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Costa Rica investing in new police stations, prevention strategies in attempt to quell violence

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By Ximena Moretti for Dialogo, additional editing and context by ICR News staff

September 7th, 2015 (Dialogo) Costa Rica’s Ministry of Public Security is building a new police compound for 195 officers who will work in a program to prevent violence and promote social inclusion as part of a national initiative against rising violent crime.

“The fundamental goal of having new police command stations and police officers is to try to reduce the crime rate among at-risk youth in areas under the project’s influence, to try to prevent crime, and to decrease violent criminal activities, such as drug use, theft, smuggling of illegal medications, and human trafficking,” Vice Minister of Security Bernardita Marín Salazar told Diálogo .

To “decrease the crime rate and increase the residents’ perception of security,” the compound will be equipped with 165 male and 30 female officers who will intensively promote crime prevention. The first of 11 planned compounds, it will be built in Liberia with an investment of about $2 million; it will cover more than 1,400 square meters, with detention cells, green areas, parking, office space, and a kitchen.

The other 10 police stations will be built in the areas of Alajuela and Palmares in the province of Alajuela; Carrandí in Limón; Puntarenas, Esparza, and Parrita in Puntarenas; Guararí and Sarapiquí in Heredia; Pérez Zeledón in San José; and Santa Cruz in Guanacaste. They’re being funded by a $132 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to support Costa Rica’s strategy to prevent crime and violence.

Prevention and enforcement

“The new police corps in the new units have more training in prevention and a higher level of education,” said Daniel Matúl Romero, a security analyst at the University of Costa Rica.

Vice Minister Marín elaborated on their training. “Our police have a program aimed specifically at preventing drug abuse, and there is an excellent interrelationship among Public Security, the Drug Institute, the Ministry of Peace, and the Ministry of Public Education to jointly and comprehensively address the the drug problem among our youth as effectively as possible.”

Criminal groups sometimes turn young people into drug addicts and force them to sell narcotics, according to the country’s Judicial Investigation Department (OIJ, for its Spanish acronym). However, Costa Rican gangs typically sell drugs locally and don’t engage in international trafficking.

While the anti-crime strategy focuses on prevention, it does not preclude enforcement operations by police.

“There are situations where reactions are required in the more complicated zones, where enforcement measures are actually needed.” Matú explained.

Security plan

The new facilities will help security forces implement their broad security strategy initiative, known as Plan Cuadrante, which is part of the Integrated System for Strategic Police Improvements (SIMEP) that was also launched in December 2012. SIMEP is based on a model adopted by New York City in 1995, which led to a substantial reduction of crime in that city.

Under this plan, police department assigns officers to specific quadrants to work with the community to prevent crime and conduct investigations. Police also use the R2Police technological tool, which collects statistics and drafts maps of crimes and unsafe areas in many communities; and finally, Plan Cuadrante calls for police to be transparent in their actions and accountable to the community.

“Plan Cuadrante will lead to valuable, close relationships between the police force and citizens,” Vice Minister Marín said. “Officers will know the exact crime situation in their communities and will be able to prevent crimes and take action immediately. This is a powerful strategy against crime.”

The plan will help police combat organized crime groups who recruit young people to be small-time drug dealers, according to the report “Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime Threats in Costa Rica,” published by the country’s Judicial Investigation Department (OIJ).

Police fighting a surge in violence

Citing “more than 300 killings related to organized crime and drug trafficking in the last year” violence in Costa Rica is headed to a “point of no return,” Costa Rica’s chief prosecutor, Attorney General Jorge Chavarria warned late last month.

“Decisions need to be made, the country is headed down a path of violence that has no return, we are a violent country,” Chavarria said.

Data released last month by Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ) show that the number of homicides recorded in the first half of this year grew an alarming 50 percent compared to the first half of 2014.

The OIJ recorded 269 homicides between January and June this year, compared to the 179 recorded during the same period in 2014.  That figure is a new record for the country.

Using data for the past 12 months – from June 2014 to June of this year – Costa Rica’s homicide rate now stands at 12.4 per 100,000 inhabitants.  The World Health Organization (WHO) describes a homicide rate of 10 per 100,000 inhabitants or greater as an “epidemic.”

The most violent month so far this year was March, with 51 murders in total.

 

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  • SDPUS

    Effective policing strategies are what is needed. This article posted in another publication has a video attached. This video is not indicative of effective policing. The Fuerza Publica in the video are stationed at this point for a very reason, but yet they stood and only watched this tourist and his family taking a beating by an angry mob of fisherman. Effective policing begins with effective leadership: http://www.elmundo.cr/costarica/turistas-fueron-atacados-por-manifestantes-y-la-policia-no-hizo-nada-para-protegerlos/

  • SDPUS

    And these same Fueza Publica are renown for their surprise checkpoints and repeatedly giving tourists passing through difficult times. Something must change, good people can not continue to be victims in this supposed process of enhancing security.

    • zzzzz

      Maybe i’m mistaken but my feeling was that all these roadblocks aren’t targeting tourist at all. There could be an element I do suppose as a publicity measure to some extent and the occasional bribe fishing maybe but otherwise i don’t see it.
      I actually find the cops here some of the friendliest, most polite, least assholey i’ve ever had the privilege to be hassled by.
      I guess for some though, it has been a nightmare but in general, they ‘aight’
      I would like to say that community, “neighborhood” cops, bicycle cops, foot patrols et al. are all time tested and proven techniques. Costa Rica is adopting tried and true

      methods practiced in other civilized societies. Not breaking new ground here….

      • SDPUS

        I guess I just have a hard time equating friendly with effective. Clearly the crime rates are elevating. Rarely will you see a tourist passed through a checkpoint, but you will see taxi’s and private transfer vans get waived right through. How effective of a methodology can that be?

        • zzzzz

          from what i’ve seen, the vast majority of control checks are the following.
          The old randomly check any vehicle, trucks, jeeps and the like. That’s a percentage game.
          There’s the ol’ beat up probably needs an inspection stop and they kind of give these guys some slack too because they are poor but they do like to check them out.
          There’s the occasional road block check everyone too.
          Then there’s the cars with a bunch of young party dudes. I have seen more of those than any other type. You know, shirtless guys with baseball caps emptying their pockets on the hood of their car and have that universally understood bummed out look?
          But here, i don’t constantly get ticketed for BS like my wheels were not locked for three seconds at a stop sign or going 40 in a 30 zone and they don’t yell at me from their car’s megaphone to go backwards on my knees with my hands on my head and I am happy about that.
          That’s my take but i sense you feel like you are being unfairly targeted or stopped an unusual amount as a non Tico?
          Bare in mind that when you are the one being stopped, well that’s a 100% of you and the ones not getting stopped is a very large percentage of “them”. It’s really the amount of times you are getting stopped that matters, so i am curious.
          I usually get waved through and me i always feel like i look like “that guy” the Jeffrey Dahmer type….as i painfully pass by in what seems like super slo-mo slowing down to pull over, thinking ok heeeere we gooo, but they give me that impatient no no not you, keep going dude. let’s go let’s go let’s go!

  • Ken Morris

    It’s rare for any policing initiatives to effectively prevent crime. In part this is just the nature of the policing beast. They are the enforcers who show up after the fact to make the arrests, not social workers. In part the problem is labeling. It’s nice to target at-risk youth and intervene before they turn to crime, but the problem is that by targeting them you also label them as likely future criminals. Sometimes the label is more powerful than the intervention strategies. In large part, though, the problem is that effective crime prevention strategies have very little to do with policing. Economic improvements are far more effective, for example, than all the cops (or social workers) you can summon, and frankly good neighborhood design probably plays a larger role than policing.

    With good luck, these policing initiatives will be the exception and succeed. However, I have to wonder if the strategies have any basis in tested fact. If the D.A.R.E. program is any model for discouraging drug use among at-risk youth, we know from subsequent evaluation research that it was an utter failure and may have even encouraged drug use. And if New York City in 1995 is the model, God help us. We know for example that crime rates fell in most major US cities at the same time they fell in NYC, even though the other cities had very different policing strategies.

    I hope these people have sounder reasons to believe that borrowing more money and throwing it at more police will be effective than this article tells us.

    Meanwhile, there is the problem that the organized crime that is the cause of the increase in murders isn’t really affected by local policing. Getting at organized crime requires more sophisticated investigations than those likely to be engaged in by friendly beat cops kicking around soccer balls with at-risk youth.

    I hope these initiatives work, but fear they’e mainly a misuse of more borrowed money.

  • Yeims

    I think this is more motivated by the violence that is expected when the economy here goes south. In a photo I recently saw of a police headquarters being built down around Limón, I believe it was, I was very surprised to see the infrastructure which was well underway and I was very surprised to see the rebars spaced at about 2.5 inches all throughout, which will make the building totally impenetrable.

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