PDI agents arrest a young man in Santiago in October 2019. NurPhoto (via Getty Images)
The Citizen Peace Foundation, a non-governmental organization that has been promoting the development of public policies to combat crime in Chile for more than two decades, presented this Thursday its citizen perception index on the state of public security in the South American country, which shows that the population’s fear of a Suffering crimes has reached its highest historical record. According to research, the feeling of fear mainly affects women and the poorest.
The study was conducted between August 14 and September 12 on a random sample of 1,863 people – men and women over 18 years old – in the country’s main cities. Its main aim was to “obtain information about victimization, the response to crime and the population’s sense of fear”.
Among the conclusions of the index is that the proportion of people with great fear of committing a crime reaches 30.5%, the highest level since 2000, when Paz Ciudadana started the analysis. In 2022, this parameter reached 28%, which was already the highest value in the history of the index, which reached its lowest point in 2018, when extreme fear of crime reached only 10.4%.
In the disaggregated data, the capital Santiago is the region with the highest fear of crime at 33.1%. The numbers are also higher for women at 35.4%; and among respondents belonging to the economically weak sectors, it reaches 34.6%.
The index also measures fear in certain situations. For example, 65% of respondents have increased security measures in their homes, while 73% no longer leave their home at certain times of the day. Additionally, 72% have stopped going to certain places; 73% refrained from using valuable items in public; and 69% have banded together with their neighbors to protect themselves from criminals.
Daniel Johnson, executive director of Paz Ciudadana, explained that Chile is experiencing “complex times” in terms of public safety, reflected in an increase in self-imposed restrictions by the population for their own protection. “We have a very high level of behavioral change among citizens to avoid becoming victims of crime, which means restrictions in many ways, and unfortunately we have an extremely critical assessment of the institutions responsible for security and justice in Chile,” said he said this Thursday.
The increase in victimization
The victimization index, which asks whether the respondent or someone close to them has been a victim of a crime, has also increased. It is an upward trend that has continued for three years, when the strictest lockdown restrictions due to the Covid pandemic ended.
In the detailed figures, 36% of respondents reported that someone in their home had been subjected to a robbery or attempted robbery, an increase of 3.9 points compared to 2022. 69% said the crime was complete, 31% said it was an attempted robbery. 73% said the robberies were violent, while 27% said they were non-violent robberies. Most crimes occurred outside the home (90%). The families most affected by this action are concentrated in Santiago (39.6%) and belong to the middle socioeconomic sector (38.3%).
The characteristics of the robberies were also included in the statistical analysis. For example, 73% of households reported that one of their members had been the victim of a completed robbery or attempted robbery of a violent nature in the last six months. 90% of respondents also reported that these events were recorded outside of their home. In addition, there is revictimization, i.e. the repeated commission of the crime, which reaches 15%.
In addition to assessing perceptions of crime and fear, Paz Ciudadana’s work measured Chileans’ trust in the institutions responsible for public security: Carabineros reach 54.6% support, while the Police for Investigations (PDI) reached 64.8% increases . Regarding institutional performance, on a scale of 1 to 7, the PDI scores 4.7 and Carabineros scores 4.4. The worst ratings include the representatives and senators (2.2), the public prosecutors of the Ministry of State (2.7) and the office of the criminal defense attorney (2.8).
Eduardo Vergara, the undersecretary for crime prevention in the government of Gabriel Boric, has commented on these figures, saying that the executive branch treats victimization and the feeling of fear of citizens in the face of crime “with the same importance and relevance.” “For this reason, the measures we are implementing are aimed not only at reducing crime, but also at increasing state presence. “The President of the Republic has now presented a budget that increases the country’s security budget by 5.7%,” said Vergara.
The Chilean authorities have focused their efforts primarily on combating the spread of organized crime. In recent years, government and judicial work has intensified to dismantle criminal groups of foreign origin such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua.