Possibilities of Advancing Police Reform in Guatemala through Community -Oriented Policing

Abstract

The paper describes the process of security sector reform in Guatemala with reference to the efforts to implement community-based policing practices. The results point to the difficulties of shakingoff public understandings of security honed during the armed conflict and underscore the efforts of a still young police institution to position itself in a democratic context. The study posits that communityoriented policing strategies open opportunities to forward police reform in the high-violence, low-trust, weak-institutions, and post-conflict context of Guatemala. The argument is supported by field data gathered in indigenous territories in the Western Highlands, where traditional forms of social organization persist, and in metropolitan Villa Canales municipality, an urban, high-violence site of research.

Patterns of Similarities and Differences in Post-Conflict Community-Oriented Policing—A Matter of Trust

“…Among the cases examined here, Nicaragua is reported as one of the more successful cases when it comes to local ownership of COP [57][58][59][60]. Levels of trust between the police and communities have been characterised as high compared to other countries in Central America, including El Salvador and Guatemala.…”

“…The Central American cases -Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador -follow a different historical trajectory [56][57][58][59]. In Nicaragua, a socialist revolution (1978)(1979) eventually led to civil war from 1981 to 1990; in Guatemala, dictatorship, military violence and civil war traumatised the country from the 1960s onwards; while in El Salvador, civil war raged from 1979 to 1992 following the fall of the dictatorship ( [60], p. 2).…”