Abstract
This article explains and assesses the ongoing process of police reform in Venezuela, which is centered on efforts to develop and implement national standards in training, practice, oversight and rights protection to a force that has been characterized by institutional inefficiency, rapid decentralization, a fall in public confidence, and endemic rights abuse over the past 25 years.
Notes
1. This introductory section gathers the opinions of various police reform experts in Venezuela, presented at the ‘Police for an Inclusive Democracy’ workshop in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, 28 November–2 December 2005.
2. However, the various experts agreed that crime is a consequence of social and individual conditions, which has little to do with police control; therefore, crime reduction is not an adequate indicator to gauge the results of police reform.
3. A range of work on the Venezuelan police supports these assertions. See, among others, Briceño-León, Roberto and Rogelio Pérez Perdomo, Morir en Caracas, Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, Citation2002; Ungar, Mark, Policing Demcoracy: Overcoming Obstacles to Citizen Security in Latin America, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011; Briceño-León, Roberto and Olga Avila Fuenmayor, Violencia en Venezuela, Caracas: Laboritorio de Ciencias Sociales, 2007.