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

By: zzzzz

zzzzz — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 22:55:00 +0000

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!

By: SDPUS

SDPUS — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 20:47:00 +0000

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?

By: zzzzz

zzzzz — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 17:26:00 +0000

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….

By: Yeims

Yeims — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 21:07:00 +0000

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.

By: Ken Morris

Ken Morris — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 20:53:00 +0000

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.

By: SDPUS

SDPUS — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 18:41:00 +0000

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.

By: SDPUS

SDPUS — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 18:34:00 +0000

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/