Police Reform in Violent Democracies in Latin America

The central question of this paper is what kind of reforms are necessary to guarantee that Latin American police forces meet what Bayley calls ‘the democratic criteria’: 1) police are accountable to law, not to government; 2) police protect human rights, including those related to democratic participation; 3) there are constraints on the use of police force that are enforced by institutions external to the police force; 4) the police force's priority is the protection of citizens as individuals and private groups, not the state. The primary focus of this paper is to discuss the types of reforms that ensure that a police force is abiding by the most fundamental principles of the rule of law under a democratic regime. We recognize that in some cases the two problems are so entangled that it is not possible to discuss police reform without addressing effective ways to reduce crime. However, as we argue in the paper, this is not always the case. In many countries it seems possible to separate the two.