Chile: Barrio sin Violencia
In the 1990s Chile undertook a number of criminal justice reforms, starting with police. While the principal objective was to increase police presence on the streets of the Santiago metropolitan area (where 40% of the country’s population lives), there were also several participatory initiatives. The region was divided into quadrants, with police resources assigned to each quadrant on the basis of need and demand, and quarterly reports on police activity of each quadrant were made available to community leaders. In addition, Urban Security Neighborhood Committees were created to do some patrolling, start programs for youth, and provide liaison with the government to communicate the need for environmental improvements like better street lighting. In 2000 the government created Security Councils in high-crime areas; local government leaders, police officials and NGO representatives work together to develop local security plans. We do not know the nature and extent of citizen involvement through these councils.
The Chilean government has also embraced restorative justice in the form of mediation programs intended to reach Chile’s poorest citizens. The government-sponsored “Access to Justice” movement has included recent legislation providing for reparative agreements as a substitute for criminal penalties in many cases, although the agreements have not yet been widely used. And a new law setting out rights and obligations of juveniles will go into effect in 2007; it stipulates that incarceration is a last resort and that young people have a right to educational, social and employment opportunities; NGOs are expected to supervise many juvenile offenders and to work with community people on their integration into community life.
Realizing these reforms has included the formation of both public and private institutions. In four of Chile’s 12 regions a legal assistance center (Corporación de Asistencia Judicial) with many offices and a number of mobile units provides mediation as well as legal defense and advice. (These units have existed since the early 1980s but have recently been expanded to reflect the emphasis on equal access to justice.) In one of these centers, in Valparaíso, a special project, “Construyendo un Barrio sin Violencia,” uses ordinary citizens to resolve disputes among neighbors, some of which would constitute criminal activity if referred to the formal justice system. The emphasis of the project is on dealing with conflicts before they escalate; the volunteers who mediate are called “peace monitors,” reflecting the focus on community peace rather than on the punishment of individuals. Another group, the Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution (CREA), associated with the Catholic University of Temuco, offers free mediation services in areas of family and penal law with the objective of resolving conflicts in a non-retributive setting.
All of these initiatives are very new and their sustainability and effects have yet to be determined.