Crime is rampant in Chile and politicians seem unable to solve the problem

While the northern border with Peru and Bolivia is not a problem in itself, the lack of protection is. This is not due to old fears of a military invasion by either country, but rather the challenge of securing that border. Effective border protection requires military and police forces, surveillance technology, surveillance satellites, drones, and aircraft for day and night patrols. The same goes for maritime spaces, as inadequate protection could lead to increased crime and migration flows along the Pacific coast of northern Chile. Unfortunately, the country’s neighbors are hardly any help, and are probably even happy to see Venezuelan migrants and criminals moving to Chile or Argentina on their territories. No one wants to deal with the migration problem, especially those who already have more political crises than they can handle.

Given the growth of organized crime, the government’s plan seems pointless. Politicians are used to reacting, and in this case their response was to propose laws, most of which will take several years to take effect. In both 2023 and 2024, legislative packages were put together to improve public security, including measures such as the creation of a Ministry of Public Security that would take over the responsibilities of the Ministry of the Interior; the deployment of the armed forces for more permanent internal security tasks; the improvement of the inefficient (or virtually nonexistent) national intelligence service; the reform of the prison system; the adaptation of the judicial system to current realities; and several other smaller initiatives.

Bills dating back to 2023 have been put on the fast track for 2024, although this process has been anything but quick. Since May, only one bill – dealing with repeat offenders – has been passed. Unfortunately, the opposition has not been very helpful, which is problematic because several of these initiatives could be of use. The only relatively effective measure the government has taken is to relieve the police of some administrative tasks. Combined with speeding up the training of new officers, this could put around 1,500 additional officers on the streets. However, their effectiveness remains to be seen, as they will need to be retrained and the new recruits will lack operational experience. This has been a cruel year for the Chilean police, with several officers killed in the line of duty.

Lack of strategy

All this may sound grim, but what is worse is the lack of a comprehensive and actionable security strategy. Meetings are held, discussions are held, press statements are made, but the result is just more legislative proposals and grandiose statements that quickly fade away when another bloody weekend arrives.