Community policing in Honduras: local impacts of a national programme

Abstract

Among the regions of Latin America, the northern triangle of Central America – comprising the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras – is at once the most promising and inhospitable places for community policing. The complete overhauls of these three countries’ security system with the peace accords in the 1990s opened up an unprecedented opportunity to re-structure and re-think the idea of citizen security. Each country had a revamped and civilianised police force supported by international training and a set of accountability agencies. Guatemala, for example, formed a National Human Rights Office, a police Human Rights Office, a Professional Responsibility Office to investigate charges of abuse, and a Disciplinary Regime Section. These countries also underwent thorough judicial reforms, such as by expanding courts and preventive measures geared toward youth at risk. Combined with strong local identities, particularly among indigenous communities in Guatemala, such conditions appeared to give community policing a strong basis for success.