Download OEA/Ser - Department of Conferences and Meetings Management

FIRST MEETING OF MINISTERS RESPONSIBLE FOR
OEA/Ser.K/XLIX. 1
PUBLIC SECURITY IN THE AMERICAS
MISPA/doc. 8/08 corr. 1
October 7 and 8, 2008
8 October 2008
Mexico City, Mexico
Original: Spanish
_________________________________________________________________________________
REPORT OF THE OAS SECRETARY GENERAL, JOSE MIGUEL INSULZA,
ON THE PUBLIC SECURITY SITUATION IN THE AMERICAS
(Presented at the second plenary session, held on October 7, 2008)
The generally accepted standards for recognition of the existence of an epidemic are 10 cases per
100,000 inhabitants. According to the World Health Organization’s World Report on Violence, in
2002 the homicide rate in Latin America and the Caribbean was already 22.9 persons per 100,000
inhabitants. This single fact makes our region the setting of a genuine epidemic, which is taking
more lives than any disease afflicting us today.
This situation is even more serious in a considerable number of large cities, where homicide rates
range from 40 to 120 per 100,000 inhabitants. In Central America the rate reaches, on average, 36
cases per 100,000 people. In El Salvador, according to official data, homicide reports totaled 55.3
per 100,000 inhabitants in 2006; in Jamaica, 49.1; in Guatemala, 45.2; in Venezuela, 45; in
Honduras, 42.9; and in Colombia, 37.3. The situation is similar in the Caribbean where, although the
rates are somewhat lower than in South America, they are still significantly above the global
average.
This picture is even worse among our youths. Young people tend to be the main victims of violence.
In fact, violence is the leading cause of death throughout the region among youths aged between 15
and 29, with a rate of 83.2, and the rate is even higher for young people in the middle and low social
strata, with over 100 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Not only does the region suffer from extreme violence due to homicides, caused in large part by
other criminal activities and mainly by drug trafficking, it also suffers from numerous other day-today common criminal acts, such as robbery, kidnapping, sexual abuse, criminal youth gangs, and
domestic violence.
It is true that the scope and gravity of this phenomenon differ widely among our countries. However,
despite these differences, there are strong ties of violence and crime among our subregions and
countries. The best example of this is trafficking in illicit drugs and related crimes. Another example
is the events of September 11, 2002, which pointed to the need to update security structures related
to the transit of persons and goods.
In short, the fact of the matter is that differences between subregions, countries, and even cities
within a country cannot be ignored, but that globalization of crime and violence is the overarching
feature. Moreover, this form of globalization allows criminal activity to increase the use of
technology, its organizational capacity, and its level of violence. This is the principal characteristic
-2-
of such activities as drug and arms trafficking, trafficking in persons, and transnational criminal
networks that organize this illicit trade.
This activity is known as organized crime. Possible explanations for its increased importance in the
region are diverse. Prominent among them are increased drug use, the easy procurement of firearms,
modern communication and banking systems, porous borders, weak institutions associated with the
criminal justice system, police corruption, and a judiciary that, according to opinion polls, is
considered inefficient, sluggish, and unjust in almost all countries of the region.
It is easier to understand the challenge that organized crime poses to governments when one is aware
of the revenues it generates. The Andean subregion is responsible for approximately 90% of the total
global production of coca leaf and cocaine. About 900 tons of the drug are produced every year, with
a market value of $60 billion, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In general
terms, drug trafficking generates income of approximately $320 billion per year, a figure higher than
the GDP of most of our countries.
Drug production and marketing degenerate into local consumption problems, which often entail
retail drug sales or microtrafficking, with those carrying out this activity often paid in kind for
selling at the local level. The result is a significant, tragic series of secondary effects, such as ties to
criminal gangs, prostitution, the illicit arms trade, and other types of criminal activities.
And drug trafficking is not the only criminal activity that has prospered. According to the United
States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), human trafficking generates annual revenues of $9.5
billion around the world. The transit of firearms and ammunition as well as kidnapping and
associated crimes also belong to the category of criminal activities whose impact and consequences
have increased.
Because of the high revenues organized crime generates, it plays an important part in the corruption
of individuals and institutions. According to Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption
Transparency Index, 20 out of 28 of the countries of the Hemisphere have a score below 5, which
indicates the perception of a serious level of corruption in the national sphere. Furthermore, 11
countries have a score of 3, or lower than 3, which is indicative of a perception of endemic
corruption.
Moreover, a large number of countries in our region are affected by the presence and activities of
criminal gangs, originally youth gangs. Over the years these gangs have changed their characteristics
and their ways of operating. Their members may be as young as eight years old, but their hard-core
segment is made up of adults older than 21 and up to 40 or 50. They operate in a manner similar to
organized crime’s and commit crimes ranging from retail drug sales to kidnapping.
Unfortunately, we are forced to admit that violence has taken root in the region as a way of settling
all types of day-to-day conflicts and is manifested in numerous ways, not only in public settings but
also in the homes of a large part of the population. There is no doubt that one of the principal
scourges we are facing is the magnitude of domestic violence, mainly against women and children
but also against the elderly. Depending on its definition, domestic violence affects between 25% and
50% of all women in Latin America. And we must bear in mind that in many cases women are
brutally murdered by close relatives and spouses.
-3-
Violent acts take place every day not only at home but also in schools. Studies conducted in different
countries of the region point to high levels of violence, aggression, and physical punishment in
schools, which go so far as to seriously impede young students’ ability to concentrate.
The loss of material goods is also one of people’s major concerns. Over and above the violence that
victims generally suffer in these cases, the symbolic and material losses associated with these crimes
leave a deep mark on them, which redefines their daily lives and increases their feelings of
insecurity. In most countries of the region, reports of this type of crime have increased in the past
few years.
Over time, the gravity of the situation described thus far has had an inevitable impact on public
opinion, which, according to various national and regional surveys, ranks insecurity among the top
two or three most serious concerns, outranked – when it is outranked – only by poverty or
unemployment.
Information provided in the regional survey, “Latinobarómetro, has shown a twofold increase in this
perception between 2003 and 2007. Last year 63 percent of those surveyed said that their county
was very unsafe and 73 percent that they were constantly fearful about becoming victims of crime.
The situation described above is directly linked to growing citizen distrust of institutions responsible
for crime control and prevention. Do our institutions deserve this increasing distrust?
Let us consider first the ministries responsible for public security. In most of our countries, they
generally have responsibilities in addition to those directly linked to this topic, which is one of the
reasons it is difficult to consolidate effective leadership in the area. Added to this is the limited
development of their technical capabilities, institutional precariousness, ongoing processes of change
and redefinition, limited stability of the personnel in charge, and little or no follow-up or evaluation
of the programs and initiatives implemented.
One constant feature of this reality for the ministers of the region has been the extent to which public
security issues are controlled by institutions. Another factor that cannot be overlooked is the
absence of public policies that establish clear goals and objectives in this regard. Some countries
have developed national plans, but these plans have not led to effective procedures for following up
on the achievement of goals or have been substantially altered within a short period of time. Most
countries do not have any securities plans or policies at all.
Another serious challenge facing the ministries is how to deal with the absence of quality data and
ensure a certain uniformity of data, thus enabling comparability of available information. It is
apparent that in public security, unlike other areas, there are no parameters that set international
standards and guarantee uniformity and continuity in decision making. This is the role played, in
their respective spheres, by the Pan American Health Organization, the International Monetary Fund,
and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. However, police data or
data on the administration of justice have never achieved an equivalent position. As a result, in
many countries data differ according to the source consulted, and in more than a few cases
governments themselves avoid providing information for reasons of internal policy.
-4-
Without reliable data for systematic follow-up, monitoring, and assessment of the crime situation, it
is difficult to tackle the problem and take appropriate decisions, whether in the design and
implementation of public policies or in the generation of legal tools for making justice more
effective.
The two basic data collection tools for crime and related activities are at present crime report records
and victim surveys. Various Latin American countries have begun to develop report record systems
that can generate data in an integrated way. In Chile, the National Crime Data System has existed
since 1999, and Mexico has launched the “Mexico Platform.” In Ecuador, the Ministry of the Interior
developed the Technical Executing Unit of the National Citizen Security Plan, in which the National
Citizen Security Observatory was built. These are not the only cases but serve to show the many
efforts made toward consolidating more effective criminal data systems.
Studies on victimization are designed to provide data on victimization as a complement to police
data, in order to categorize the criminal acts that the reports cannot address. The United States
Department of Justice has been carrying out the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) since
1972, and in Canada complete victimization surveys have existed since 1988. In Latin America and
the Caribbean, only a small group of countries have established mechanisms for collecting data on
victimization in addition to their crime records systems. One of these countries is Argentina, which,
through its National Criminal Police Office, used this instrument in the country’s largest cities from
1997 to 2003. For its part, Colombia has had a victimization survey since 1996, which it conducts
together with the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce and the city’s mayor’s office. The Metropolitan
District of Quito also conducted victimization surveys in 2003, 2004, and 2008. The National Urban
Citizen Security Survey carried out by the Ministry of the Interior of Chile and the country’s
National Statistics Institute constitutes a major step forward in providing yearly national data, with a
focus on urban areas.
I must insist that access to crime data has an impact on the capacity to address the problem. And I
also must insist on the inadequacies in this area. Today it is easy to note discrepancies in the figures
provided by different institutions in a single country, as well as technical and technological
weaknesses in data collection and presentation, in addition to difficulties in access to these data by
the public at large. This situation merely increases the lack of confidence in official figures and
seriously affects the quality and relevance of related public policies.
Now I would like to refer briefly to our police institutions. In many of our countries, these
institutions have been the subject of important reforms in recent years and significant personnel
increases. Their budgets have also risen significantly and, while the main component of this
expenditure has been for salaries, several countries are paying special attention to infrastructure and
technological development. Lastly, I would like to emphasize that democratization processes,
especially the justice reforms of recent years, have led to the establishment of civilian institutions
dedicated to research in many of our countries.
However, I should also point out those important areas in which the structure and operations of our
police are severely inadequate, inefficient, and ineffective. I should begin by pointing out that
precarious salaries and social benefits are a common trait among most of the police in the region. In
many countries, the bulk of the police have very low salaries and inadequate health, educational, and
housing benefits.
-5-
This instability of police work goes hand in hand with minimum requirements for admission into the
force, especially for junior officers or troops assigned to patrol duty, which in some cases do not
even call for completion of high school or middle school. Likewise, police training methods are far
from optimal. In many countries, the urgency of increasing the number of officers dispatched to
provide surveillance and security has led to a reduction in the number of hours of police training.
Other common police problems in the region that need to be solved in the short term to achieve
effective and efficient public security management are the extreme concentration of power in a small
number of high officials, police participation in the oversight of prisons, and limited career
development possibilities for police. In addition, in many of the region’s police forces, existing
doctrines, visions, and missions are inadequate for modern times, police work is not focused on what
is essential, and the roles and functions of the police are not clearly defined. Likewise, there is little
coordination with other institutions, a clear absence of mechanisms for internal control, scant
external control from the government and civil society, and, of particular concern, serious corruption
problems.
Ministers and friends:
We have to admit that the extent and intensity of crime and the shortcomings or weaknesses of our
institutions in combating it drastically impair the quality of life of the population and lead to
widespread fear, which, in turn, poses a direct threat to the stability of democracy and to the
feasibility of economic and social development.
The root causes of this phenomenon are to be found, primarily, in organized crime; above all drug
trafficking and related offenses and the corruption they generate. Much of the street violence
afflicting citizens is related to that scourge, which, we can safely say, no country in the region is
completely free from.
Then there are also socio-economic factors. Although poverty in itself is not the explanation, there is
indeed a very clear correlation with crime when poverty is combined with other factors, such as the
inequality, marginalization, and exclusion endured by a very large segment of the population.
Other causes have to do with urbanization. The vast majority of Latin American and Caribbean cities
have grown with no urban planning, with inadequate, and in some cases nonexistent, basic services.
Whole sections of those large cities are, moreover, bereft of any presence of the State and
characterized by so-called “informality.” They constitute alien economic, social, and cultural
spheres, impenetrable to laws and institutions. In extreme cases, whole districts within cities are
controlled by organized crime.
Mention must also be made of factors that have to do with attitudes, values, and culture. Individual
success, associated with material success, tends to be regarded nowadays as a significant benchmark
of social standing. In that kind of setting, urban life exacerbates the contrast between the
opportunities and benefits of a modern lifestyle and the impossibility for many people of achieving
them through legal means.
-6-
Another key element in the insecurity so widespread in our region has to do with family relations. A
high percentage of families are one-parent households, in which the father or mother is an
adolescent, or with multiple offspring, lacking social protection and living in overcrowded homes
that induce or exacerbate conflict, maltreatment, and violence, especially among the least privileged
segments of society.
It is also vital to look at the real circumstances in which young people live. In Latin America and the
Caribbean, 21 percent of young people do not either study or work. Every day they are likely to
either provoke or be victims of violence because of the lack of employment opportunities, the
impossibility of receiving a decent education, and zero access to recreation facilities or a healthy
community life. It is hardly surprising, in that scenario, that drugs and alcohol are taking an
increasingly heavy toll on the youth in our region, even on minors.
Another major factor is the culture of lawlessness that pervades our societies, in which conflicts are
settled by people taking the law into their own hands, generally through acts of violence. Reinforcing
that culture is the fact that States, often lacking in legitimacy themselves in the eyes of citizens, are
incapable of dealing with problems and conflict through institutional channels.
Impunity is another facet of the culture of lawlessness, because in our countries, generally speaking,
the vast majority of misdemeanors and many more serious crimes go unpunished, aggravating the
victims’ sense of defenselessness and humiliation. Failure to punish criminal offenses is an incentive
for criminals to expand and repeat their crimes.
Special mention must be made of the difficulties faced by our police forces. The obstacles they face
are so dire that too often they are regarded as being ineffective, untrustworthy, and lacking in
credibility.
Last, but by no means least, we must mention the problems of our prisons. Everything in that sector
poses, we must admit, not just a problem but a serious problem: from the rudimentary or nonexistent
classification and separation of inmates to run-down infrastructure and overcrowding. One of the
most serious problems is the inability to exert even internal control inside prisons, which has led to
numerous crimes being repeated inside them and, even worse, to the ongoing management of major
criminal activities outside by prison inmates. The prisons are the Achilles heel of our criminal
system and the focal points of the worst violations of human rights. That is why we have a prison
population with such a high propensity to violence, such a high percentage of drug addicts, veritable
AIDS and tuberculosis epidemics, and high suicide rates, as well as other grave problems.
I have to say that the explanatory factors I have attempted to describe only help us to grasp the
phenomenon of citizen insecurity if they are seen to be interrelated. It is essential to understand that
the problem of insecurity cannot be construed solely as the sum of the crimes our society endures. It
has to be seen as a wider, more deeply-rooted phenomenon that comprises those individual crimes
but goes beyond them to create a whole social environment.
We have to understand that citizen insecurity is, basically, an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty that
prevents people from fully exercising their rights and freedoms. That is to say: an atmosphere
brought about by violent behavior and criminal practices that actually or potentially threaten the life,
-7-
bodily integrity, and property of the majority of the members of a community and all too often
remain unpunished.
This citizen insecurity is doing grave harm to all the countries in the region. That harm is evident in
the human, social, political and economic costs paid by society as a whole, but particularly by the
poorest and most vulnerable groups within it.
As a result of crime and violence, in absolute terms, more than 100,000 lives a year are lost in the
region. The human cost includes, in addition, the millions of direct victims of non-lethal crimes, who
suffer grave and long-lasting consequences. Another part of the human cost is the existence of
almost 4 million people deprived of their liberty, many of them convicted by the courts, others
trapped in interminable court cases, and many who have served their sentence but, due to
inefficiency in the system, are still in prison.
In the political sphere, deep public concern with crime and the widespread perception that the State
is incapable of addressing the problem effectively have intensified the crisis of legitimacy and trust
in the still fledgling democratic institutions of the Hemisphere. Crime also undermines the culture of
rights and freedom and tends to spawn new threats to human rights. The fear and indignation that
citizens feel when faced with criminal acts may lead us to think that freedoms and rights actually aid
and abet the criminals. Sometimes the regulations governing the actions of the security forces may
even strike us as a constraint on their effectiveness. There may even be cases in which people rail
against fundamental rights, such as the presumption of innocence until proven guilty or due process
of law, because they see them as favoring criminals.
Citizen insecurity is also costly in terms of the way people relate to one another and get organized as
a society. Social and physical segregation is accentuated and, out of fear, whole districts frequently
ban other citizens from access and transit. Another major social repercussion of citizen insecurity is
prejudice and even the stigmatization of large segments of the populations, a phenomenon that can
turn particularly nasty when it concerns minorities, such as immigrants or ethnic groups.
Finally, crime and violence exact a heavy economic price for our societies. Combating crime is a
major component of government expenditure. In addition to that, and in different guises, people in
all social strata feel obliged to spend part of the family budget on their own supplementary security
precautions. There are also clear indications that generalized insecurity impairs financial decisions
and investment opportunities, which have a direct impact on the region’s development. We should
also bear in mind that the worst form of crime and violence, homicide, directly disrupts economic
life. According to Inter-American Development Bank estimates, the economic costs of violence
could total the equivalent of 14 percentage points of GDP in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Any analysis of public insecurity in the Americas needs to accord pride of place to a change of
paradigm and to promote prevention as a core ingredient of public policies designed to address it. No
purely law-enforcement-oriented activity can achieve the maximum social efficiency required to
combat crime and violence in our societies if it is not accompanied by an adequate strategy of
prevention.
Local governments should be the authorities best suited to implement violence prevention and
control activities. Local governments are those closest to the problem and the forum in which
-8-
citizens can convey their complaints, concerns and demands for solutions. At the same time, local
governments are in a better position to work with the community on prevention. Success in the
struggle against crime and violence requires, above all, smooth and flexible collaboration between
the central and local governments.
Some prevention policies and programs in Latin America and the Caribbean have effectively reduced
and prevented crime at the local level. Notable success was achieved, for instance in the cities of
Bogota, Cali, and Medellin in Colombia, in which there was a significant turnaround in levels of
violent crime, thanks to multisectoral and coordinated policies. At the hemispheric level, it is worth
underscoring the work done by Canada to develop prevention policies and programs that have
become a model throughout the world as well as the problem-oriented policing programs developed
in the United States.
Ministers:
We have to acknowledge that the enormous demand for effective actions to address citizen insecurity
is entirely justified. Security is a core part of human rights and when it is impaired other
fundamental rights can no longer be fully exercised.
It is necessary, therefore, to forge security policies that, within the rule of law and strengthening the
rule of law, are imbued with insight into the most complex causes of insecurity, address its
immediate manifestations, and significantly reduce the possibility of it occurring in future.
I am convinced that such national public security policies must meet the following general criteria:
They must be democratic and they must abide strictly by the Constitution of the country concerned
and by international treaties.
They must be implemented by police forces duly educated and trained to fulfill essential and specific
functions in line with the security policies.
Public security policies must remain strictly under the command and responsibility of the democratic
authority, which shall be governed by the contents of those policies, direct actions to be undertaken,
and be answerable to the other institutions and the citizenry both for what it does and for the
outcomes.
Security is a public good for which the chief responsibility lies with the State, not with private
companies or groups engaged in that field.
They must be professionally designed and executed by experts tapping all the knowledge available
and using state-of-the-art technology for dealing with the multiple forms of crime.
They must also be well informed, that is to say, based on extensive, verifiable, comparative, reliable
and comparable information. That information must be public and accessible to the population.
-9-
At the same time, public policies need to be adequately funded. It is essential to ensure a proper
correlation between the magnitude of the problem and the budgetary allocation for the policies that
address it.
Those policies have to be equitable, that is to say, they must guarantee equality before the law and
help to create equal opportunities for all. For that reason, they need to pay particular heed to at-risk
segments of the population and to vulnerable groups and, above all, include a gender perspective
showing how women are affected by insecurity.
Security policies have to envisage appropriate punishments and strive to put an end to the impunity
characterizing the majority of crimes.
Public security policies also have to be comprehensive. On a more strategic level, they must combine
enforcement and punishment elements with prevention and rehabilitation policies, while, at the
operational level, they need to ensure crosscutting action by the State bodies involved and adequate
social participation.
Prevention must be a core ingredient of any public security problem.
Security policies must also have an inhibiting function in the sense of exerting legitimate coercion
aimed at dissuading potential criminals, or, if necessary, guaranteeing that criminal acts are
punished. The proper functioning of the entire criminal system is what guarantees that this State
function is fulfilled.
Public security policies must also have a rehabilitation function, that is, they need to contemplate
procedures for achieving the rehabilitation of offenders as well as care for victims.
Public security policies must encourage the participation of local civil authorities, especially in the
preventive aspects of security, but also in their relations with the police.
Responsibility for security policies lies with the State, which cannot abdicate that responsibility by
passing it on to the population. Nevertheless, citizen participation is a right that citizens can exercise
in matters of security as well as in others. They may even become major allies of the State in its
endeavors.
Public security policies must also be transparent, in terms of both the information underpinning them
and the results of those policies. Each facet and phase of those policies must be subject to oversight,
with the same features, guarantees, and constraints as the other functions performed by the State and
there must be formal and regular mechanisms for ensuring accountability vis-à-vis the community.
Exceptions and areas in which information is confidential must be restricted to an essential minimum
and be clearly defined in each circumstance.
All the above would be meaningless if public policies were to fail and if the population failed to
perceive greater commitment on the part of the State and a gradual improvement in its security
situation. It is therefore vital for these policies to be effective. To achieve that, they must strike a
clear balance between immediate results and medium- and long-term policies.
- 10 -
Finally, public policies must be sustainable. Successful experiences have taught us that continuity in
terms of those driving the policies or at least continuity in the approaches embodied in them, over a
significant period of time, is fundamental. For that reason, it is very important for public security
policies to become State policies, transcending a government’s term of office.
Ministers, distinguished guests, and friends:
The magnitude that the problem of crime and violence has acquired in our region requires us to act
swiftly and decisively. Because of that conviction, the OAS General Secretariat has decided to foster
a plan based on 6 areas to work on and three mechanisms for action:
The first area to work on seeks to provide guidelines and advice on developing legislative measures,
public policies, and institutional reforms.
The second aims to provide technical support for constructing periodic, reliable and comparable
indicators.
The third area to work on aims to strengthen rehabilitation and reinsertion as urgently needed
policies.
A fourth area comprises efforts to improve police training. For several years now the General
Secretariat has been promoting police training courses and it recently developed the Inter-American
Police Training Program with a view to sharing information on successful experiences and getting
them adapted and used by other police institutions. These activities need to be expanded and
boosted. To achieve that, the General Secretariat proposes collaboration with police institutions that
have experiences to share and it commits to continuing to promote the idea of establishing an InterAmerican Police Academy.
The fifth area to work on seeks to find ways of involving the private sector in violence prevention,
rehabilitation, and social reinsertion activities.
The sixth area, finally, aims to strengthen cooperation with the mass media.
The General Secretariat will foster efforts in these areas by using three mechanisms.
The first will be ongoing meetings and consultations with the governments of the region on security
issues. This First Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Public Security in the Americas is a sign of
that commitment and we hope to back and facilitate all the cooperation opportunities it gives rise to.
The second mechanism will be strengthening areas for cooperation among international institutions.
The experience of the Inter-American Coalition for the Prevention of Violence, comprising the InterAmerican Development Bank, the Pan American Health Organization, the World Bank, the
International Development Agency and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the United
States of North America and the OAS must be considered a first step in that direction.
Finally, we will maintain permanent consultation mechanisms with civil society and academia. The
participation of civil society organizations in public security-related issues will constitute a major
step toward achieving policies that have citizen support and are therefore sustainable over the long
- 11 -
term. For its part, participation by academics can provide significant support for the empirical
underpinning of the public policy options put forward.
Ministers:
Overcoming the challenge posed by crime and violence is not an unattainable dream or utopia, but
the result of hard, day-to-day work that many have already embarked on and which I propose to
reinforce collectively as of today.
I call upon the solidarity and recognized commitment of our States and their representatives to
ensure that the complexities inherent in a task of this magnitude are overcome and that we are able to
forge the spirit of cooperation and the practical tools needed to initiate this work here at this
Meeting.
It is our responsibility to achieve that goal for the security, peace of mind, and well-being that all
citizens of the Americas need and deserve.
Thank you very much.
RM00019E01