
...Routine law enforcement is particularly violent, with death resulting in over 40% of incidents of civilian resistance to police--one of Latin America's highest rates...
...As in other countries, police budgets are insufficient...
...There is not only more crime, but it is increasingly violent...
...While normally a warrant is needed, with a against one suspension "we can enter houses Caracas without an order...and hold people without all the usual procedures...
...Federal District-falls to the Metropolitan Police (PM), the country's largest urban force...
...High-level officers are still drawn mainly from the small urban middle-class or the military...
...As Caracas' barrios grew and blended into each other, inhibiting collective legal responses to crime, vigilantism started to become a justifiable solution...
...The COPP speeds up criminal investigation and strengthens due process by giving the federal-level Public Ministry control of criminal investigation, and by replacing slow and biased written processes with oral and accusatory trials...
...1 1 Basic training, according to the police themselves, is poor-particularly on social conditions, firearm use and human rights...
...The lack of checks by weak judicial and legislative branches aggravate resulting abuses...
...The CICPC's current budget, for example, is the same as it was four years ago...
...Hopes for greater democracy and accountability have also been pinned on decentralization, introduced in Bolivia through constitutional provisions and legislation that augments local administrative and juridical autonomy...
...That day, military troops tried to stop stone-throwing youths from breaking the presidential palace windows during protests against spending cuts and a new income tax...
...Higher ranking officers, meanwhile, extract money for speeding up or slowing down court cases, covering up crimes and ignoring illicit activity by powerful people...
...Twice they advised him to stop...
...The same official complains that the police of the largely middleclass, anti-government municipalities of Chacao and Baruta protect the opposition but kill pro-Chdvez activists...
...Mass demonstrations, clashes, bombings and assassinations have become regular occurrences in the city, reaching Vol XXXVII, No 2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2003 31 Vol XXXVII, No 2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2003 31CRIME, DISORDER AND POLICING a 0 0 0 0 National Guardsmen about to confront anti-Chivez protestors in Caracas...
...2 4 LA PAZ Policing is fast reaching a similar crisis in Bolivia...
...5. OCEI (Oficina Central de Estadistica e Informaci6n), Repoblica de Venezuela, Presidencia de la Repiblica (1993, 1995, and 2000): Anuario Estadistico de Venezuela, Caracas, OCEI...
...8. "Cuentas pendientes con la justicia," El Universal, May 27, 2002, p. 412...
...The number of homicides doubled between 1998 and 2000, and rose by another 65% between 2001 and 2002.4 In the Caracas metropolitan area, an area of five million people, the number of murders soared by 506% during the 1990s...
...station of individ- insecurity in Caracas...
...But even after criticism from the U.S...
...justice and security councils throughout the country...
...the ever-growing police caseload often delays formal accusations for years...
...This reduces the bureaucracy...
...She has also been caught on the unpopular side of the division between human rights and citizen security...
...These heavy-handed tactics generated a flood of accusations of excessive force by security forces against civilian demonstrators, such as the National Guard's use of tear gas and plastic buckshot...
...Discretionary powers also expanded during six suspensions of basic constitutional rights in the 1990seven though the suspensions had little to do with citizen security...
...Bolivia's principal oversight body is now the Ombudsman-Defensoria del Pueblo-empowered to investigate the practices of all state agencies, including the courts, prisons and police, and follow through with policy recommendations and legal recourses such as habeas corpus...
...The principle agency is the Special Antinarcotics Force, which also has its own intelligence service, and administers the 1,500-strong Rural Area Police Patrol Unit, whose funds come mainly from the United States...
...Since the Public Ministry has not yet devised a guide for implementing the COPP, each case follows the interpr ual prosecutors-with the expected c complain that they have to formulate hoc basis under both political and Meanwhile, abuses and delays c CICPC, where evidence from crim kept on exposed outdoor balconies, investigation discovered 14,000 unin ciations of alleged criminal activity...
...Many inmates in La Paz's massive San Pedro prison-one of the country's largest-complain of inadequate public defense...
...2 1 In another poll, only 22% of :haos...
...In some El Alto neighborhoods, in fact, even many residents on justice forums use whistles to alert one another to the presence of "criminals," who they then beat up or kill...
...The composition of Bolivia's police forces reflects the country's sharp ethnic and class divisions...
...The confrontation quickly escalated to firearms, killing 27 people and injuring a hundred...
...This is perhaps clearest in Venezuela and Bolivia, where the police are at the center of violent political struggles...
...MIJ evalla a 327 cuerpos policiacos del pals," El Globo, November 25, 2000, p. 3. 18...
...At the regional level are the police forces of the country's 23 states, governed by their own codes and practices...
...Eradication in the late 1980s, as a result, was restrained...
...The Plan was successful in several areas of operations, but ended in December 2001 since there were no funds to maintain the statistical program and because in some high-crime neighborhoods the modules failed to provide even basic security...
...The plan successfully eliminated illegal coca in most targeted areas-but resulted in the loss of about $500 million each year from Bolivia's economy-and its clumsily applied crop substitution programs provided few of the promised economic alternatives for coca growers (cocaleros...
...Operating for at least three seven states and the capital, they have for hundreds of killings-normally c by men with covered faces at the h tims...
...At the national level are the judicial police (CICPC), responsible for criminal investigation and forensic services, and the Office of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP), which carries out investigations on national security matters...
...Its Homicide Division has just a single ballistic analysis team...
...Police and criminal justice officials lose documents, manipulate investi0 ri h( gations, fabricate evidence, mistreat detainees and skirt due process procedures...
...Rafael Rivero M., "Cuanto y qu6 Gana un Policla," El Diario de Caracas, June 14, 1990, p. 20...
...2 3 vestigated denun- In a crime-ridden Caracas barrio called 23 de Enero, vigilante justice has usurped control of public order...
...Reflecting arrest patterns, most inmates come from poor social sectors...
...In 1999, it was reduced by 25% and by slightly more each year since...
...There were 170 extra-judicial killings recorded in 2000, the most since 1988...
...This failure is most apparent in sprawling E1 Alto, an unincorporated urban area surrounding the city of La Paz, where rural indigenous people have immigrated in such massive numbers that they now outnumber residents of La Paz proper...
...As political conflicts intensify, most police forces still lack adequate training, professional security, concrete standards, sufficient salaries and health benefits...
...7. "El avance fue muy escaso," July 23, 2001, El Universal, p. 4-1...
...The main faction, al extermination "Living Hope," was officially organized to engage in years in at least social work and received state funds for it through e been responsible phantom NGOs...
...Luis Gerardo Gabald6n, and Daniela Bettiol, "Presencia Policiaca en Zonas Residenciales Urbanas" (M6rida: Universidad de los Andes, 1988...
...The LVM permitted the "preventive" detention of persons who had not committed a crime but were deemed a "threat" to society, as displayed by actions such as "walking the streets...fomenting vice.' 2 In Caracas, about 500 people were arrested every year under the LVM, most of them from marginal social sectors-prostitutes, the unemployed, immigrants, youth, homosexuals and transvestites...
...With military weapons and technology-and wide autonomy from state oversight agencies-police forces have become more abusive throughout the country...
...Caracas and La Paz have become contentious battlefields in which the practice of democratic policing is being put to the test...
...2. The law was widely condemned as unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court argued that only the executive branch-not the judiciary--has the discretion to use and interpret the law...
...They responded similarly to a young man "smoking crack in front of children...
...Department of Justice...
...Our work is seriously damaged...
...9. Congressman William Tarek Saab, Movimiento Quinta Repiblica, author interview, February 27, 2003...
...Crimes documented by the PTJ (Estadistica Delictiva, Cuerpo Tkcnico de Policia Judicial) rose from 38,005 in 1962 to 60,156 in 1970, 175,855 in 1986 and 261,630 in 1996...
...With Chdvez supporters and opponents squaring off against one another on a regular basis, policing in Caracas has become intensely politicized...
...On at least one occasion members of Bolivia's Permanent Assembly of Human Rights have been arrested and tortured by police officials...
...1 5 But a good design has not prevented poor implementation...
...Like the police, they enjoy wide legal impunity...
...Pressure is routinely put on prosecutors investigating police and military involvement in drug trafficking...
...Although the police have 70% more personnel than the armed forces, the police budget is only about 60% the size of the military's...
...Inadequate pay, poor conditions, and low prestige at this level attract few people outside of poor social sectors...
...In both the coca areas and in La Paz, security forces respond to widespread protests with states of siege and mass detentions...
...Along with such political division, class polarization has also turned decentralization into a kind of Balkanization of Caracas...
...The most important of the new laws is the criminal procedure code (COPP) of 1998...
...Cities may also form their own municipal police to enforce local ordinances, but only the nation's capital, La Paz, has done so...
...Police often detain individuals for identification checks and to enforce illegal curfews-both of which fortify their power on the street...
...One bullet even hit the President's office chair...
...William, a young resident, explained the group's anti-crime techniques with approval...
...Ana Maria Romero de Campero, Defensora Nacional de Bolivia, author interview, July 12, 2000...
...3 0 With about 55% of all prisoners held for narcotics crimes, drug laws are also responsible for the overcrowding...
...In the poor barrio of Catia, several people were killed right in front of the modules...
...Most of the police proliferation has taken place at the local level, following the 1989 decentralization law that allowed municipalities to form their own forces...
...The National Police are in Low pay f charge of crime prevention, a officers to n failed effort that is most evident in a crime rate that quadrupled private secu between 1993 and 1999...
...ICITAP is not only helping the police integrate the new code into their operations, but it is even assisting in the development of a new Police Organizational Law meant to streamline police hierarchy and promotion procedures...
...Human rights and drug reform activists worry that ICITAP's participation may also streamline Bolivia's counterproductive war on drugs...
...Into the vacuum created by the policing have stepped a burge parapolice squads and crimin groups...
...The new agencies established for coca eradication are supported by separate drug courts and prisons...
...In 1999, Plan Dignidad itself was criticized by the Defense Ministry's own Defense Policy Analysis Unit for "underestimating" the violence and social costs involved...
...When the youths were joined by a large number of police officers on a wildcat strike, the soldiers used tear gas, and the police responded in kind...
...It is also held responsible for killing dentials and clan- 12 "presumed delinquents" in the name of its antifund themselves crime campaign-prompting a community group to hicles, cattle and protest in front of judicial police headquarters in July y powerful social, 2001...
...In combination with work pressures and conditions, such low pay has led to frequent and very violent police strikes, rces many walkouts and takeovers of govoonlight for ernment buildings...
...Until it was finally struck down in 1997, a major source of that power was the 1939 Law of Vagabonds and Crooks (Ley de Vagos 30NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Mark Ungar teaches political science at Brooklyn College...
...En route to one otherwise routine neighborhood meeting, she was surrounded by a threatening crowd chanting, "Defender of Delinquents...
...As such practices spread throughout the region, the damage to democratic standards-from civil rights to institutional accountability-may last beyond the current "crime scares" themselves...
...The ETF has been responsible for human rights abuses and several killings, and human rights activists regard the force itself as illegal...
...Un hombre fue linchado en Carabobo," El Universal, October 1, 2002, p. 4-10...
...The wealthy eastern half of Caracas has ten times more police officers than the poor western half, which, even with the growing number of forces, suffers from a deficit of about 8,000 agents...
...While most officers receive between two and four years of training, the majority of rank-and-file agents receive just six months...
...The agency has 10 000 officials but claims it needs triple that amount...
...But the group gradually became more arried out at night involved in crime--both for and against...
...The country's prisons, meanwhile, are characterized by violence and inhuman conditions, which the police blame on a lack of funds, while human rights groups blame the police who administer the prisons...
...Furthermore, because the disputes dominating community forums are rooted in broad societal hardships, long-term resolution requires effective policies against crime, poverty and other sources of violence...
...The rare legal action taken against these groups comes up against the judiciary's weaknesses...
...Congress and international organizations, the ETF expanded to 1,500 members in January 2002...
...2 6 Police facilities reveal the effects of such budgeting...
...In 2000, the National Assembly discovered "parallel forces" in many of the country's 327 police jurisdictions...
...When the economic liberalization of the 1980s acceler0 a4 0 0 La Paz police protesting a pay cut near their headquarters on February 11...
...The Guard has increasingly been used to maintain public order a crescendo on April 11, 2002, in the coup that briefly ousted the President...
...UDAPDE, "Programa de prevenci6n, gesti6n, y resoluci6n de conflictos en el marco de la lucha contra las drogas en Bolivia," (La Paz: Ministerio de Defensa Nacional...
...Estudio Perfil 21, Consultores 21, July 2002...
...Luis Enrique Oberto, President of the Legislative Commission, author interview, June 29, 1998...
...Many through the trafficking of drugs, ve other products, and are supported by political and economic actors...
...one trial against some parapolice leaders, for example, was paralyzed by the lack of protection for witnesses...
...The Ministry of Defense's Office of Military Intelligence conducts national security operations, and the Office of Army Intelligence is the military's intelligence wing...
...Barely 2% of police officials are assigned to investigation, while the rest carry out patrol duty or administrative tasks.13 One easy solution would be to remove the CICPC from these other tasks so it can concentrate on investigations, but a proposal in 2000 to remove minor crimes from the CICPC went nowhere...
...3 The impunity that comes with such power leaves at least 90% of human rights violations by the police unpunished...
...Police are also involved in kidnapping, robbery, organized crime, contraband and drug trafficking...
...In the days following the government's intervention during the PM hunger strike, for example, federal military battalions fanned out in the capital with tanks, machine guns and other equipment designed for warfare and not citizen security...
...Author interviews with inmates, San Pedro Prison, July 19, 2000...
...Prosecutors respondents expressed confidence in the police-a criteria on an ad- view confirmed by the police themselves, who say that public pressure.16 society sees them "as an enemy," and has "a total lack :ontinue...
...Many El Alto communities have set up a wide range of justice and security forums, which have largely enjoyed strong popular support because they are elected, utilize indigenous customs and are fast...
...6. "Los crimenes se han vuelto cada vez mas violentos," El Nacional, July 23, 2001...
...In both countries, increasingly militarized police forces are battling one another, police impunity is growing and street violence has reached record levels...
...Valmore Leegos, CICPC officer, author interview, February 26, 2003...
...Centralized in the Interior Ministry, Bolivia's National Police enforce the law in each of the country's nine departments...
...Working alongside the JTF is the Expeditionary Task Force (ETF), created in January 2001 with 500 members...
...Inspectors and sub-inspectors receive up to four years of education, but most PM officers only three months...
...The new code replaces written trials with oral trials and hands over criminal investigations from police and judges to prosecutors...
...4. "Venezuela es el sexto pals con mayor indice de homicidios," August 31, 2002, El Nacional, p. D-01tima...
...3 1 Despite such success, those sanctions vary widely and are inconsistently applied, and often lead to abuses of power, such as illegal seizure of private property...
...In 1990, 16% of the crimes against property were violent...
...The other main eradication force is the U.S.-funded Joint Task Force (JTF), a combined police and military operation formed in 1998...
...The courts can process the cases more directly...
...Residents of the barrios of Catia, La Vega and Brisas del Paraiso, author interviews, 1998 and 2003...
...About 85% of the National Police's approximately 20,000 personnel are officers without rank, and mainly from the indigenous groups that comprise 60% of the population...
...The resulting gap in crime rates between poor and rich neighborhoods then reinforces media and political "crime scares" in which crime is blamed on the underclass...
...But the code's implementation, say police officers, has been taken over by the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) of the U.S...
...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30CRIME, DISORDER AND POLICING y Maleantes, LVM...
...But in the poor areas of La Paz, it has not led to visible improvement in security...
...And despite such allocations, the overall police budget is shrinking...
...2 9 Poor education and unimplemented laws also lead to brutal practices...
...Policing responsibility for the greater Caracas area-the supporters and opponents squaring off another on a regular basis, policing in has become intensely politicized...
...This past December, the Supreme Court ruled that any of the armed forces may be used to help guarantee public order-something that has taken place frequently over the past year...
...Living conditions and treatment in many police academies are harsh, creating resentment by new recruits, most of whom come from the lower classes...
...1 0 With more than 70 hours of work each week, the average police officer works 40% more than the average state employee...
...Senior policemen organized a well-publicized string of 34 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 34 NAC3IA REPORT ON THE AMERICASCRIME, DISORDER AND POLICING burglaries in 1999, and the police chief allegedly misused a pension fund...
...2 5 There have been infusions of funds earmarked for policing, such as the $26 million Citizens' Security and Protection Plan of 1999, but they have mainly supported the purchase of new equipment rather than new training...
...The percentage of violent crimes committed against persons rose from 13% in 1990 to 22% in 2001...
...Victor Amram Lazes, Comisario of the PTJ, author interview, July 2, 1998...
...But attempts to carry out punishments that violate national lawsuch as the death penalty-have made the police and courts increasingly reluctant to respect the forums...
...2 8 The campaign also opened a violent rift between the government and the rapidly growing cocalero movement, whose mainly indigenous makeup has further heightened the country's racial tensions...
...At the of confidence" in them.22 In another poll, 60% favored e scenes is often more violence to combat crime and 47% were in favor a September 2001 of killings of criminals by the police...
...But when former dictator Hugo Banzer was elected president in 1998, the government enacted Plan Dignidad, an intensive U.S.-backed anti-coca campaign...
...This has led to the establishment of local Long-term solutions require effective against poverty...
...CARACAS In Caracas, where police have long been involved in abuse, extortion and the trafficking of arms and drugs, securitN forces have become a massive presence on the streets...
...Even with an increased budget...
...Police raids on private homes remain common in the barrios, as are "confrontations" with suspects in which victims are blamed for their own deaths, often by being labeled irredeemably violent and disreputable...
...Over 70% of the city's residents live in poor barrios with exceedingly high rates of violent crime...
...At PTJ headquarters in La Paz, equipment is outdated, the physical plant is deteriorating and officials are cramped in small rooms where up to four different cases are handled simultaneously-all of which prevents effective investigation...
...Tarek William, author interview, February 26 and 27, 2003...
...There are also national-level military police forces, such as the National Guard, responsible for security in sensitive areas like national borders and oil zones, and increasingly involved in controlling prisons and supporting state police forces...
...In the following two days violent clashes between police and soldiers left 27 people dead...
...Without such policies, residents are more likely to turn to options such as vigilantism...
...Author interviews, El Alto neighborhood council meetings, August, 2000...
...The lack of [constitutional] guarantees does make our work easier," a police inspector told me during the 1994-1995 suspension, regarding his force's increase in raids and detentions With Ch6vez in the poor barrios...
...He is the author of Elusive Reform: Democracy and the Rule of Law in Latin America, Lynne Rienner, 2003...
...2 7 Meanwhile, judicial personnel regularly strike to protest low salaries, broken promises of raises, and the huge salary differences between higher and lower ranking judicial officials...
...The annual salary for the police chief is about $20,000, a detective around $3,200 and a street officer under $1,300...
...32 NM2IA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 32 NAC.A REPORT ON THE AMERICASCRIME, DISORDER AND POLICING In 2000, Caracas' mayor recruited one of the principal architects of "zero tolerance"-former New York City police chief William Bratton-to implement a "Plan Bratton" for the Metropolitan Police, complete with decentralized mobile law enforcement modules and a statistical program used to coordinate operations and measure factors linked with crime...
...Jerssen Mojica, Inspector of the CICPC, author interview, February 26, 2003...
...police officials easily resist control by ombudsmen, congressional committees and other oversight bodies...
...Roban y matan a taxista frente a m6dulo policia," El Universal, July 4, 2001...
...Society, disappointed by the failure of new laws and beset by sharpening class divisions, demands an iron fist that, without adequate funds and training, will only continue to be based on discriminatory and abusive practices...
...The twin issues of drug trafficking and coca eradication have exacerbated these practices...
...Of the 152 cases taken to the forum of the typical El Alto neighborhood of Villa Bolivar "D," for example, over half were resolved in a week or less...
...Omar Jimenez, Attorney General of Guarenas, author interview, February 26, 2003...
...The JTF has fired on unarmed protestors in response to killings of security officers by cocalero self-defense committees...
...Colonel Miguel Flores, author interview, July 13, 2000...
...This past February 12, in what may have ity firms and been the single biggest outbreak of civil disorder since the em susceptible 1952 Revolution, such unrest option...
...Since then, the lack of national policy has placed the burden of policing on these local agencies...
...Dilia Parra, Director of the Institute of Superior Studies of the Attorney General, author interview, February 25, 2003...
...But Bolivia's Defensoria has been constrained by obstruction and stonewalling e policies by the executive and the inefficiency of the courts, which are slow to take up the problems it exposes...
...7 In the last three years, the relatively prosperous municipality of Baruta has invested 33% of its income in security, reducing its crime rate by 31...
...These class divisions undermine the police's institutional coherence and deepen internal resentments...
...Linda Farthing and Ben Kohl, "The Price of Success: Bolivia's War Against Drugs and the Poor," NACLA Report on the Americas, JulyAugust 2001, p. 36...
...But increasing police power has not decreased Venezuela's crime rate, which has been rising non-stop over the past 20 years...
...The federal government's placement of National Guard troops in Caracas Metropolitan Police stations during a recent PM hunger strike over wages and working conditions has heightened conflict between proand anti-Chivez forces...
...Other federal forces include an anti-riot force-in charge of reestablishing public order and responding to attacks against property--two anti-terrorist forces, and a U.S.-supported anti-narcotics unit...
...Comisi6n de Derechos Humanos de la H. Camara de Diputados, Denuncia de torturas a ciudadanos de alzamiento armado (La Paz: CEDOIN, 1995...
...Education varies according to specialization, and most enlisted personnel receive most of their training during the first months on the job...
...The "Tupamaros," a quasi-political gang divided into lack of effective two violently opposed factions, has taken over law zoning number of enforcement in much of the barrio...
...Most justice forums report serious crimes such as rape and murder to the PTJ, which in turn recognize forum procedures to resolve them...
...And at an even more decentralized level, five municipalities within Caracas have their own police forces...
...Between 1990 and 1995, homicides grew by 73%, assaults by 16% and robberies by 26...
...Most disputes taken to the forums center around charges of violence, and over 92% of their sanctions are obeyed...
...33 In the face of a public security crisis, Bolivia, like many countries in Latin America, has become paralyzed by its political, institutional and social relations...
...Both the CICPC and DISIP are located in the Ministry of the Interior and Justice...
...5 Nationally, there were 33 homicides per 100,000 habitants in 2001, but the rate in Caracas was 82 per 100,000...
...1 4 Elected officials, meanwhile, try to forge policing and criminal policy out of a jumble of pending and poorly implemented legislation, and amid political turmoil and cabinet reshuffles...
...Virtually no attention is paid to questions of suspects' rights...
...3. Marco Hurtado, Inspector of the Metropolitan Police, Caracas, March 15, 1995...
...Ministerio de Justicia y Derechos Humanos, RepOblica de Bolivia y Centro de Asesoramiento Social y Desarrollo Legal, Justicia Comunitaria, Vol.4: Las Zonas Urbanas Marginales de la Paz y Cochabamba (La Paz: Ministerio de Juticia y Derechos Humanos: 1998...
...Inter-American Development Bank: Codigo Organico Procesal Penal (Washington: BID, 1998), pp...
...The current head of the Defensorfa, Ana Marfa Romero de Campero, complains that she spends most of her time using legal recourses to stop unconstitutional state actions, such as unannounced roadblocks, intrusions on citizen privacy and the use of clandestine agents...
...All the police complain about their inadequate pay...
...El Defensor no quiere que le envien al Rodeo," Tal Cual, September 18, 2002...
...When group members saw one robbery, he told me, "they tied up the robber, poured gasoline on him and set fire...
...While over two-thirds of all crimes (43% of them violent) occur in the city's biggest western municipality, Libertador, the municipalities of the east have used their money to cut down crime...
...Given the political tension that has pervaded Venezuela during the populist presidency of Hugo Chivez--especially since the attempted coup of April 2002-it is not uncommon for police forces patrolling the same area to have different law-enforcement and political agendas...
...Not surprisingly, an increase in rights abuses has accompanied militarization...
...The third time, they went to his house at night, took him to the roof and threw him off...
...ated migration to La Paz and other cities, coca was one of the few relatively secure sources of income in many rural regions...
...The plan also expanded the number of police agencies and militarized them by blurring military and police functions...
...to cor "We're extremely limited-in material, in cooperation, in funds," asserts Colonel Miguel Flores, Director of the PTJ...
...3 2 But one proposed solution, to combine forums with local courts and police, would only heighten underlying conflicts...
...They are concentrated, of course, in the most urbanized parts of the country, with about 23% of all personnel working in the department of La Paz...
...In Venezuela and Bolivia, these conditions have become threats to democracy itself...
...Lower rank officers routinely extort money from small businesses, entertainment halls, brothels, criminal gangs, detainees and street merchants...
...As in Venezuela, politicization has also hampered oversight of the police...
...Vol XXXVII, No 2 SEPTEMBER/OCtOBER 2003 35 Vol XXXVII, No 2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2003 35CRIME, DISORDER AND POLICING As a result of such disarray throughout the criminal justice system, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights has initiated an overhaul, centered on a 1999 formulation of a new Criminal Procedure Code...
...by 2002 the percentage had risen to 46%.6 A proliferation of police forces within the country-from 20 forces in 1990 to over 300 in 2003-has also had little impact on the crime surge...
...Supreme Court judge Hildegard Rond6n of Sans6, author interview, June 9, 1995...
...nearly toppled the government...
...The Judicial Police (PTJ), which depends in part on the federal Judiciary, is responsible for most criminal investigation procedures...
...pressure from top officials on poorly paid lower ranks sharpens these divisions and impairs effective policing...
...1 8 Vigilantism first came to public attention at the beginning of the 1990s, when anonymous brochures began to exhort barrio residents to "declare war" against delinquency with language reminiscent of death squads...
...Society's response has been a mix of protest, panic and pessimism...
...Amid record crime, political instability and social disintegration, they have become part of that unrest...
...It is accused homes of their vic- of pressing young men in the barrio to sell drugs and close ties to the kill competitors...
...Most trials are now directed by both judges and civilians, defendants have more guarantees, and alternative sentencing is encouraged...
Vol. 37 • September 2003 • No. 2
