A recent story in The Guardian highlighted the ongoing abuses of police forces in Venezuela and the difficulties in bring about police reform. Increasingly, police in Venezuela act with complete impunity and growing brutality against criminals, their families, and anyone else caught in between. Stories of disappearances and false imprisonment by police, especially in Caracas, have become more and more common in Venezuela which at the same time boasts a meager 3% success rate in solving homicides. However, the story told in The Guardian is not new; for years both journalists and activists have reported on extrajudicial killings by police, which is believed to number over 900 a year. Because of the controversial reputation of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in the West, the issue tends to be overshadowed by the Chávez government’s political use of police, including the raid of an opposition television station and violent breakup of an opposition protest this past May, but nonpolitical abuses are just as serious and devastating to the population.
It is important to note that while the current government appears to condone these actions, the problem is not limited to the Chávez government. Human Rights Watch issued a report on police excesses in Venezuela back in 1998 when Rafael Caldera was still president, and police brutality has historically been a problem throughout Latin America. But the problem has reached new heights in Venezuela in recent years, with Caracas becoming the second most violent city on the continent. Even the current Justice Minister admits that as much as 20% of crime is committed by police forces and public opinion polls show that most Venezuelans see no real difference between the police and common criminals.
Such statistics illustrate how much reform is needed, but reform is a process and not a decree. Without stronger support from the government, it is unlikely that real change will come. But herein may lay the problem: common abuse makes political abuse less objectionable to the population because they are already used to it. In that situation, the government has little incentive to encourage change.
However, given the role of police in the justice system, all human rights will be threatened without police reform. This underscores how essential the police are in securing human rights in general as well as the importance in reigning in police abuse regardless of the political situation. For now, while there have been some improvements in Latin America in regards to police excesses it appears that some countries, including Venezuela, still have a long way to go in making the police not part of the human rights problem.
