Crime Prevention and the Coproduction of Security: Outcomes of Citizen Participation at the Neighborhood Level in Neoliberal Chile

• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Alejandra Luneke,Maria Paz Trebilcock
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X18803681
• Subject Matter: Articles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 229, Vol. 46 No. 6, November 2019, 56–72

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X18803681

© 2018 Latin American Perspectives

56

Crime Prevention and the Coproduction of Security

Outcomes of Citizen Participation at the Neighborhood

Level in Neoliberal Chile

by

Maria Paz Trebilcock and Alejandra Luneke

Translated by

Margot Olavarria

A study of the implications of the coproduction-of-security policy implemented by

Chile’s postdictatorship governments shows that the appeal for citizen participation in

security provision has resulted in individual practices of home defense and protection

rather than the development of the associative programs promoted by the state. This has

come about in a context of extreme fear of crime and mistrust of the institutions in charge

of security. The fact that the discourse of security coproduction is interwoven with the

individuation and privatization that characterize Chilean society calls for a review of the

agenda of citizen participation in security issues.

Un estudio de las implicaciones de la política de coproducción de seguridad implementada

por los gobiernos postdictadura de Chile muestra que el llamado a la participación ciudadana

en provisión de seguridad ha resultado en prácticas individuales de defensa y protección del

hogar más que en el desarrollo de programas asociativos promovidos por el estado. Esto ha

ocurrido en un contexto de miedo extremo al crimen y desconfianza de las instituciones a

cargo de la seguridad. El hecho de que el discurso de la coproducción de seguridad esté

entrelazado con la individuación y la privatización que caracteriza a la sociedad chilena

requiere una revisión de la agenda de participación ciudadana en temas de seguridad.

Keywords: Security, Neoliberalism, Citizen participation, Individuation, Institutional

legitimacy, Chile

Under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, an intense political and economic

agenda was implemented that became the basis of the current neoliberal sys-

tem. Various areas were privatized under a free-market logic. While the dem-

ocratic governments since 1990 have employed numerous formulas to correct

the consequences of the economic model, the foundations of the system per-

sist to this day. In the process, public safety has also been subjected to neolib-

eral rationality.1 Since the mid-1990s and in the face of an increase in ordinary

crime, the center-left governments have initiated a series of reforms aimed at

Maria Paz Trebilcock is a sociologist and a researcher at the Centro de Desarrollo Urbano

Sustentable of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and an adjunct professor at the

Universidad Alberto Hurtado. Alejandra Luneke is a historian and a graduate student at the

CEDEUS and an expert on issues of public security. Both are funded by the Comisión Nacional de

Investigacion Científica y Tecnológica through the FONDAP No. 15110020 project. Margot

Olavarria is a translator living in New York City.

803681LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X18803681LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVESTrebilcock and Luneke / COPRODUCTION OF SECURITY IN CHILE

research-article2018

Trebilcock and Luneke / COPRODUCTION OF SECURITY IN CHILE 57

improving the criminal justice system. The most paradigmatic of these

changes has been the appeal for citizens to participate in the provision of

security at the local level and the adoption of an intense agenda of citizen

participation in crime prevention. The aim is for communities to play an

active role in providing security in their homes and neighborhoods, whether

individually or jointly. These initiatives have sought to increase control over

public conduct and spaces, promoting sensible decisions in everyday life

(Bell, 2006).

The incorporation of the citizenry into the provision of security has been

widely analyzed by critical criminology. Garland (2000; 2005) and O’Malley

and Hutchinson (2007), among others, have approached these policies in

terms of the neoliberal experiments of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan

in Britain and the United States, suggesting that crime prevention and com-

munity involvement are the neoliberal face of social control in contemporary

society. Sozzo (2000) has analyzed the configuration of the agenda of citizen

participation in crime prevention under the consolidation of neoliberal

democracies in Latin America. Less studied in this literature is how this call

to citizens has been articulated in contexts characterized by the weakening of

social ties, high levels of mistrust of institutions, and low levels of involve-

ment of subjects and families in community activities. What has the policy of

coproduction of security involved during the past two decades in Chile?

What are its achievements in neighborhoods in which association and social

ties are challenged by both mistrust of institutions and interpersonal distrust?

What types of citizen responses does this produce? This article seeks to

answer these questions and thus contribute to the critical debate about these

social control strategies in neoliberal regimes. It develops the hypothesis that

posttransitional governments’ appeal for the coproduction of security has an

associative basis that may not fit with a society that is deficient in participa-

tion and trust in the context of the individuation that characterizes neoliberal

society. The research was carried out in the municipality of Cerrillos in Greater

Santiago, a community that has promoted various schemes for citizen par-

ticipation aimed at increasing the involvement of subjects and families in

neighborhood security provision. Qualitative research was conducted in var-

ious neighborhoods of Cerrillos with 15 focus groups consisting of men and

women between the ages of 18 and 65. The focus groups met between

September 7 and October 15 of 2015. The audio files were transcribed and

analyzed using NVIVO 11 software. This information was complemented by

secondary data from the Socioeconomic Characterization Survey of 2013 and

the National Citizen Security Survey of 2015 and information on security

from community and national documents.

What follows is, first, a brief description of Cerrillos and an account of the

initiatives resulting from this appeal for community participation in the context

of extreme mistrust of crime control institutions. In the following section we

analyze the achievements of this agenda given a weak social fabric and the

privatization of all spheres of daily life. In conclusion we discuss the political

and social challenges raised by the appeal for citizen participation in the field

of security in Chile.