The Armed Forces can help the PNP in prevention issues

By: Pablo Carranza

What do you think of the situation that crime has reached in Peru?

I think that citizen insecurity, crime and delinquency are cornering the State. And that healthy aspiration that Peruvians have to live in conditions of security, of civilized coexistence, is almost a utopia. Still, from the State institutions, from the government as a whole, we do not find a formula that can generate security conditions for Peruvians. And what does that result in? That citizens lose confidence in their authorities. Crime is affecting the lives of citizens. We have widows, orphans, dead, injured, due to crime that is affecting the economic dynamics of all activities. For example, food services, restaurants, hotels, etc. All of this is affected by crime. It is also affecting the image of the country abroad. Many people stop coming to Lima. Today, for example, the kidnapping of a person who owns a gym is going around the world. So those things do a lot of damage and I think that the government has to have a clear reading on this problem.

How to solve this issue?

We are over diagnosed. A problem that, if we add or combine it, for example, in situations such as informality. We are a country with almost 80% informal. In an informal activity like illegal mining, it more or less attracts or comes to tie some 14 or 16 crimes related to this illegal activity. Impunity, corruption, which is another of the great problems that must be solved. That said, well, the political noise, the political instability, the trust that citizens must have in their authorities. Today, we have a conflicting justice system. The National Council of Justice, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Judiciary and the Constitutional Court.

What is the main cause that produces this feeling of anxiety at the national level?

The day that the State prioritizes in the political decision that the security problem is a priority and we must begin to solve it, that day things can change. Political leadership, coordination leadership at the PCM level, political leadership of the President of the Republic, commitment of the actors, roles they play, employment, all the resources that the State has to confront crime and delinquency. There are institutions that still feel left out of this. I, for example, am convinced that for the preventive part of street crime, that crime that swarms every day on the avenues with the participation of the Armed Forces, we could confront it in a relatively successful way. I think that the issue of prevention has been misinterpreted, poorly transmitted, there is no communication strategy to say: “Hey, the Armed Forces can support this.” Of course, with an adequate legal framework, with training and preparation for this, but above all with a contingent that can, together with the Police, attend to territorial control, the safety of the people who are on the streets, the people who are in the vicinity of parks, hospitals, markets and streets.

What is the main deficiency of the Peruvian State in combating insecurity?

Look, the justice system is in crisis, we no longer have a national prosecutor. Mrs. Benavides has been strictly sanctioned by the National Board of Justice. Definitively separated and the National Police, of which I am part and continue to be part because I have been its commander in chief. I have lived all the years of my life in an institution that today, which should be part of the solution to the problem, is part of the problem. Human resources are insufficient. More or less, 48 ​​to 50 thousand police officers are needed today to patrol the streets of the country. And there I told him that a well-thought-out, articulated proposal is needed, with an appropriate legal framework, with training and preparation of an appropriate military contingent, with special calls. If we called for 12,000 young people to enroll in the Armed Forces and prepare and train them solely and exclusively for urban, rural, motorized and combined patrolling, and we would have them patrolling the streets of the country with the National Police in an 80-20 ratio . 80 soldiers, 20 police, would generate confidence and tranquility. That’s the idea. Many people think that the military is going to interrogate, they are going to investigate. We need it for that space. Prevention, the fight against organized crime, the investigation of crimes. That is another aspect that we can talk about later.

Do you believe that the fact that the National Police of Peru has been formed, canceling the Investigative Police of Peru, has led to the loss of fiscal capabilities that the troops had before?

It’s not so much like that. I am part of that process, I am a person who has participated in that process. So, when people talk about it, it is because people have not known how to interpret the spirit of the regulations that form the National Police. Three institutions that are the fundamental pillars on which the National Police has been identified. The problem is that with the passage of time it is the human resource that we have captured.

On the other hand, what activities do you carry out at Grupo Hidalgo?

We are a consultancy on social conflict. We work with some companies and help improve the company-community relationship, from a comprehensive perspective. Companies have their community relations offices, but sometimes these offices tell the business owner what he wants to hear. We from the consultancy tell you what is real. This is what he thinks, this is what he says, this is what the community member who is a neighbor of his project wants. Based on this information, what are the communication channels to address this? For example, continue forming communal companies that work for the mines.