The emergence of the democratic citizen security policy in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

Democratic security policies have become a major innovation in the last decades in Latin America and the Caribbean. This article analyses the Dominican Republic's recent attempt to address the escalation of violence and complex criminality through the Plan for Democratic Security (Plan de Seguridad Democrática), launched in 2005. The Plan emerged from a complex process that involved multiple and overlapping reforms, innovative social and political strategies and the concertation of public and private actors with contradictory interests. To implement the Plan over the past five years, the government confronted an unfavourable environment of crisis, disenchantment, mutual distrust and precarious institutionalisation. Not surprisingly, the Plan has had mixed results, yet for that reason offers many lessons to be learned. Three major lessons are: (1) basing security policies on a clear understanding of the social, political and cultural contexts that foment crime and violence; (2) obtaining firm support from both the public and the political and social leadership in order to promote institutional reforms and (3) guaranteeing the sustainability of the new crime prevention strategy by transcending short-term measures such as massive police deployment.

Keywords:

• citizen security
• police brutality
• police reform
• Dominican Republic
• community participation

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Cyrus Veeser for critically reading this article.

Notes

1. According to residents of most populated neighbourhoods the greatest problem they faced was the street crime (37.6%), followed by the sale and use of drugs (14.9%) and the lack of electrical power (11.1%).

2. Starting in 1999 social pressure in favour of police and judicial reform intensified. Academic institutions and human rights organisations submitted proposals and participated in public audiences, some of them promoted by the National Congress Commissions on Security.

3. These opinions were expressed within the focus groups with police agents in Santo Domingo, 2005.

4. Focus group with police officers, October 2006.

5. It was made official by presidential decree No. 263, issued in Santo Domingo, 2005.

6. Focus groups with residents of poor neighbourhoods in Santo Domingo, baseline PDS, 2005.

7. This definition incorporates elements from the ‘Cartilla de Policía Comunitaria’ from the Natinal Police of Bogotá, Colombia, 2004.

8. Survey for the base line collected at Barrios Distrito Nacional, Newlink, 2005.

9. A survey in several communities where Barrio Seguro has been implemented by an NGO reported that 60% of the people expressed its satisfaction with police and authorities actions.

10. This opinion was expressed in a focal group of Santiago de los Caballeros, 2005.

11. Focus group with police agents in Santo Domingo, 2005.