Public Security

The bill that proposes the unification of the Mexican federal police forces will soon be voted on in the lower house. The country has 1.661 police corporations, generating a lack of coordination and overlapping functions.

The first complaints of police violence date from 1810, and according to Historian Marcos Luiz Bretas, its persistance in Brazilian society is rooted in a failed model of public security that relies on repression and incarceration.

Unlike countries such as  the United States and Canada, there is no single federal entity in charge of collecting and organizing crime data in Brazil. Investing in such a system would pave the way for increased accountability in the public security and justice system, and less impunity.

Haiti is a nation under reconstruction, and the road for peace cannot be built without its police service, Chief Inspector of Haiti's National Police force Fritz Jean gave Comunidad Segura his view on the role of the nation’s young and growing police force.

How to convert actors of armed violence into peaceful citizens? Viva Rio's Rebeca Pérez, coordinator of the COAV International program, proposes changes to the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration program used in post-conflict situations to counter urban violence in Brazil. 

A new policy and legislative proposal based on Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration signals a new approach for areas afflicted by urban violence but not officially at war.

The Cotrim Neto Custodial Center in Rio de Janeiro is not a 'prisoner warehouse' for those awaiting trial. It recently hosted a show for inmates, part of a program taking music and art to detention centers.

The Justice Policy Institute’s new paper investigates the relation between education and public safety, and the news is that when fighting crime, it pays to invest in schooling.

Daniel Luz and Rebeca Pérez

One of the greatest challenges ahead in Latin American public security reform is the relation between its police forces and youths at risk.

Renowned expert on victim studies from the French research institute Cesdip, Dr. Renée Zauberman spoke to Comunidad Segura about the challenges of her field, and touched on preliminary findings of a Rio de Janeiro survey by Brazil's Institute of Public Security set for publication next year.